We are taking part in the Aviva Community Fund Crowdfunding Accelerator programme.

We have started a crowdfunding project to develop a leadership programme for TBF alumni, and we would love for you to support our idea and help bring it to life.

Why are we doing this
14% of our alumni are in senior roles. This is good but we can do better. The challenge is often talked about as the ‘squeezed middle’, where minority talent needs greater support in making it across middle management positions into senior leadership. There are a number of reasons as to why this is and last year, we asked our alumni to help us understand what they felt were their barriers to progression. They said:

“I’m still not being offered exec roles, even after gaining substantial experience within the company I’m currently employed.”

“I’ve had multiple experiences of not being given similar tasks to peers and I feel like I’m not seen as capable by senior staff.”

“I felt that colleagues were getting recognised and promoted ahead of me because they knew the system and how to promote themselves whereas my way of thinking was that if I work hard it will get recognised which was not always the case.”

The solution
This year, we did a survey asking our alumni to let us know what they needed from us to help them with career progression in the PR industry. An overwhelming 71% said access to leadership training.

Through this crowd funding initiative, our programme will focus on empowering our alumni, to build their confidence and to support them with becoming powerful negotiators. Through a series of interactive sessions, over the duration of the programme, we will help our alumni to achieve their full career potential.

How can the TBF network help us bring this idea to life?
You can either share our project page with your network or donate using this link. We have posted about this on all of our social media channels, so if you are on LinkedIn, Instagram, Twitter or Facebook, please share our posts.

The timeline
We have a total of 50 days to raise our project target (47 days from today).

Project page: Taylor Bennett Foundation PR Pros - RISE: https://www.avivacommunityfund.co.uk/tbf-pr-pros-rise

Any support at any level will be hugely appreciated.

Thank you.