We’re excited to announce a next step of our Impact Partnership with Sport for Good leaders, Common Goal; made possible by the Mansour Group, we are launching Right to Dream Purpose Entrepreneurships.
Purpose Entrepreneurships is an innovative incubation programme designed to support the development of a social impact project or business idea with purpose at its core.
A key pillar of our partnership together is to help one another be the best versions of ourselves possible, and that goes beyond us as organisations; it applies to our people too.
The Purpose Entrepreneurships programme, led by Khalida Popal, offers 5 entrepreneurships every two years. Each entrepreneurship is a two-year incubator journey, receiving structured support to develop and elevate their idea, which is also supported by a £20k development grant. Purpose Entrepreneurships are currently open to Right to Dream employees, academy alumni, FC Nordsjaelland pro-players, and all Common Goal members, with an aim to expand towards brand partners in the future.
The Purpose Entrepreneurship is a fantastic opportunity that brings a transformative learning and growth journey to each social entrepreneur, harnessing the potential of each participant and their idea through an incubation environment that guarantees valuable support and excitement during the development of you as a leader and your idea towards a launch-ready concept.
“For us, it’s not just about winning on the pitch or winning for yourself, it’s about using your success to give-back to the world around you and the communities that raised you. It’s about using success to create a positive legacy in society. But most importantly, it is about expecting to invest in building platforms for others to launch their own dreams. This is where we find our fulfilment. And this is why we have created Purpose Entrepreneurships; to help our own people, both budding and established entrepreneurs, harness their own potential and that of their idea, through an incubation environment towards making it a reality for this world”,
says Khalida.
Right to Dream’s Purpose department, led by former Premier League Head of Learning and Development, Simone Lewis, is a people development platform creating a home for people, tools and environments that to support everyone within the Right to Dream family discover the best version of themselves. The three elements that form the Purpose Department are; The Purpose Curriculum, Purpose Labs and Purpose Project Platform.
“We are excited to celebrate with our staff, players, and partners at Common Goal the successful launch of Purpose Entrepreneurships. We have been delighted at both the quality and number of individual purpose-driven ideas and applications received, and at the engagement and joy across the whole organisation in getting behind this initiative and look forward to supporting the winners on their journey. We are proud to be leading the way with partnerships and initiatives such as this one, that form part of our portfolio of work across purpose”,
says Simone.
The application window for the first 5 Purpose Entrepreneurships recently concluded, with 22 applications received. Right to Dream employees, academy alumni, FCN pro-players, as well as all Common Goal employees and also members were then tasked to vote on each of the 20 applications against 3 criteria: Innovation of the idea, Impact potential and How realistic it is to launch, forming 50% of the final rating.
The remaining 50% rating comes through an eight-person jury, formed by a representative group of staff across Right to Dream, Common Goal as well as partner brands and allies, such as the Mansour Group, who together review the applications, voting’s and discuss to form a collective final vote.
The result, 5 winners, and also 5 runners-up, who will receive a lighter level of development support from the programme.
Please find a short introduction to our first 5 Purpose Entrepreneurship winners below:
LYCOFARM
• Newell Tse, a teacher at the Right to Dream Academy in Ghana
• A greenhouse vegetable farm that focuses on training unemployed youth in farming/vegetable production across rural communities in Ghana
Street Dreams
• Patrick Mtiliga, professional footballer in Denmark
• A football community designed to support socially disadvantaged youth to easily access healthy and active football environments
Know No Boundaries
• Isobel Dalton and Libby Copus-Brown, professional footballers and Common Goal members
• Know No Boundaries is designed to improve a growing lack of access and finance to football facilities
ParaPlay
• Andy Gowland, Right to Dream’s Group Head of Partnerships
• A football organisation that seeks to redefine the access to opportunities through football for the differently-abled through three areas
• A differently-abled coaching programme to raise the quality of coach development for differently-abled talent
• A unique sport and academic fused sport programme with national Paralympic, Higher Education and career pathways for differently-abled excellence,
• An aspiration to develop a unique Paralympic standard multi-sports facility centred around the provision of holistic development support for the differently abled, as well as their family, friends and carers
Nafas
• Karim Hosney, Head of Pastoral Care for the Right to Dream Academy in Egypt
• Founded in 2015, Nafas is designed to rehabilitate marginalised youth through sport that supports sustainable integration back into society
• Its core program is an amateur “Street Football league” that runs from January until July and has more than 320 young boys/men and 100 girls from different backgrounds; streets, shelters, and impoverished neighbourhoods
Watch this space for more news on the Purpose Entrepreneurships and more updates from our Impact Partnership with Common Goal.