Grace Dyke, former Flourish mentee turned mentor tells us more about Yellow Jigsaw: a PR social enterprise that empowers individuals, social enterprises and charities with the skills and knowledge they need to share their stories.
Yellow Jigsaw
Flourish supports women to create the change they see needed in communities. To date we’ve supported over 500 women changemakers and financially invested in over 40. Hear from Grace who we supported during Yellow Jigsaw’s start up phase and have partnered with ever since. Initially a mentee, now turned mentor she is leading change and supporting others to improve Media, Communications and PR training and opportunities, whilst helping organisations large and small to get their messaging right and impactful stories told.
When did you first come into contact with Flourish? Where were you at with your venture and how did they help you?
I came across the Flourish network at the start of Yellow Jigsaw’s journey- my business partner Kirsty and I were launching a gender equality campaign called “I’m Not John” to inspire women to believe they don’t have to be a man to be the boss – in light of the statistics that at the time highlighted that there are more FTSE chief executives called John, than there are women.
The campaign led to an introduction to Nickala, whose warmth, energy and goodwill gave us a flavour of what to expect by joining the army of women who, together, form the Flourish network.
The network first and foremost gave a sense of belonging to two new social entrepreneurs who had absolute belief in social enterprise as a way of changing the world – but felt slightly alone in this belief having come from the charity sector. This feeling of isolation wasn’t helped by attending many traditional business networking meetings as a way of drumming up clients – although valuable, the events simply didn’t ‘fit’ our ethos and most businesses didn’t understand our social mission.
Early on in our Flourish journey, I was assigned a mentor, Julie from the Little Red Pen Consultancy. The mentoring relationship was transformative and gave us encouragement, direction and practical advice to help formalise our business.
Where has your journey taken you? Tell us about the highs and lows of developing your social venture, other support you accessed?
Celebrating our fourth year in business is certainly a highlight: we’ve been really proud of develop an award winning social enterprise that employs the business’ two founders full time, and works with a host of freelancers to deliver solutions to clients.
The lows, no doubt, are the challenges that come with running a business: the administration that can get in the way of doing the ‘day job’ – from business development to invoicing and data management. Reminding ourselves of our social mission and what we originally set out to achieve has been crucial to taking these lows along with the highs- and surrounding ourselves with like-minded entrepreneurs in the Flourish network has helped us to do that.
What has been your proudest achievement so far?
We’ve been lucky enough to win a trio of accolades since setting out, but a stand out achievement for us was our #ImnotJohn campaign – a campaign we launched when Yellow Jigsaw was in its infancy. The campaign was inspired by the statistics reported by The Guardian in 2015, which found that there are more FTSE 100 chief executives called John than there are women. Myself and my business partner Kirsty were outraged by the stats – there are many reasons for this statistic, but we felt we could make a difference by delivering a campaign that promoted positive female role models from a wide range of backgrounds to challenge the image of a leader as white, middle class man – ‘you cannot be who you cannot see’, after all.
We decided to launch a campaign to showcase women who are leaders in their chosen career fields and prove that you don’t have to be ‘John’ to be the boss. We shared the stories of around 30 women in senior management positions alongside the #ImNotJohn hashtag and graphic, and it really took off. It was discussed at events from Knutsford to New York, and covered by national press. We received some really heartfelt messages from women who felt inspired by the stories shared, so we were really proud of transforming what happened to be a feeling of social injustice into a successful campaign.
We’re also proud of working with clients who have gone onto win awards for their media work – most recently, Unify Credit Union were recognised for their work with the media – to get an industry nod was a proud moment for us.
As supporters of the Social Enterprise movement what are you involved with to develop this or pay it forward (eg. become a Flourish mentor for the last few years, Big Heart Skills etc)
The social enterprise movement continues to gain momentum, and we’re keen to be involved and support our fellow social entrepreneurs to succeed.
As part of our Flourish membership, I take part in the annual mentorathon and have become a Flourish mentor to repay the invaluable support I gained from my Flourish mentor during my first year in business.
Kirsty and I also deliver PR and marketing skill sessions in partnership with Flourish so that the inspiring stories of impact that are created everyday within the network are shared. I am also a trustee of Salford CVS, and we often deliver pro bono skills sessions at sector events and conferences. We’re always available with a listening ear to sound out the PR challenges of our fellow social entrepreneurs. See some happy customers below!
Any top tips to share with other social enterprise start ups? Things you wish you’d know?
My number one tip for starting out is to go out and speak to people in your sector. Understand what the key issues are that you can help to resolve and how you should charge for it, who the key influencers are that need to know that you exist, and how you can deliver something unique and valuable.
Joining a network like Flourish is a great start – it gives you the contacts, connections and support you can only dream of when starting out.
What’s next for you?
We’re looking forward to continue to partner with Flourish to co-host Lunch and Learn skills sessions for the network as well as collaborate on wider programmes. The next session, which will be held in March, will be a particularly exciting one, as we develop not only the PR skills of the Flourish network, but also their podcasting skills – register today to avoid disappointment!
We’re also really excited to not only continue our client consultancy work, but also our funded primary school literacy project that will see us turn the classroom into the newsroom and support disengaged children to become roving reporters. It’s a project we’ve had in the pipeline for a while, and we’re really excited to test and develop it this year supporting the changemakers and story tellers of the future.
See more from Yellow Jigsaw at www.yellowjigsaw.co.uk
