Notts County Foundation - Unlocking Innovation programme
In July 2024, Executive Education delivered a one-day programme for Notts County Foundation's Board of Trustees. It used the Ingenuity Process to help the Board explore their own unique challenges and find solutions which would help them move forwards and continue achieving their charitable endeavours.
Notts County Foundation are the official charity of Notts County Football Club with a passion to use the power of sport to transform the lives of people in Nottingham and Nottinghamshire. They serve the local community, providing high quality, accessible and life-changing development opportunities that change people’s health, confidence, and skills, increase positive behaviours, and bring enjoyment to the people they work with.
The training
Key to the training was the use of the Ingenuity Process. This was developed by Nottingham University Business School and is backed up by years of industry practice and academic rigour. The process can be run for small and large teams, in person and online. It creates an opportunity to connect teams, including executive boards in the UK and internationally, to address business challenges.
The Notts County Foundation Board of Trustees used the Ingenuity Process as a platform for creative problem solving. This helped the Board to identify areas where the charity should “Stick or Twist” in respect to decision-making and risk management.
The programme with Notts County Foundation was delivered by a team from Nottingham University Business School's Haydn Green Institute for Innovation and Entrepreneurship. Professor Simon Mosey and Dr Jose Gonzalez Lopez brought a great deal of practitioner and academic experience which facilitated the Board's learning.
Reflections
Reflecting on the programme, Professor Simon Mosey said:
Working with the foundation was a real pleasure. Their passion for delivering social impact was infectious and they came up with a record breaking number of ideas to help refine their social purpose and build the leadership capability of the organisation. We can’t wait to see how these ideas develop as they share them more widely with their stakeholders across Nottinghamshire.
When asked about which parts of the programme the group had found most impactful, Dianne Jackson, Chair of the Notts County Foundation, said:
Everyone was impressed with the online tool which enabled exceptionally good creative thinking and the generation of many ideas. The most impactful part of the day was taking these ideas to the next level resulting in an action plan which will guide us going forward.
Measuring the impact
Three months after delivering the programme, Executive Education caught up with Notts County Foundation's Chief Financial Officer, Sam Crawford, to evaluate the programme's impact.
How has the programme helped with the organisation’s strategy moving forward?
The programme helped us dedicate some rare protected time to a really deep strategic analysis exercise. The process helped us to gain a much clearer top level understanding of what our purpose is and indeed should be as a charity. We were able to scrutinise how we feel we are perceived by key stakeholders and, moreover, how we feel we want to be perceived by key stakeholders. This process has given us a much clearer position of our strategic baseline and a clearer understanding of our position in the local market place. We intend to use this clarity as the foundational building blocks on which we will build our new three year strategy.
Has the training helped develop new solutions to the challenges facing the Foundation?
We really enjoyed the fact that the facilitators encouraged us to adopt a ‘no idea is a stupid idea’ mentality and this really helped us to think outside of the box when beginning to think about possible solutions to issues that we articulated. We will continue to adopt this mentality when deciphering how to respond to challenges.
What further collaborations are you now pursuing following the training?
The process helped us gain clarity on where we should be placing our efforts when it comes to the forming of partnerships and collaborations and enabled us to adopt an effective prioritisation process which we will apply when deciding upon different prospective collaborations. In essence, our mantra going forwards will be quality over quantity.
Following up with Notts County Foundation has allowed the Executive Education team to gain insights into the progress made by the Board since the training, ensuring their development journey continues. This dialogue has emphasised the importance of ongoing communication with organisations and the value that it has for supporting long-term growth and success.
To find out more about developing a custom programme with Executive Education, please visit our webpage or contact the team:
