By: Clare Morley, CEO, Rise.

Reflecting on the work we have done to bring our new brand, Rise, to fruition, I wanted to note down some of the key elements of our journey to truly understand our purpose and reach our brand identity. This is primarily so that, on those “bad days at the office” that we all will have, regardless of our passion for our work, the team can come back to this time and remember what it’s all about - why the organisation is here and what we are trying to achieve. I hope that this ability to remember will bring some sense of perspective to help with those short-term challenges that seem so all-consuming when we are in them.

Rise is described as an Active Partnership, one of a network of such Active Partnerships across England. I came into the role as the charity’s CEO nine months ago having spent the last 13 years of my life in Manchester, first as a commercial lawyer and latterly working within the sport, physical activity and public health sector. However, I was raised in the north east and it felt like the right time to bring my family back here. The opportunity to bring together Tyne & Wear Sport and Northumberland Sport, the two legacy Active Partnerships in our region, was exciting, and the journey we have been on together to date has been fast paced and progressive.

For anyone who knows me, they’ll understand how much I like to fall back on the concept of “why” when it comes to considering the reason that organisations exist, and ultimately the reason behind how some succeed and others don’t. Simon Sinek’s TEDx talk on how great leaders inspire action by starting with “why” is something that I frequently revisit - such a simplistic approach and yet something that I’m sure many of us don’t spend enough time contemplating.

Coming into the Active Partnership last October was a great opportunity for me and the team to consider our “why”. As a charity, why are we here? In Simon Sinek’s words, what’s our purpose, what’s our cause, what’s our belief? Why does our organisation exist? Why do we get out of bed in the morning? And why should anyone care?

That process led to a lot of self-examination in terms of what the organisation, in its two legacy formats, had focussed on historically, and what is now needed in our region to shift the dial on physical inactivity. That’s not to say that what we had been working on in the past wasn’t important or relevant, but that, looking through a different lens, considering our charitable status and being cognisant of funding streams – were we truly working in the most effective way to support addressing physical inactivity (that’s people doing less than 30 minutes per week of moderate to vigorous intensity exercise) across our region? Or was there more we could do, new avenues to explore, that could drive a greater change? Those questions have come to the fore even more since the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic.

With some great support from Matt and Darren at Gardiner Richardson, the whole team explored our raison d’être in order to develop a clear, simple message about why we are here, before getting into the detail of the “how” and the “what” - the two other elements of Sinek’s Golden Circle.

From these discussions, the passion of our people was clear and the desire to make a difference to people’s lives in our region stood out. We want to shout from the rooftops about how physical activity could make a difference across a whole range of agendas. How by thinking differently about the issues that our partners are trying to solve, by considering how movement and activity fits into their equations, lives across our region can be changed for the better.

We are clear that our “why” doesn’t just reach into the traditional health and wellbeing agenda, but into sectors such as education, employability, crime and disorder, transport, planning and economic growth. Articulating our “why” to non-traditional sectors (a phrase that I dislike but am yet to come up with a better one – answers on a postcard please) is not necessarily an easy task, but some of the greatest gains will be made if we are able to achieve this, and if we want to shift the dial on physical inactivity in our region, and drive population-level change, then we have to be driving physical activity across such agendas.

So not only have we created a brand that we feel reflects our “why”, but through this process, we have also developed a clear purpose, vision and mission, so that our “how” and “what” are clearly relatable to our “why”. Our brand, Rise, is the visual identity of what we stand for now and going forward.

“Why?”

Our purpose is straightforward - we are here to help our partners unlock the power of physical activity to improve more lives across Northumberland and Tyne & Wear. Physical activity does way more than raise your heart rate; it is proven to have a positive impact on physical and mental health, educational attainment, employability, social cohesion and a whole lot more. We are here to enable our partners to harness physical activity, making it work hard towards achieving the life changing results they’re looking for across a range of projects.

“What?”

Our vision is clear - we want to create a world where more people enjoy the benefits of an active lifestyle. Where everyone from Berwick to Sunderland has equal opportunity to be active in their own way – particularly those who need it most – boosting health and happiness.

“How?”

Our mission is unifying - we are here to enable our system partners to see things differently, work smarter, and maximise their results. We will ensure that physical activity is part of a successful solution, playing its part in delivering a range of outcomes. We take a whole systems approach and push for change at a population level. We will share best practice, provide advice, guidance and support, and connect like-minded allies to help them make the most of their opportunities.

Rise is a verbal and visual manifestation of the above purpose, vision and mission. But what about our cultural values? Not long after the two legacy active partnerships had come together in January 2020, we shared a cold but bright day out together at the Rising Sun Country Park. One of the areas we focussed on that day was distilling our values. If, as Peter Drucker states, “culture eats strategy for breakfast”, then without wanting to sound trite, we recognised that we needed our values to be liveable statements of intent about how we want to work together, both internally as a team and externally with our partners.

So, we’ve agreed that at Rise, we will:

• Catalyse change. We believe that change is possible and we’re ready to lead the exploration.

• Positively disrupt. To challenge the norm and cause radical change through innovation.

• Collaborate. Together we are greater than the sum of our parts.

Our values are all actions, now we need to action them.

We hope that through Rise, you see the connectivity with your work when you consider your “why” and we would love to talk with you about it. Please do connect with us directly via our website, email, or join the conversation across our social networks on - Twitter, Linked In, or Facebook.