Celebrating Goodbyes: How 3 Groups Flew the Nest

Flying the nest

It’s unusual for businesses to celebrate when their clients leave. But at The Social Change Nest, we don’t see it as a bad thing when the grassroots groups we support no longer need our services. 

It’s all in the title: The Social Change Nest exists to provide the financial and operational infrastructure for groups for as little or as long as they need. That might be until a campaign has achieved its goal, a pilot project has been tested, or a group decides to incorporate and become a charity. In the team, we call this flying the nest.

Nest support for grassroots groups

We know that grassroots groups and social movements have an outsized impact for the funding they receive, and the best way to make real change on the issues that matter most is to break down the barriers that too often get in their way. 

From our experience of working with groups and movements, those barriers mostly center around finance and admin. That’s why we offer a range of support for groups and movements at The Social Change Nest, including fiscal hosting, grant management, process hosting, payroll and capacity-building support. 

We help groups to access grants, manage their money, develop their organisational strategies and get access to a community of like minded changemakers. We support groups who have decided that for now, incorporating isn’t for them, and they don’t need to become a legally-registered entity such as a charity or a business. 

Sometimes after a period of time of working together, a group achieves their aims, shifts their focus, or grows their infrastructure to a point where they are ready to go at it alone. And that’s something to be celebrated.

3 groups that are flying the nest

Here are some of our groups that have ‘flown the nest’ recently…

Parents For Future Scotland: Environmental Campaigning

Parents for Future Scotland work with parents and schools to help children find their voice on climate issues. They joined us in early 2023 for fiscal hosting support, and since then have fundraised over £42k, which they’ve managed via their Open Collective page. They’ve partnered with over 40 schools in Scotland, including creating education packs on air pollution for school pupils, as part of their Clean Air Campaign. This April, they also campaigned at Glasgow City Chambers to issue fines from the city’s new low emission zone to fund safer, healthier and less polluting journeys to school. They recently decided the time was right for them to become a charity and we can’t wait to see what they do next.

Art & The Arctic: Art for Social Change

Art & The Arctic came to The Social Change Nest with a focus in mind – an exhibition at The Royal Geographical Society – and they did it! They used our fiscal hosting service to secure a grant to allow them to put on the exhibition, that explored Inuit culture and sustainability and attracted over 850 people. Having now spent the grant and finished the exhibition, the group is focusing on other projects.

Climate Action: Piloting a new project

A climate group we’ve worked with over the last 2 years recently closed down their operations after the project they were piloting came to an end. The flexibility offered at The Social Change Nest means that the group was able to pilot and test out a new idea, without the admin heavy process of setting up and closing a legal entity. 

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Wherever a group is in its journey, we’re proud to be able to offer a broad range of support. If you’re part of a grassroots group or social movement and are interested in learning more about our services, get in touch.