history

The Shaftesbury Partnership was founded by Nat Wei in 2006, taking as inspiration the work and legacy of the great 19th Century Social Reformer, the 7th Earl of Shaftesbury. The proposition was simple – the only way to have lasting social impact is to build large organisations (social ventures) which understand the issues at system level and design their products, services and programmes accordingly. During his lifetime the Earl of Shaftesbury set up 60 organisations from the Ragged Schools to the Church Pastoral Aid Society. Although spanning a range of sectors from mental health, from child poverty to education to the work of the church, the unifying thread was his burning desire to address poverty, inequality and social exclusion. These are the values of The Shaftesbury Partnership today, and our goal is to establish a series of social ventures that will have lasting impact at scale.

In the following two years these objectives were subsumed into Nat’s work at ARK (Absolute Return for Kids) but in 2008 the organisation was strengthened by the addition of Patrick Shine and Andrew Tanswell as additional partners and started to operate as an independent business. Our first commissions were to design and develop a rite-of-passage programme which became the National Citizen Service policy of the Conservative Party; and a programme to support social action ministries of churches in deprived areas. In each case the initial work led to the creation of charities – The Challenge, and FranchisingWorks helps unemployed people into sustainable self-employment through engagement with the commercial franchising sector, and Nurse First recruits trainsand supports community health practitioners to set up innovative health projects in their community. The Shaftesbury Partnership was further strengthened in this period when Chris Mould joined as partner.

In 2010 Nat was invited to work with the Conservative Party in developing the “Big Society” policies this work was in a personal capacity and Shaftesbury Partnership is not affiliated to any political party. Following the election of the coalition he was appointed government advisor on Big Society was also made a member of the House of Lords, taking the title Lord Wei of Shoreditch. In doing so he surrendered his economic and governance interests in Shaftesbury Partnership.

Since then the business has continued to grow: in addition to managing FranchisingWorks and Nurse First, we continue to develop new ventures and our current work includes employment opportunities for prisoners and ex-offenders, new ways to support people with complex and multiple needs, and developing long term partnerships with other social reformers to help them scale up their impact.

Our Impact

In the last three years Shaftesbury Partnership and its ventures have had a transformative effect in the sector. The Challenge has become one of the fastest growing charities in recent history: since incorporating in March 2009 it has grown to have an income of over £ 5mn in 2011, employing over 60 staff and working with over 3,000 young people this summer. It continues to be the largest provider to the government’s National Citizen Service. The Act Network has supported the establishment of over 20 foodbanks in London and successfully piloted the Mission Year programme with 25 people spending a year in association with 10 churches in inner-city London. Franchising Works has engaged with over 60 franchising businesses and created a ground breaking investment structure which has been highlighted as a “catalytic investment to stimulate the social investment market”.

Beyond the work of individual ventures we have seen the landscape for the sector alter. Incoming government policy was influenced, primarily through the work of Nat Wei, but also by demonstrating what is possible through social ventures such as The Challenge. We have demonstrated it is possible to scale rapidly, and to work closely with the commercial sector. And perhaps most importantly we have presented a deeply appealing career option for some of the most talented people in the country today.