Leading By Example 3: The Radical Potential of OnBoard
a group of young people listening to another young person speaking
In part 3 of our leading by example leadership blog series, we explore the radical potential of leadership programmes like onboard.
For the final blog in this series, I wanted to take a bit of time to reflect on my own journey into leadership and why I believe in the radical potential of programmes like OnBoard.
From having gone from being a participant in Rising’s Whose Culture programme and working freelance on Rising’s blog to being part of and co-developing Rising’s flagship young trustee programme, OnBoard, with Kamina Walton (Rising’s founder and then director) - I felt like I was quickly catapulted into the land of governance - and I’m so glad I was.
OnBoard grew out of our frustrations at the sector’s inability to join in our rally cry about young people being leaders now. Developing the programme was a way that we could support and facilitate the mindful inclusion of young people in board spaces and address the concerns we heard coming from the sector, while platforming some of the brilliant creative minds in our community.
Through researching and developing the programme back in 2017/18, we got to see first-hand, the spectrum of the sector’s willing. OnBoard was created to directly address some of the common barriers that both young people and organisations were facing, but it was also created to serve another purpose; to offer a framework for changing the status quo. In many ways, OnBoard was, and still is, a love letter to the sector and our community.
With the cost of living crisis, political and ecological uncertainty and the slow and steady massacring of arts and cultural funding (to name a few), we desperately need new models of leadership. We need a cultural sector that firmly embeds itself in the needs of the hardest hit communities. We need bold, brave and radical cultural organisationals that actively and rigorously interrogate their civic duty and responsibility to society. In order to do that properly, we don’t just need new leaders - who are just different faces upholding the same structures - we need new models of leadership. Leadership models that firmly centre creativity in the fight for social change, not just by putting out statements, or loud, sexy product(ion)s, but by rethinking how they can better connect with and stay close to communities, build movements, shift conversations and share power. OnBoard is powerful to me, because over the past 5 years, we’ve been silently building a movement of diverse, engaged young trustees who are pushing back against the status quo.
How?
As part of the programme, we directly consult with organisations about their different needs and then recruit two young trustees from our community to be part of their board. We support those young people and their respective organisations as part of a cohort to rethink traditional governance by holding space for fears and concerns, connecting the young trustees with generous facilitators and offering comprehensive and regularly updated training. We deliver training in traditional board skills but, its important to emphasise that it’s provided through a radical lens that equips them with the tools to question, challenge and set provocations to their organisations about how to meaningfully do things differently. What sets OnBoard apart from other young trustee development programmes is that we’re not here to support young people to assimilate into oppressive board cultures that we believe don’t work, we are here to support them to create the conditions to make radical, strategic, organisational change real.
Rising's challenge isn’t just about getting organisations to join OnBoard, it's also about convincing brilliant young people that this is worth their time when the odds are stacked against them. It’s also about about inspiring those organisations who are already on board to dig deeper and take more of a leap. Yes, to some boards, OnBoard may feel like a nice, novel thing to do - something to show funders to demonstrate they're trying something different, but OnBoard is only just the beginning of the journey. OnBoard touches on a larger question of power. It touches on privilege and how decisions are made. It challenges traditional ideas of leadership while giving young people real opportunities to lead. The young leaders that are part of OnBoard are artists, producers and creative thinkers who are not just creating beautiful art, but part of creating beautiful systems. It’s time to be bold and actively use programmes like OnBoard as a catalyst for deeper change.
The organisations that get it, get it and those who don’t, don’t.
Rising have a range of leadership consultancy offers available to our partners, whether it's to bring young trustees on to your board, or you're looking for a critical friend and advice, get in touch with Jess to find out more.