New tie-up to boost leadership

A new partnership to help social change leaders develop the key skills they need to “thrive in a post-covid world” has been announced.

Edinburgh-based Emerald Works, part of the Emerald Group, and the Social Enterprise Academy, also located in the capital, have inked a three-year tie-up. It will see Social Enterprise Academy learners enjoy free access to Emerald Works’ Mind Tools digital toolkit of more than 2,000 curated resources covering topics in leadership and strategy, managing people and teams, and personal effectiveness.

These how-to guides, selfassessments, videos, articles, and top tips will also be integrated with the academy’s new online learning platform, to help them put their learning into practice alongside their online or in-the-room academy learning programme.

Duringthecovid-19response and recovery period, third sector intermediary groups and their members across Scotland will also have free access to the toolkit – the partnership will bring “great value to the social economy, as both organisations have a shared goal to improving leadership practice amongst its learners and clients to achieve real impact”.

Emerald Works launched in January, bringing together three learning organisations – Goodpractice, Towards Maturity and Mind Tools – to help individuals and organisations around the world realise their full potential.

Emerald Works chief executive John Yates said the partnership “can deliver real impact”.

Social Enterprise Academy boss Neil Mclean said: “Throughout the Covid-19 response period, we need to be building windmills as well as shelters. That’s exactly what we’re doing through this partnership… ensuring that social changemakers have access to quality learning and development that will help them develop the skills they need for this new reality.”