Dear Friends and partners,
As InHive CEO of the last six months, I wanted to express our gratitude and appreciation for your commitment and valued partnerships throughout 2022. This has not only been appreciated but continues to be integral in supporting the work we are all doing to help young people to achieve better life outcomes.
I look forward to us continuing to strengthen our relationships and work together in 2023, on the exciting innovative network models and practices that we know can make a difference to young people’s lives, resilience and well-being wherever they are based and come from.
I want to spotlight some of the wonderful achievements of 2022 which saw inHive not only amplify the narrative of the work we are all so committed to doing with impact, but providing the evidence that networks in todays world can really help young people access the support they need; social capital, employment opportunities and connections with like-minded communities and individuals to help them develop their career and life pathways. The fall out of the pandemic and current global economic downturn, means that now more than ever young people, who make up 50% of the global population really need support and real opportunities that provide them with a sense of hope that they can create better lives for themselves with confidence.
We believe better life outcomes for young people can be achieved through the power of connecting and relationship building using a network approach. The evidence of this can be seen in what we will continue to improve upon, deliver and elevate in 2023 as a specialist organisation that can create, support and sustain impactful connections for young people.
Our organisation is growing as we bring on board specialist skills and a broad spectrum of knowledge and insight through our incredible team. The potential and need for impactful and important work in 2023 is great, and InHive will continue to creatively innovate, lead, facilitate and support our incredible local partners to achieve social justice and equality for young people everywhere.
I would like to thank our funders whose invaluable support and collaborative partnerships have enabled so much of our programmatic work to be impactful. I would also like to thank Blackbaud for supporting our online Just Giving funding campaigns with generous donations that have allowed us to be creative and develop innovative initiatives. We look forward to continuing to work together in 2023.
I wish you all a very Happy New Year!
HIGHLIGHTS OF 2022
Research Publications
‘Positive Outlooks, Stronger Community Ties’
We were delighted to publish ‘The Impact of Alumni Network Programmes on Educators’ in August 2022 demonstrating evidentially how the power of Alumni networks can achieve positive impactful change and better life outcomes for youth. A unique survey of schools in Australia, Kenya, Pakistan, and the United Kingdom: the result of a two-year collaborative research project conducted in partnership with CARE Pakistan, Future First UK, Future First Kenya and Our School Australia. As the first international study of its kind, the report examines the impact of alumni network programmes on educators in secondary schools, with survey findings providing ground-breaking evidence about the impact that networks of alumni (former students) have on teacher attitudes, skills, capacities and civic engagement.
From a wide number of respondents, including 76 educators in 41 schools across the UK, Pakistan, Kenya and Australia, the report gives us key insights into how alumni networks not only provide educators with access to peer role models for their students, but how they can also help to inspire them to achieve greater things beyond their school years.
Convening networks serving youth
Our global platform, NEXUS continues to grow from strength to strength, demonstrating the need and desire for networks to connect, learn and share experience with one another. Currently we have more than 120 Nexus members with a further 30 organisations that want to join out platform, whose networks collectively reach over 1,000,000 individuals around the globe. Dozens of these network members have a special focus on engaging and serving youth, at the global, regional, and local levels. Our Nexus Charter has been revised and a newly established Steering Committee will take Nexus to the next level of really serving young people with the tools they need, the leadership skills they can develop and the connectivity they desire to galvanise momentum to achieve collective action.
Online Global event: ENACT!
We were delighted to host a Global event in May 2022. A first-of-its-kind ENACT! festival which engaged over 100 speakers from 30+ countries, reaching over 1,200 people from over 100 countries that work with communities or networks around the globe. Many of these were youth-oriented networks as well, such as Young UN, Restless Development, Reach for Change, and the International Youth Foundation, to name a few. inHive itself also actively participates in and collaborates with many global youth-focused networks, such as the Tamarack Institute’s Youth Futures, Global Shapers, Catalyst 2030, the Possibilists, HundrED, IREX, and many other networks that serve youth.
Networks learning journey
Through initiatives such as the Networks Learning Journey, we also have a small, growing network of philanthropic organizations supporting youth, who not only have their own networks serving youth but also embrace a networks-oriented approach and mindset in their work. Some of these include the Jacobs Foundation, the IKEA Foundation, Imaginable Futures, the Mastercard Foundation, and , with a goal was to shift mindsets and perspectives and spark new investments in networks across the globe. We used the learnings and discourse shared during sessions to create a Networks Playbook, a free resource for network practitioners and funders.
Ignite Philanthropy Network for Beneficiaries
Ignite Philanthropy funds grassroots networks across the globe fighting child sexual violence. They wanted to create a network for their first 30 beneficiaries to help share best practice, stories of success and be a place for peer learning and power-sharing techniques. inHive created a 12-month learning journey where we helped to lead some exploratory activities, learning as we were doing. We helped train a group of leaders as a steering committee and worked collaboratively with members to create monthly learning spaces. There has already been some impactful stories from the network.
Amplifying the narrative: The Power of Networks
Case studies and impact stories
We place extra emphasis on collecting and sharing case studies and stories of youth-oriented networks across the globe. As much of the work around networks is difficult to measure and predict, we find stories to be powerful mechanisms to collect best practices, contextualized impact, and signals of change. You can find our own repository of youth network stories here, as well as our video database documenting network stories from around the globe.
Innovative multimedia communication channels amongst marginalised youth
In developing innovative multimedia communication channels and improved access to information amongst our communities, we launched the first podcast as part of a longer-term series and project IN-MI-NET in July 2022. Listen to the podcast here!