Creating Better Futures Awards 2008

The Yorkshire Forward Creating Better Futures Awards 2008 has been established to highlight the successful partnerships between the private sector and voluntary, community and faith organisations. The awards aim to demonstrate the true partnership working between the sectors and are designed to encourage the sharing and development of skills, knowledge and ability within the community economic development agenda whilst promoting best practice.

Why should you enter?

Awards will be presented to both organisations, along with a £10,000 bursary to the voluntary, community and faith organisation involved in the partnership. Receiving a Creating Better Futures Award will help raise your organisation's profile whilst increasing awareness of the partnership. In addition, Yorkshire Forward aims to increase collaborations between the business and community sector as a result of the event.

Award categories

There are seven awards open for applications:

• Ambition Award
  In order to deliver transformational change, the best projects and organisations set themselves the highest targets, changing the aspirations of the people and communities that they work with. Our poorest communities and its people deserve ambitious aspiration. Our work needs to be about more than alleviating the effects of poverty; it also needs to be about a long term commitment to transform the expectations that we have about some of the region’s neighbourhoods and communities.
  
  
• Diversity Award
  The most successful projects recognise and maximise the benefits of our diverse region, rather than seeing diversity as a ‘problem to be solved’. Inclusion work needs to embrace and respect diversity, reflecting some of the unique exclusion issues some of our communities face.
  
  
• Leadership Award
  Evidence shows that individuals make a key difference to the success of projects. The region is interested in identifying those individuals who are inspiring and leading change, and share their skills with others in the region.
  
  
• Involvement Award
  The best projects have governance structures that fully involve the communities and users who benefit from them. Finding and sharing best practice on how to involve communities in shaping services will be key to creating more transformational change.
  
  
• Creating a Culture of Change Award
  If the region is serious about changing some of our poorest communities, then projects and agencies need to be committed to creating a culture within which change is encouraged and welcomed, where old paradigms are constantly challenged and new ways of working evolve. Harnessing the region’s expertise in enabling change will help deliver effective regeneration.
  
  
• Partnership Working Award
  The most successful projects share one thing in common: they bring a range of different agencies, partners and individuals together and the whole is more than the sum of the parts. Establishing and maintaining effective partnerships is difficult, but when it works it makes a real difference. The region is committed to learning from where things do work well and supporting the replication of this where partnerships are currently weak or ineffective
  
  
• Measuring Effectiveness Award
  As a region we constantly struggle to find the best way to measure the progress that communities are making. Some organisations have been incredibly innovative in developing new models to monitor progress and effectiveness. Sharing these with the region would enable us to have a much clearer sense of what works.