Sarah Baker, Head of Partnerships and Engagement, Culture Mile Business Improvement District, City of London, presents at the first community event organised by the BID on July 18 2024. See also video and transcript of presentation by Will Dyson on the public realm study.

There was no official recording, and the lack of a sound system made hearing difficult (for me anyway) so I shot this on my phone and transcribed to provide some reference.

• Report from the event
  
• All Culture Mile Blog posts

Below is an uncorrected summary and transcript generated by the Notta AI app. I'll invite the BID team to edit, if they wish.

Sarah confirms in a section at 2 minutes that the community forum suggested in the original BID proposals will in practice be two events a year: the first being the event taking place that evening.

As I think the transcript makes clear, the model being used by the BID is that of a company (the BID) engaging with its stakeholders (including residents) through a framework of environmental, social, and governance (ESG) objectives. From that perspective I can see the logic of two “forum” meetings as a methods to engage.

However, that corporate ESG approach is very different from one that would provide ways for residents to engage with each other over time, and develop collective views about the issues they face and the future of the area. The Neighbourhood Forum for Barbican and Golden Lane Estates - which the BID supported - offers that on planning issues. Earlier blog post here on the idea of a forum, and BID accountability.

Overall the elements of community engagement are:
* Support for the Barbican and Golden Lane Community Forum
* A community page on the Culture Mile website
* Two community forum meetings a year
* Engagement with Street Ambassadors
* Connecting business with the community via volunteering

David Wilcox david@socialreporter.com

The meeting record transcript discusses the community framework and environmental, social, and governance (ESG) objectives of an organization. The speaker explains their role in managing the community fund, supporting local initiatives, and facilitating community engagement through various channels like neighborhood forums, websites, community events, and volunteer programs. The organization allocates £60,000 annually to fund community projects aligned with the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals, focusing on areas such as health and well-being, culture and arts, equality, diversity, and inclusion, and the environment. The speaker highlights some of the projects funded in the previous year and the current year, showcasing their impact through a short film. Additionally, the organization supports ad-hoc local community initiatives like the Leaves Breathe Pilot Project, defibrillator installation, Christmas giving, and creative workshops. The street ambassadors play a crucial role in welcoming and assisting the community.

The speaker introduces the community framework based on collaboration, diversity, and community, which is the bedrock of their bid. They explain the Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) objectives, formerly known as Corporate Social Responsibility, which examine a company's impact on its environment, society, and accountability. The speaker emphasizes the importance of engaging with the community, building relationships, and listening to their ideas.

The organization supports various community engagement initiatives, including a newly established neighborhood forum, a community page on their website, a community forum (the current meeting being the first), street ambassadors, and connecting businesses with the community through volunteering opportunities. They also welcome the community to their activities, events, and workshops.

The organization has a £60,000 community fund, the largest among city bids. They work with Action Funda, a platform for finding funding for community projects. The main criteria for funding include a maximum of £6,500 per project, one application per organization, and no funding for political or religious projects. The organization recently announced 16 new projects funded for the current year, focusing on themes like health and well-being, community, culture and arts, equality, diversity, inclusion, opportunity, and the environment.

The speaker showcases a short film highlighting some of the funded projects, including a music program for children, a wildlife garden, a book fair, a church garden project, and a disability club promoting physical activity. The film features testimonials from project participants, highlighting the positive impact of the funding on their communities.

The organization supports ad-hoc local community initiatives funded by the ESG group, such as the Leaves Breathe Pilot Project, installing a defibrillator at Wavy House, providing Christmas hampers for families on Golden Lane, supporting the Red Cross Christmas Market, hosting creative workshops, and organizing a net-zero seminar for small businesses, freelancers, and residents.

The organization has a team of street ambassadors who welcome visitors, provide information and signposting, promote events, and work from 8 AM to 7 PM most days. The speaker encourages the community to interact with the street ambassadors and take selfies with them.

I'll talk you through about the community framework, which is the framework that I am working to. That quote, collaboration, diversity and community, is the bedrock of our bid. That is something that is written in our business plan.

And the community framework that we've started is that we're very keen to understand who we have here. So I've met some of you already through the Residence Associations. Engage with you. That's what the evening is for. Build relationships and connect with you. And also listen. And again, that's what this evening is about. And also, we're looking tonight to hear about your ideas about how we can communicate with you as well.

Nice and flush. Now, within the framework of the environmental, social and governance objectives. So this is the framework that I work to. So my banner, as it is, is ESG. So you'll hear me use an acronym.

So it is Environmental, Social and Governance. It used to be called Corporate Social Responsibility. So that might be something that you've heard of. So what is it? So it is the impact of a business on its environment, society and how it is accountable.

And one thing I picked up here from the Corporate Governance Institute is this nice catchall, really, what I thought. It says, examine the company's business relationships. So think of us as a bit of a company.

Does the company have a high regard for employment, health and safety? Yes, it does. I can say that. Does the company allocate potential profits to its local community? Obviously, we're not that sort of company, but we have done that.

And I'll explain how we've done that later on. Do company employees engage in volunteer work? I'll come on to that later. And are other stakeholders' interests taking into account? Yes, and that's what this evening is about. driving push. So what do I work on? So I work on the community fund but before I talk about the community fund I will also talk about how we've connected with our community. So we've supported the newly established neighbourhood forum, some of you may know of that and my colleague Ward has worked on that.

We have a community page on our website, on the Culture Mile website. We have a new community forum and tonight is the first of our community forums. So this is the first one we're having and we're hoping to have two a year. We have engagement via our street ambassadors and you met our lovely street ambassadors on the way in and connect business with the community by volunteering. So this is going to be a new piece of work that I'm working on where I'm matching up local community projects, charities.

residents associations if you have volunteering needs with the corporates as well who want to volunteer and do work in those communities. So this is a new piece of work that I'm looking at. Also we've welcomed many of you to our activities, to our events and our workshops and some of you may have been, some of you may not been but you are all welcome and the community fund.

So that's £60,000 per year and it's the largest community fund pot amongst the city bids. So we work with action funda. So some of you may have come across it but this is this is what we use, it's a platform that we use and you don't have to apply for cultural money.

You can go on here and if you've got an interest for a community project you can actually go through them and see if they can, they will find you some funding for it. So I just wanted to let you know that they exist.

So the main criteria for funding is we have £60,000 available and we keep a contingency of 1,000 back just in case once the allocations will be made just in case it's anything that happens later in the week.

We do not fund anything political or religious in nature that's pretty standard across a lot of funding bodies. We fund up to six and a half thousand per project and it's one application only per organisation.

We've just had, we've just announced a couple weeks ago our new 16 projects that were funding for this year but you will, if you want to apply you can apply next year from April 2025. One thing I just want to point out to you, this is the ESG and this is called a Sustainable Development Goal and these are not on the UN economic world forum and we have taken some of these from there and if you apply for funding you will have Some of these ones, hopefully you'll match some of these areas here. I won't go into too much detail, so I won't bore you into too much. But it just gives you an idea of the sort of thing that we're looking for if you apply for funding.

So, just to give a quick overview of what we funded last year, we have the themes are health and wellbeing, community, culture and arts, EDI, that's equality, diversity and inclusion, opportunity and environment.

So if you can see the pie chart there, we had a lot for health and wellbeing last year, culture and arts, and a lot for community. That's not surprising because we have a high population of residents.

This year, there's been a slight change in communities down, but culture and arts has expanded, health and wellbeing has gone down, but we've actually increased the environment, which is what we want to do, and also equality, diversity and inclusion.

This is a map of where we have found the projects, so these little gold stars show you. And I think it's quite a good spread of projects around the area. So there's the cultural area for you. I've called it Northeast, West, and South.

You've sort of not actually done that, but it's to help me make sure that we've done a good spread across the cultural area. So we have a nice little film to show you. So please help me give you some idea of the projects that we've funded.

• Watch on YouTube

That's a lovely film, isn't it? I always tear up as well at the end, every time. Yes, it's a lovely film and we really wanted to give the voices for the film to the people that actually take part.

So I think that film has definitely hit that mark. So, other thing that we do, I think, is we do ad hoc local community initiatives. So this is funded by the group that I lead on, the ESG group. One thing we're looking at is we're looking at a project called the Leaves Breathe Pilot Project.

Golden Lane, where they're looking at some balcony pots. Wavy House Defibrillator, yes, and First Day Training. And that is about to be installed in the next few weeks. Golden Lane Christmas Giving, that was where we gave some money for some Christmas hampers for families.

We supported the Red Cross Christmas Market for Guildhall. Creative January, we held some creative champions workshops and I know there's some people here who came to those and thought they were great.

And also a net zero seminar at Barclays for small businesses, freelancers and residents. Anybody who lives and works in the culture mark is part of the culture mark. So, you've met the street ambassadors, there's four posts and a team, they welcome people, they signpost, have you seen them or have you seen them?

Hands up, who's seen them? Hands up, who's met them? Hands up, who's had a selfie with them? That's your next to do. They do event promotions, they work eight a .m. to seven p .m. most days.