Consultancy Brief: Black & Green Future 2023

Opportunity to undertake community engagement workshops & conduct a strategic review of the Black and Green Ambassadors programme.

Delivery timescale: Between 5 June and 30 September 2023 (17 weeks)

Fee: Negotiable 

Time commitment: 30 x days max (between 1.5 – 2 days per week)

Working with: Ujima Radio and Bristol Green Capital Partnership (project funded by National Lottery Community Fund)

Closing date for applications: 12:00 noon 30th of May 2023

Background to the work 

The Black & Green Ambassadors programme emerged during Bristol’s year as European Green Capital in 2015 as a 12-month pilot project in collaboration with different stakeholders. Then in March 2020, Ujima Radio (Ujima) and Bristol Green Capital Partnership (BGCP) were awarded funding from the National Lottery Community Fund to deliver a scaled-up, three year ‘Black & Green Ambassadors for Bristol’ programme. 

The programme aimed to recruit, mentor and support nine Ambassadors over a 3-year period – individuals who were emerging leaders with environmental and social justice ambitions to work between Bristol’s diverse communities, businesses, organisations and individuals on issues of environmental sustainability, equality, diversity and inclusion. The program also sought to challenge the environmental institutions within the city and the orthodoxy of the environmental movement, and aspects of the green movement that have made it historically exclusionary. 

In partnership, BGCP and Ujima in years 1 and 2 worked together to recruit and train Ambassadors who were supported (in a paid role) to deliver a wide-ranging programme of research, radio broadcasts, speaking opportunities and community engagement. The programme tailored the training and support given to the ambassadors in alignment with the interest of each individual Ambassador, taking into consideration their needs.

Year Three of the programme (from June to September 2023) will be used as a time to gather learnings by engaging with stakeholders. Year 3 is an opportunity to reflect on the programme with a view to informing the future direction of the programme and how it could be approached differently in future iterations in both a local and national context. Consideration should also be given to sustainable routes of funding for the future iteration of the project. 

The Brief

Jointly Ujima and BGCP are looking to appoint an Independent Consultant and facilitator to undertake a Strategic Review of years 1 and year 2 of the programme which captures (but is not limited to) the views from Ambassadors who took part in the pilot and years 1 and 2 of the program, the Steering Group, programme staff and other collaborators and stakeholders across the city (including city / community leaders/ leading institutions).  

The consultation will take place (but is not limited to) - using interviews and facilitated workshop sessions to gather learnings, insights and ideas and consolidate these into a comprehensive and fully accessible ‘Black & Green Future’ Report.

The workshops and interviews must enable a collective exploration of opportunities for future development and legacy of the programme, distil what the programme did best, what perhaps did not work well and identify the programs positive impacts whilst addressing the local, national and global context to which the programme must respond to in future.

We expect the published ‘Black and Green Future’ Report to include (but is not limited to) an overview of the key learnings and insights that can be used to inform and influence the future work not just of BGCP and Ujima Radio, but wider audiences from the environmental sector and community groups aiming to deliver environmental and social equity outcomes together.

The report should also include an Executive Summary which sets out recommendations for change to support partners and stakeholders in establishing the future direction of the Black & Green Ambassadors programme and sets out next steps for this transition. The summary should also show consideration to identifying and suggesting routes to sustainable funding for the future iterations of the program.

We expect to achieve through this project: A realistic and achievable understanding of what worked well and what could be improved and a model for Black and Green Ambassadors future operation and structure. The report will be used to inform others at a local national context.

Who you will be working with: The consultant will report to the Project Leads within each partner organisation (BGCP and Ujima). Project leads will provide strategic and operational oversight of the work, and practical support for workshops and stakeholder engagement (booking venues, providing contact lists etc) 

The outputs that the consultant will be expected to deliver include but are not limited to: 

• At least 3 x facilitated workshops alongside up to 10 additional 1-to-1 interviews (June – July 2023) 
• A findings and recommendations Black & Green Future report (deadline 10 September 2023) capturing process, insights, recommendations, learnings, documentation of the themes emerging from interviews and workshops

The outputs that Ujima and BGCP aim to deliver, with involvement of the consultant are:

• 1x Ujima Radio show sharing insights and outcomes 
• A video or accompanying podcast sharing insights from the report with a wider audience
• Speaking engagements / event participation to ensure insights from this programme continue to contribute to discussion and debate in Bristol and further advance progress towards a just transition

More information about the Program can be found on www.blackandgreenambassadors.co.uk

 Person specification 

We are looking to work with an individual who can demonstrate in their application:

• A genuine interest and passion for environmental issues, climate change and climate justice
• An understanding of race equality issues
• Evaluation skills and the ability to consolidate, analyse and interpret data (qualitative and quantitative) 
• An excellent collaborator with experience of working with a range of different stakeholders
• A big picture thinker
• An effective facilitator who can design workshops and engage participants in a dynamic, creative, accessible and impactful way
• Ability to plan workload and meet deadlines
• Report writing skills 
• Ability to communicate confidently and effectively and in a flexible manner
• Adept at multitasking between projects and shifting priorities
• Flexible, methodical, and organised
• Self-reliant, self-motivating, able to work with minimum supervision
• Responsive and quick learner
• Able to provide updates in a timely and reasonable manner or as and when required.
• Ability to be hands on.

• Must have flexibility and availability to deliver the programme within the timescale (12th June – 30th September 2023, with an expectation of working 2 x days per week)

Must be available to start during the week commencing the 5th of June 2023.