This October, we are celebrating our 17^th birthday here at The Melting Pot. Seventeen years of supporting social innovators and creating positive impact for people and the planet in Scotland. Our birthday is an apt time to press pause and reflect on some of our highlights and achievements over this past year.

Get your free ticket to our birthday celebration event on 31 October here

One year into our new strategy, there is a lot for us to celebrate and be proud of… we’ve forged new, exciting partnerships; welcomed awesome new team members; hosted a plethora of sold-out events; and recruited an ever-growing number of members and collaborators. The small but mighty Melting Pot team have been working hard, driving us towards our central ambition of becoming the flagship Centre for Social Innovation in Scotland — an inclusive space for knowledge sharing, collaboration and inspiration.

Back in November 2023, we were lucky enough to be awarded some funding through the Scottish Government Ecosystem Fund. This enabled us to scale our Bridging Communities event series and take it on the road across Scotland. We worked with 30+ partners from across Scotland and welcomed over 350 attendees, culminating in a one-day conference in April here in Edinburgh.

As the Centre for Social Innovation in Scotland, we aspire to lead by example and implement new innovations that benefit people and the planet. In November, we moved to a 4-day working week (30 hours for full time staff members as standard). There are many benefits to a shorter working week, from improved work-life balance, increased productivity, help with the cost of living, staff retention, better mental and physical health, to a reduced carbon footprint. Being able to implement a shorter working week for all the team with no reduction in pay has been a real highlight for every staff member.

In January, for the first time in The Melting Pot’s history, we recruited a Business Development Manager – Sam Ross. Sam has hit the ground running and has been bringing in new partnerships, scaling our events programme, relaunching our Good Ideas incubator and fine-tuning our consultancy offering. A brilliant asset to our team, helping us to achieve our ambitions.

We recently delivered a series of events focused on AI and Social Innovation, exploring different trends and how AI can be used for good. With an array of partners and speakers, these events were a little bit different to what we have previously delivered. It was great to explore and understand better the world of AI and how this can be utilised and applied within the social innovation space. Thanks to our Community Coordinator Xabi for all his work in pulling these events together.

As we move from our teenage years into becoming an adult, we know that to be sustainable long-term we need to diversify our income streams and expand our social impact. 2024 has been the year we launched our new partnership offering, inviting organisations to support us. We have been really pleased with how many partners have chosen to work with us. From Charisma Charity Recruitment a lead sponsor for our Bridging Communities conference, Social Impact event series and sponsoring a desk for a social innovator, to Creative Edinburgh working with us to showcase new and upcoming artists’ work here in The Melting Pot. We’ve also collaborated with organisations such as Community Lab, Data Kirk, Breeze Digital, Pride Outside, Zing Coaching, Includability and the Scottish AI Alliance to create accessible, engaging and informative events for our community.

Another highlight for me this year was putting in place a team of associates who can work with us to deliver on specific projects, events and programmes. Having a trusted team of freelance associates is essential for us to deliver on our ambition. Our associates are talented individuals with expertise in co-design, facilitation, community participation, marketing, branding, events and project management. I am looking forward to expanding our team of associates and working with them more in the year ahead.

A more personal highlight was having the opportunity to take part in a leadership retreat in March. Led by Gearing for Growth, this was a three-day retreat on the shores of Loch Lomond. As a leader, I find that I often spend a lot of time ‘doing’ and working through a very long to-do list, often forgetting to come up for air. Having some time out to reflect on my leadership, ponder the future for me and the business, connect with other inspiring leaders from across sectors and just enjoy being out of the office in a beautiful part of Scotland was reinvigorating. I left the three days feeling inspired, refreshed and with a newfound recognition that pressing pause, stepping ‘out’ of the business and focusing on less ‘doing’ is key when leading an enterprise.

A big chunk of time this year has been spent with Sam thinking about our Consultancy offering, how can we best support and stimulate social innovation across Scotland? What knowledge and expertise do we have that others may benefit from in their own work and enterprises? It has been a real highlight having the time and headspace to think about this, exploring ideas, collaborations and how we can create meaningful change.

As part of this thinking, we took a trip to Dunoon, to understand what different ‘places with purpose’ look like. The sun was shining, and we got to spend a brilliant 48 hours with Hannah Clinch from the Pop Shop. Their mission is to co-design heritage-inspired solutions to climate change that build health and wealth in their community. It’s amazing to see how much work has been done to create opportunities for the local community. Through a mix of different projects, events and shared spaces they have curated a real place with purpose, where people within the community are creating innovative solutions and taking micro actions to tackle some of the biggest problems we face today. We left our two days in Dunoon feeling inspired, with a plethora of insights to feed into our updated consultancy offering. Thanks to Hannah and the team for sharing their time, knowledge and insights. Watch this space for more on our consultancy offer – coming soon!

I have managed to capture just a few of the highlights and achievements from the last year, there are so many more that I haven’t been able to mention. As we turn 17 and move into our ‘adult’ years I am excited to see what comes next. In year two of our strategy, we will build on the foundations we have put in place in year one, delivering more events, collaborating with partners, supporting entrepreneurs with good ideas and stimulating social innovation across Scotland.

Please do come and join us on Thursday 31 October for our birthday celebrations, raise a glass and connect with our inspiring community