Partner Perspectives: Playworks

These blog posts feature the perspectives of some of the amazing partner organisations who are a focal part of our Immersive Experiences. At Emerging World, the work of our partners inspires the participants in our programmes in life-defining ways and challenges them to think differently about the things that deeply affect people and truly drive change. Our work also supports our partners to shift the way they work and have a greater impact. These posts allow our partners to share their stories and perspectives of the work they do and the impact this is having in communities and in the world more broadly! It is our hope that their experiences and insights will inspire us to look deep and explore ways we can do more for the world!

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The fourth in our series is….

Playworks

We are excited to share our story of growth following our participation in the 2019 Salesforce Leadership Development programme in Detroit!

Hi, I am Angela Rogensues Playwork’s Executive Director.

Playworks is an organisation in the US that brings out the best in children through play, by supporting schools and districts through on-site staffing, consultative support, professional development and free resources. We also inform practice and policy for youth programmes and other organisations that would like to improve playtime such as the Centers for Disease Control and City Year.

During the exciting and intense 3-day Salesforce programme, we focused on working on ways to increase our lead pipeline. We started off on the first day by developing an understanding of the work we do and clarifying our presenting challenge. On the second day, we spent time with the Salesforce team in partner schools and scheduled phone conferences with our educational leaders to provider a broader context of our work and the challenge we were presenting. To hear our partner principals speak so highly of our programme and the effects it has had on their respective student bodies was truly a highlight and a great moment for us! Often, we can get caught up in the work and being in the office, but once in a while when we visit schools, we remember what great joy we are able to bring to thousands of children! By the end of our 3rd day together, we had crafted some solid action items that we could undertake right away in the weeks following.

Since the programme, we have taken steps to help us build a more robust pipeline. We have made some drastic changes to our website with the support of our IT team at the National headquarters. Also, a local videographer has helped us to produce and post engaging testimonial videos on our website and social media platforms and have run digital campaigns centred around the market research we compiled during the programme. We look forward to seeing the full results of our efforts come to fruition this spring. We continue to see growth nationally as an organization following the implementation of some of the ideas and these ideas are also generating conversations about other ways we can innovate our partnership work. Personally, the programme has helped me as a leader of the region to think more outside of the box with all of our operations. It is always refreshing to get a third-party view on things because they are not stuck in the day to day routine and can offer fresh and unbiased perspectives like was the case for us.

In the end, we are lucky to do the work we do every day! To be able to play with children and help them develop the necessary skills to be well rounded individuals for now and the future is truly a privilege. Those moments where we are able to show others our work on the ground, like we did during the programme, are gratifying and keep us motivated year after year!

Interested in joining our Partner Network

Click here