About Us

We are passionate about finding solutions to social problems, creating and supporting real and lasting change for individuals, communities and organisations. We are innovators, change makers and risk takers.

We believe that by providing our people with autonomy, space to grow and develop, and the freedom to create and innovate, we will deliver the best working environment for our team, who will in turn deliver the most engaging and effective work for the people and organisations we support.

Our Work

Badge Nation

Led by Real Ideas and Future Creators, Badge Nation is a powerful collective of employers, schools, colleges, training providers, and informal educators. We are committed to recognising what individuals learn, achieve, and accomplish outside of formal accredited learning.

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Bridge

Real Ideas supports organisations all across the South West to deliver excellent cultural education for children and young people.

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C-Care

The C-CARE (Covid Channel Area Response Exchange) initiative will support people at risk of exclusion from the labour market and businesses at risk of closure. The programme provides support via direct and virtual interactions with 40 businesses in Plymouth and the surrounding catchment.

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Cities of Learning

Cities of Learning is a new approach funded by RSA and City and Guilds. Cities of Learning is helping people and places tell the story of their learning.

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Compass

Are you currently 18-24 years? Unemployed and living in Cornwall?

Would you like to explore employment sectors and develop transferable 21st Century skills that will help you move into a job?

We want to be part of your journey to move forward…

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Cornwall Youth Hub

Working in partnership with the Department of Work and Pensions in Cornwall we are operating Cornwall’s youth hub. We provide a programme to support young people to build skills and harness their passions.

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Cultivator

Cultivator is a business development programme developed for Creative Businesses in Cornwall and the Isle of Scilly.

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Empowering Places (Make Things Happen)

Make Things Happen is a Empowering Places programme, supported by Power to Change.

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Enrich

They are our common heritage; our shared wealth and they belong to all of us that call Plymouth home. We have a dazzling range of woodlands, parks, squares and waterfronts covering some 1600 hectares – over one third of the city’s land area.

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Game Changer

Are you: Aged 15 to 24? A Cornwall or Isles of Scilly resident? And unemployed or not in education? We provide support for young people looking for help with education, training or employment.

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Generation E!

Generation E is made up of a group of 18-24 year olds.
Their aim? To create better opportunities for future generations of young people in Cornwall!

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Green Minds

In Plymouth we are lucky to have access to plenty of green and blue natural spaces. The importance of these places to our wellbeing has become even more evident over the past few months, as has our role and responsibility in maintaining and enhancing for future generations.

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Green Thinkers

Green Thinkers is 6-week programme for 18-25 year olds living in Plymouth.

Through a range of learning activities and hands on work experience, young people will learn about working with green spaces, gain industry insight and develop the skills to secure a job that’s just right for them.

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G7 Fringe

In June 2021, leaders of the G7 nations are gathering in Cornwall.

On the agenda – the big challenges facing our world. The seven leaders will be making decisions that affect all our futures.

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Illuminate

Illuminate Light Festival is a powerful immersive experience, offering audiences beautiful projection mapping; playful light art installations; joyous performances and myriad opportunities to engage, participate and make. With light art created by artists, technologists, designers, architects, performers and children alike.

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iMayflower

iMayflower is helping Plymouth shout about its culture and creativity offer, develop a long term, sustainable legacy and provide skills and learning opportunities through events and community engagement. We are also supporting creative sector businesses to become more visible on an international stage.

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Kickstart

The Kickstart scheme is the Government’s £2 billion scheme to support 16-24 year olds through providing hundreds of thousands of work placements for young people.

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Kickstart Ready

Real Ideas are delivering 6-week intensive programmes on behalf of the DWP.

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Rank Foundation

The Rank Foundation aims to improve the lives of people and their communities across the UK.

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Start Something

Our Start Something programme helps brilliant new enterprises to thrive.

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Start Something Immersive

FREE support for digital entrepreneurs!

From April and for the next year we are offering 10 FREE membership packages worth over £3,000 each to entrepreneurial people with ideas looking to start their creative career. 

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The State of Us

The State of Us, based out of Plymouth (UK), draws inspiration from new municipalist movements across the world and asks how we can build more powerful communities and economic democracy.

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Youth Cooperative Action – Be the Change

Are there social issues that you really care about? Is there something about where you live that you would love to change or do differently? If this is the case, then Youth Cooperative Action is for you!

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Our Impact

Real Ideas has been making positive change happen – for people, communities and organisations – since 2007. We take real pride in tracking, recording and honing our impact in both words and numbers.

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Real Ideas has been making positive change happen – for people, organisations and places – since 2007. We take real pride in tracking, recording and honing our impact in both words and numbers.

We think track record is important too and we can now evidence sustained impact in relation to our ‘communities of interest’ for the last 13 years. There is a timeline of our key developments and achievements across this period here.

As we have grown and developed, the impact we generate has of course become more diverse and complex. For example, working with young people over several years; with partner schools for more than a decade; and, through our buildings, events and programmes, in particular communities undergoing profound wider change. To keep a handle on this volume of change we currently track over 2000 data points each quarter for 16 (and counting) different public or partner bodies.

Given this complexity we think there may be better ways out there to track and build our social, environmental and economic impact and value in the places that matter to us and we are particularly interested in innovation and technology in relation to this challenge. Watch this space and get in touch if you have ideas or want to be involved.


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Game Changer, changing lives

“My experience with Game Changer has been hugely positive and had a great impact on me both in terms of my employment but also as a person. Working with them helped me feel proactive and gave me some much-needed clarity where before there was only post-graduation panic and uncertainty. I feel far more able to give myself credit for my abilities and tackle social situations with more confidence as a result of the holistic approach taken by Game Changer in giving guidance.”

Johanna Campbell, Game Changer participant

Our Team

There’s nothing typical about the people who work at Real Ideas. With experience in many different industries and cultures the one thing we all have in common is a passion to make a positive difference in the world.

Meet the team

Work with us

Driving social change is hard, but it’s also hugely rewarding. Our work is broad, varied and challenging – if you want to work with us you’ll need to bring your ‘A’ game and a hefty supply of determination, energy and passion.

View the current vacancies

Current job and tender opportunities

There are no current opportunities

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Our Culture

We are passionate about finding solutions to social problems, creating and supporting real and lasting change for people, communities and organisations.

It’s not just about who we are, it’s how we do business and the social value we deliver

We are innovators, change makers and risk takers. We believe that by providing our people with autonomy, space to grow and develop, and the freedom to create and innovate, we will deliver the best working environment for our team, who will in turn deliver the most engaging and effective work for our clients.

There’s nothing typical about the kind of people who work at Real Ideas. With experience in many different industries and cultures, our people have joined us from a wide range of sectors, all with a passion to make a positive difference in the world.

We are committed to doing business ethically. We report against a triple bottom line – people, planet and profit – and as a social enterprise ourselves we try and deliver social value through our supply chain too, from catering services to web hosting, utilities for our buildings and even HR support. To show our commitment, we have signed up to Plymouth’s COVID-19 economic recovery plan, the Resurgam Charter.

In addition to being a great organisation to work for, Real Ideas can offer you a great location to work in with offices in Bristol, Plymouth and three locations across Cornwall. You’ll get good benefits too including competitive salaries, a generous pension contribution, health insurance and flexible working. And of course, you will be part of an energetic, pioneering organisation, innovating every day to deliver real and lasting social change.

If any of this resonates and you want to find out more about opportunities to work with us check out our current vacancies or get in touch by emailing jobs@realideas.org

What you can expect from us

Real Ideas values diversity. We believe that by learning to work with people’s differences, visible or not, we can all work together effectively to anticipate and meet the needs of all our customers. We do this by recruiting, retaining and developing the best people within our workforce, acting responsibly in the communities of which we are a part; and by fulfilling our legal commitments.

We are committed to becoming an equal opportunity employer and to ensuring that all employees, volunteers, job applicants, customers, participants and other people with whom we deal are treated fairly and are not subjected to unfair or unlawful discrimination. We aim to make our services as accessible and responsive as possible to all existing and potential participants, and to provide a service which recognises and respects people’s differences.

We recognise that our ability to meet diverse needs is improved by having a diverse workforce which has the skills and understanding to achieve our service objectives.

We will not tolerate less favourable treatment on the grounds of race, nationality, ethnic origin, age, religion or belief, sex, sexual orientation, marital status, domestic circumstances, disability, pregnancy, gender reassignment, civil partnership, or any other characteristic which cannot be shown to be justified.

Anyone who feels they have been denied equality of opportunity whilst in receipt of our services will be encouraged to use the Complaints Procedure so that their concerns can be investigated and responded to.

We reserve the right to withdraw services to any participant if that person behaves in a discriminatory, disruptive or abusive manner to any member of staff, volunteer, participant or other person.