Celebrating 5 years of Junction Point

A round-up from Kate, Junction Point’s CEO, on the journey and achievements since the birth of Junction Point 5 years ago.

It was April 2018, I’d just taken a well-known local charity through voluntary liquidation under my first CEOship, and I was trying to find a purpose out of the upset and exhaustion.

It was at this moment that I realised, we have no shortage of good people with the best of intentions, what we have a shortage of is affordable support for those individuals to get it right. This set me off in a new direction. Rather than another CEOship, I decided to support change-makers to achieve their visions. I wanted to be the person that people could rely on to help them, without judgement and in a way that is totally relevant and unique to them rather than a set of standard offers.

This was the birth of Junction Point. Our belief is that with the right support, individuals and organisations can absolutely change the world. Starting as a sole trader, I had 2 major clients in my first year supporting 2 CEOs with tasks they didn’t have the capacity to do themselves. This included strategic reviews, business development and operational management. I also had around 4 short-term consultancy placements. This was a lovely introduction to self-employment with lots of lovely work-life balance.

During the Pandemic, the reliance on 2 clients was identified as too great a risk, and I began to explore new ways to improve my service offers and diversify income streams. The new streams included training as well as being the purpose-led specialist consultant under existing business support programmes. This enabled me to work with 25 organisations; doubling my client list from previous years.

Fast forward to 2023, Junction Point now functions under two company structures: Junction Point Consultancy Ltd and Junction Point CIC. Our aim is to move everything into the CIC but this takes time as our contract record sits under the Ltd company accounts which means the CIC is too small to apply for most contracts. Our aim for the profits generated is to provide free activities for Changemakers in the North East as well develop a seed funding pot.

Our mission is to inspire dreamers to become doers and for doers to do it even better. This means we work with local residents, charities, social enterprises and purpose-led businesses… In other words: all the best people in society!

Over the past 5-years, we have provided training, events and support to:
65 individuals through Passion to Paycheque (Newcastle CLLD)
15 people through Wellbeing in the workplace (free online course)
100 people through The Changemakers Conference 2022
35 people at Gateshead Business Breakfast (BIPC)
25 organisations under Keep Going, Keep Growing (Reviving the heart of the West End)
50 people through Social Enterprise Day 22 (BIPC and Talbot Jones insurance company sponsorship)
20 individuals under ‘Taking Action Gateshead’ (Reviving the Heart of the West End)
15 organisations and 25 individuals through ‘Sutainable Income, Sustainable Impact’ (Children and Families Newcastle)
20 female entrepreneurs through ‘Women Making Waves’ (Durham County Counci)
35 people through Experts in Residence Programme NE (BIPC)
and countless private clients!

We’ve also given out over £5,000 in seed funding for people to trial their ideas.

Our new time-tracking tool ‘Clockify’ is going to help us track the number of hours of pro-bono work we do each year too. This has been our primary use of profits over the past few years.

So what’s next?

Many of you will know, first hand, there has been a gap between European funding stopping and the UK equivalent ‘Shared Prosperity Fund’ starting. We’re taking this opportunity to develop more sustainable income streams which will hopefully be less temperamental! We’re excited to be taking time for inward organisational development ensuring our next 5-years are built on solid foundations. This includes:

-income diversification feasibility studies
-team skills audits
-market research and competitor analysis
-partnership and network mapping
-stakeholder consultation and responding to feedback

It’s been a pleasure working with such amazing individuals and organisations over the past 5-years. I can’t wait to build on our strengths and implement lessons learnt to offer even better support over the next 5-years.

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