Be a Patron of The Rugby Portobello Trust

Patrons of The Rugby Portobello Trust are a group of community-minded people who want to see local children and young people reach their potential.

 
As a Patron of The Rugby Portobello Trust, you'll have unparalleled access to our services, receive invitations to our Patrons Forums, annual Patrons Party and annual VIP Christmas Party and you'll have the knowledge that you're giving essential support to children and young people in our community.
 

Click here to download a copy of our Patrons Programme brochure and membership form.

Between the ages of 18 and 40? You're eligible for our Young Patrons Circle! Click here to learn more.

 

How being a Patron supports our work

The Rugby Portobello Trust is more than 80% funded by fundraising events, donations and small grants from trusts and foundations. That means that we are incredibly dependent on support from the local community to keep our doors open and ensure that we stay accessible to the thousands of children and young people who rely on us every year for support, guidance and access to skills-building opportunities.

We help children and young people unlock their potential by giving them access to sports, art, music, educational support, mentoring, off-site trips and a team of trained and passionate staff and volunteers. All of our services are free or heavily subsidised, and we run services 45 weeks of the year. In order to keep our services free and accessible, we need your support to continue our work for years to come.

As well as supporting our already successful children's, youth and parenting programmes, you'll be supporting us to develop new services and run pilot programmes that trial new approaches, ensuring we're supporting the local community in the best way possible.

 

Benefits of being a Patron

Besides supporting the work of RPT, being a Patron comes with some great benefits, including opportunities to get an inside look into our work and opportunities meet other Patrons.

Patrons' visits

A crucial part of the Patrons Programme is your ability to learn more about the services you're supporting. As a thank you, you'll be invited to attend a Patron's Welcome Visit to receive an inside-look at what makes our approach unique. Your visit will be tailored to your interests and you'll have the opportunity to ask questions of volunteers and service users who can help explain why our work is so important to the community.

Patrons' Forums

Patrons' Forums are termly discussions led by a panel of staff, service users, delivery partners and referral partners, such as Social Services, local authority or the Youth Offending Team. Forums give you an inside look into RPT's unique approach to community-wide issues, as well as information about challenges we're facing or pilots we're running. 

Topics will always be timely and relevant and will give you the opportunity to ask questions and learn more about work.

Patrons are invited to bring a guest to each Forum.

Patrons' Party

Our Patrons' Party is a chance to celebrate the amazing impact of your support. The annual event will be held at the start of each year and includes drinks, canapes and music and welcomes all members of our Patrons Programme and Young Patrons Circle.

Patrons are also given complimentary tickets to our annual Christmas Party, which kicks off our two-day Christmas Market and rings in the festive season in Notting Hill. 

 

What your support funds

Funds raised through the Patrons Programme give us essential unrestricted income that allows us to be flexible and creative in our approach to both new and systemic issues facing our young people. The flexibility of this funding means we can adapt quickly, run pilot programmes to test new approaches and make decisions based on the local landscape, rather than any wider directives.

Funding for children’s and young people’s programmes is perpetually decreasing, and competition for support from official funding bodies is higher than ever. This sometimes means that organisations end up spending more time applying for and reporting on funding than actually delivering the funded programme. Our Patrons Programme is a solution to this backwards model, allowing us to focus funding where it’s most needed, and simultaneously give you, our funders, unrestricted access to see the impact of your support.

The end result is more money is used to support our local children and young people and our Patrons have a better understanding of what we do, how we do it and why we do it.

 

Become a Patron