Two Scottish third sector leaders have won places in the prestigious 2016 Clore Social Leadership programme

The Clore Social Leadership Programme has announced that Umar Ansari and Mark Kelvin will be next year’s Scottish fellows.

Ansari is chief executive of Youth Community Support agency in Glasgow while Kelvin directs the Links Worker programme for the Health and Social Care Alliance. They are the first two men in Scotland to have made it onto the fellowship programme since it launched in 2010.

The Clore Social Leadership Programme is a fully funded development programme for aspiring social leaders from across the UK.

A record 239 aspiring leaders competed for a place on the fellowship, 33% up on last year. This year 24 fellows have been appointed, increasing the size of the annual cohort by a third.

Clore Social chief executive Shaks Ghosh said: “At Clore Social we are constantly striving to improve our offer. We want to do what we do better, have more impact and reach more people, so I am delighted to be announcing our biggest ever cohort of fellows today.

“The social sector is one of the UK's most important assets, but it will face unprecedented challenges in the years to come. Building leadership capacity is critical, and Clore Social has a significant role to play in this.”

The new cohort, recruited from UK based charities, social enterprises and community organisations, will start in January 2016 and undertake a 12 month personalised programme featuring residential courses, coaching and mentoring, action learning sets and secondments.

This year, Clore Social worked with partners to offer new specialist fellowships for leaders working in the fields of gender equality, youth social justice and migrant communities.