is Leaf Courses legit?

I got an email from the careers advisor at school about an oxford summer school called leaf changemakers. It looks really good because its free for everyone (most are upwards of 10 grand). I can't find any information online about this and I'm wondering if it's too good to be true. Can someone who has been on a course/ heard of someone else who went on one let me know what they are like.

Thanks!

Reply 1

04MR17

Volunteer Section Leader

22

Original post by Erica4752

I got an email from the careers advisor at school about an oxford summer school called leaf changemakers. It looks really good because its free for everyone (most are upwards of 10 grand). I can't find any information online about this and I'm wondering if it's too good to be true. Can someone who has been on a course/ heard of someone else who went on one let me know what they are like.

Thanks!

Were there contact details on the email? :smile:

Reply 2

DataVenia

Volunteer Team, Clearing and Applications Advisor

21

Original post by Erica4752

I got an email from the careers advisor at school about an oxford summer school called leaf changemakers. It looks really good because its free for everyone (most are upwards of 10 grand). I can't find any information online about this and I'm wondering if it's too good to be true. Can someone who has been on a course/ heard of someone else who went on one let me know what they are like.

Thanks!

When you say, "I can't find any information online about this", would I be right in saying that you mean other than their web site at https://www.leaf.courses/ - which seems to provide quite a lot of information. They also have a LinkedIn page here and a page on ApplyToUni here. They describe themselves as an "independent nonprofit".

What I find odd is that nowhere can I find their legal name or a brinks-and-mortar address. It's not on their web site, in their Safeguarding Policy or Harassment Policy documents, or on their LinkedIn profile. Their are 25 registered charities in the UK containing the word "LEAF", but none seem like this organisation. (Yes, I read each of their profiles on the Charity Commission web site). I even looked-up the name of the owner of their internet domain (leaf-courses), but they've opted for privacy so every field just says, "REDACTED FOR PRIVACY".

Leaf's founder, Alex Holness-Tofts, is not listed as an officer of any UK company (although his LinkedIn profile says he was only with Leaf for 5 months); he seems to be between jobs right now. The other principals at Leaf don't have names which are sufficiently distinctive to use as search keys.

Without it's legal name, it's hard to look-up and concrete information about them. The lack of a legal name strikes me as suspicious, but that's probably just because I'm a suspicious person!

Reply 3

JamieHarris94

Original post by DataVenia

When you say, "I can't find any information online about this", would I be right in saying that you mean other than their web site at https://www.leaf.courses/ - which seems to provide quite a lot of information. They also have a LinkedIn page here and a page on ApplyToUni here. They describe themselves as an "independent nonprofit".

What I find odd is that nowhere can I find their legal name or a brinks-and-mortar address. It's not on their web site, in their Safeguarding Policy or Harassment Policy documents, or on their LinkedIn profile. Their are 25 registered charities in the UK containing the word "LEAF", but none seem like this organisation. (Yes, I read each of their profiles on the Charity Commission web site). I even looked-up the name of the owner of their internet domain (leaf-courses), but they've opted for privacy so every field just says, "REDACTED FOR PRIVACY".

Leaf's founder, Alex Holness-Tofts, is not listed as an officer of any UK company (although his LinkedIn profile says he was only with Leaf for 5 months); he seems to be between jobs right now. The other principals at Leaf don't have names which are sufficiently distinctive to use as search keys.

Without it's legal name, it's hard to look-up and concrete information about them. The lack of a legal name strikes me as suspicious, but that's probably just because I'm a suspicious person!

Hey, loving the detailed research approach to answering this question!

Someone sent me a link to this thread and I just wanted to chime in. I'm Jamie, the person organising/running Leaf. I'll try to respond to your observations and comments as transparently as possible. We've already passed the priority deadline for this year's Changemakers Fellowship, so I'm mainly just commenting for the benefit of anyone who comes across this thread at a later date, e.g. for subsequent programmes we offer.

<<What I find odd is that nowhere can I find their legal name or a brinks-and-mortar address.>>
This is because we essentially don't have one! Leaf is currently organised by one person -- me! Legally, I'm a 'sole trader' (i.e. self-employed), and I work from home. Of course, we host programmes like our residential; the physical venue for those is just hired by me/Leaf on a case-by-case basis. So the permanent bricks and mortar address I sometimes use for Leaf when we need to share one is literally just my flat.

<<Their are 25 registered charities in the UK containing the word "LEAF", but none seem like this organisation.>>
Yep, we're not (yet) a registered charity. As mentioned, it's literally just me as a sole trader with a bank account and a website currently. But we're a nonprofit in the sense that we don't charge for our services and the grant money is used solely for staff salaries/payments and other operational expenses, rather than to make a profit.
The context being that formally registering as a charity can take up to two years. Leaf is a relatively new organisation; we're still learning about what's best, and whether Leaf is even helpful enough for the world to justify the continued cost (it costs thousands of pounds per participant to run and organise), so we haven't yet invested in setting up the long-term legal infrastructure. We'll probably do that after this year's (2023) summer residential programme, if we're still optimistic about the value of Leaf.

If you're reading this and then wondering where the money comes from; I tried to answer that here: https://youtu.be/SWycj5dvpCQ . The money comes from grants, which in turn come from donations to the grant-making body (EA Funds).

<<I even looked-up the name of the owner of their internet domain (leaf-courses), but they've opted for privacy so every field just says, "REDACTED FOR PRIVACY".>>
Huh, weird. I didn't actually set up the website; maybe I'll dig into this sometime and see if I can sort it out. Thanks for flagging.

<<Leaf's founder, Alex Holness-Tofts, is not listed as an officer of any UK company (although his LinkedIn profile says he was only with Leaf for 5 months); he seems to be between jobs right now. >>
Correct; Alex ran the initial version of Leaf but then handed it over to me. He had another job offer he was excited about, and I was very keen to make sure Leaf continued on, because I thought the first programme was great.

<<The other principals at Leaf don't have names which are sufficiently distinctive to use as search keys.>>
Ah yes, the curse of having a generic/common English name. Here's my LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jamie-harris-14b011138/

Thanks for engaging carefully!

is Leaf Courses legit?

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