Building a Movement: what the research is teaching us about Change Makers

The work we’re doing right now isn’t about scale for scale’s sake. It’s about clarity. Refinement. And being much more intentional about the value proposition of a community that now spans more than two decades and over 22,000 people.

What grounded the evening for me was being reminded where all of this started.

Hearing Brett Wigdortz, who founded Teach First in 2002, talk about the original theory of change, and why one of the first hires was a Head of Alumni, not finance, was a powerful reminder that this has always been a movement built on people, not structures.

James Toop, our CEO since June 2025 and a Teach First 2003 ambassador, then set out the strategic shifts ahead for the charity.

Finally, Charlotte Zamboni, Executive Director, Ambassadors & Audiences, introduced our new ‘Rewrite the future’ brand platform, anchored in the belief that this work is collective, long-term, and unfinished.

But the moment that really sharpened my thinking came from the research.

Why we must go deeper than “22,000 ambassadors”

The independent study led by Dr Juliette Wilson-Thomas and Professor Mike Coldwell set out to answer a deceptively simple question: how do Teach First ambassadors enact change, and how does that change show up over time?

What the research makes very clear is this: ambassadors are not one homogeneous group moving in the same way, at the same pace, or with the same levers of influence.

Treating the community as a single audience flattens its richness and limits its impact.

Instead, the researchers developed a typology of changemaking, grounded in Pantić’s model of teacher agency for social justice, looking at purpose, competence, autonomy, and reflexivity. Importantly, this is not a personality test or a hierarchy. These are patterns of action and influence, shaped by career stage, context, and opportunity, and people move between them over time.

Find out how ambassadors are creating change across education and beyond.

Read the Ambassador Impact Report

Five ways Change Makers show up

The research identifies five broad types of Change Makers:

• Pathmakers: those operating at a strategic or policy level, shaping systems and structures at scale.
• Luminaries: issue-driven innovators and advocates, often leading work on specific social justice challenges.
• Cultivators: school-level leaders translating values into culture, practice, and sustained improvement.
• Sustainers: consistent, relational practitioners whose impact is deep, daily, and often understated.
• Torch Holders: those who have stepped back from active changemaking for a period, but remain mission-aligned and carry the values forward.

What matters here is not the labels, but the insight.

Impact looks different at different moments for all of us, and all of these roles matter.

The research also shows that ambassadors’ ability to enact change is shaped not just by individual motivation, but by professional context, policy environments, and life stage. Some ambassadors use favourable policy windows to drive large-scale reform. Others sustain change through consistency, care, and presence in classrooms over many years. All are essential.

What this means for how we build community

This is where the work gets practical.

To maximise the findings of the research, then our approach to the ambassador community has to evolve. For a variety of reasons we have adopted a one-size-fits-all approach over the past few years, but it’s clear this will never serve a community this diverse, and it risks disengaging the very people most ready to contribute.

Instead, we are using this typology as an analytical lens to review our work.

• How do we create different entry points for contribution, depending on where someone is in their journey?
• How do we support people to move between modes of changemaking, rather than locking them into a category?
• How do we better recognise that stepping back is not disengagement, and that leaving teaching is not leaving the mission?
• How do we design engagement that respects autonomy, builds reflective practice, and values contribution beyond visibility?

This is an academic approach to segmentation, not a marketing one. It’s about understanding behaviour, context, and motivation, and then designing support that meets people where they are.

What is a Change Maker, really?

I was recently asked how you know a Teach First ambassador is a Change Maker? My instinctive answer was “they believe in the mission”. But I don’t think that’s quite right.

The mission brings the movement together. Changemaking goes beyond believing in the mission.

Change Makers are the people who go where it’s hardest.

Who wrestle with complexity rather than bypass it. Who hold a restless belief in the possible, even when progress is slow.

They don’t wait on the sidelines. If there’s a problem, they act. If there’s a gap, they fill it. If there’s an important conversation, they make sure they’re in the room, or they build the table themselves.

That instinct, more than any job title or career path, is what connects this community across 23 years.

And it’s why it’s no coincidence that, time and again, Teach First ambassadors show up as Change Makers in the system.

Find out how ambassadors are creating change across education and beyond.

Read the Ambassador Impact Report