Creating a strong global community for collective impact - Chevening Networking question

Final essay submission for the Chevening scholarship. Would love to see any suggestions for improvement as the deadline gets closer. Thanks so much!

NETWORKING QUESTION

Chevening is looking for individuals with strong networking skills, who ...

(minimum word count: 100 words, maximum word count: 500 words)

My commitment to building strong and trusting relationships goes beyond achieving professional success. It is a guiding principle for my desire to be a part of a community that truly believes in the power of collective impact. This desire has driven me to seek countless opportunities to meet, learn, debate, explore and collaborate with like-minded, dedicated, informed and passionate professionals not only from my own sector and home country (India) but also with leaders, innovators, experts and social change agents from across the globe.

Over the past 3 years I have had the wonderful opportunity to be a part of two extraordinary networks that have changed my perspective in a significant way. The ...................... and ........................ programs in the United States have been instrumental in connecting me with some of the world's most intelligent, knowledgeable, talented, humble and open-minded young leaders, all dedicating their time and emotions to making their communities better places. Through active collaboration, listening and asking thoughtful questions, I have been able to gain their trust, develop friendships and genuinely learn a lot from their interests, opinions and thought processes.

It is no coincidence then that I have been trusted to lead the alumni programming for our US based ............... alums. Over the past year, as the US Program Manager for ................, I have substantially increased alumni engagement through consistent personal contact and encouragement. By focusing on concentrated strategies, I was able to successfully design and implement chapter renewal processes for our existing chapters, spearheaded efforts to launch 3 new citywide chapters in the US, and ultimately promote long term strategic thinking among chapter leaders through stronger commitment to events geared towards expanding the ................. community (viz. promoting.......... recruitment through chapter events, collaborating with community partners for greater local impact etc)

In the future, as a Chevening scholar, I hope to leverage these skills to deepen engagement and connections between the Chevening community and my broader network of like-minded social sector professionals from across the world. By overlapping these two networks I hope to draw synergies in developing new solutions to old and systemic problems in my home country through cross pollination of ideas and best practices learned. Additionally, I hope to share opportunities for continued professional and personal development for the benefit of all alumni by tapping into timely professional development skills building sessions, career counseling and resources that maximize our impact as managers, systems thinkers and global leaders. And lastly, I would also like to promote a strong support system within the community that will help us reflect on our sense of purpose and build the resiliency needed to continue to thrive throughout our careers.

Imran, I can understand the importance of these networks to you. You are an activist by nature. However, Chevening is not about activism. The scholarship is all about developing future leaders who can enact changes through network contacts in a professional manner. If you want this essay to be of any value to your scholarship application, you will find a way to focus only on your professional network development. That is what the prompt indicates and that is what you should deliver. The prompt is specific about its content. You should never alter the content to suit what you think you should be presenting. That will automatically disqualify your application. Therefore, you have to write about your profession related network, not the social network. Unless, you can connect your social network somehow to your professional network. If you can't then don't risk a disqualification based on a technicality.

@Holt-

Mary, thank you so much for reviewing my essay. I just wanted to say that all of these connections are part of my professional network and not social. In my current capacity as US Program Manager, I am responsible for alumni engagement for all our fellowship graduates. And I hope to share examples of how I have done that through strategic and tactical support in building this professional alumni network for my organization.

I am not sure if this comes across as intended in the essay. If not can you please help me figure out the best way to ensure that this response doesn't convey my personal social network but more so the professional network that I have helped foster for my organization much in a similar way as Chevening does to engage its own alumni through various events involving the Chevening scholars

Dear Imran

Perhaps your message comes across less clear because you blanked out the names of the programs you were involved in for the sake of privacy in this forum. But after reading your essay, I am still unsure what line of work or study you are in. The contributor above recommended that you focus more on your professional network development. If inserting the names of the organisations fails to achieve this, I would suggest you elaborate a bit more about the actual work you are referring to. You use very nice English phrases and all, but it all comes across as a bit "fluffy"... Maybe you can add an example of something that you managed to organize / solve / improve by using your US alumni network?

Kind regards