Summary of four Better Way London cells discussions about Leadership
In November and December 2017, our London cells each talked about how to develop a leadership style that would help deliver a Better Way. This is a summary of the main points, with notes of the individual discussions also available below.
The problem
A command and control model of leadership is deeply culturally embedded in Britain, including in the public and social sectors. Leaders are expected to focus on the management of their agencies and on the delivery of specified outputs and outcomes, treating their organisations like industrial production units, rather than acting as change agents. CEOs feel under pressure to conform to (gendered) stereotypes and adopt behaviours that are neither natural nor effective. Competition between leaders, rather than collaboration, is ingrained.
However, many of the issues facing society cannot be solved by a single agency, or even by a number of organisations working together. There are many factors affecting health and well-being, for example. A complex system of influences and organisations are important and individuals and communities are critical actors.
The social sector is also not exercising a sufficiently strong thought leadership role in society, tending to comment on the agendas set by others in order to seek marginal changes rather than pointing out fundamental problems in the system and arguing for paradigm shifts. It tends to talk politics, rather than about what really matters to people.
What is needed is a bigger scale of ambition and more collaboration and shared leadership.
Shared leadership is essential to solve complex issues
Shared leadership is not something simply exercised by people at the top of organisations. It is about exercising influence and happens when others choose to follow you, not because of a job title. This is not about becoming a ‘saviour’ or a ‘guru’ but about empowering others to become leaders too.
This kind of leadership is exercised in collaboration and demonstrates the generous qualities which can be summarised as ‘love’. Qualities of respect, kindness, generosity, nurturing, enabling and empowering are all important. Such leadership is more about demonstrating the right behaviour and values than setting specific goals from on high. In one organisation, for example, everyone is encouraged to exercise ‘nine habits’ which include hope and love and to attend workshops with a mix of people at different levels of the organisation to explore how to put these qualities into practice.
The evidence points to shared leadership being far more effective than conventional models in relation to so-called complex issues, as opposed to ‘complicated’ and ‘simple’ ones. These distinctions are drawn from science, which distinguishes between systems that may be complicated, such as computers, but are man-made and systems that are so complex that we will probably never fully understand them, such as the human brain or a rain forest. Command and control forms of leadership have their place in relation to simple and even complicated problems and this is an important message. Any organisation is likely to face a mix but in complex situations, leadership is about getting the conditions right for everyone involved to be able to work with complexity. This is achieved, for example, through the creation of networks within and across organisations, and showing leadership by demonstrating core values rather than giving instructions or setting precise goals. It is recognised that the final outcome may be unknowable when the work starts.
Obstacles to shared leadership
Shared leadership is not prevalent and creating it is challenging:
Lip-service is often given to shared leadership but change will not happen unless it is shown that it works and will be recognised and rewarded.
Network-orientated leaders often find it hard to access circles of power and for their voices to be heard.
The versions of shared leadership tried out in the collectives of the 1970s and 80s were often chaotic and often led to factional dominance.
Community development, including community organising, is intended to grow bottom-up leadership but there is a danger that citizens themselves end up adopting command and control leadership models.
Often people do not see themselves as leaders and do not recognise the power and resources available to them. They lack self-efficacy.
As well as making the case for shared leadership, we need to have a better sense of what it means in practice and how best to embed and promote it.
Context matters, and culture and systems are important too
Better Way members recognised that leadership does not work in isolation. Culture and systems are important too. Indeed one member had come to the conclusion that it is systems change that brings real change, not individual leaders. The Sheffield Microsystem Coaching Academy, for example, trains coaches to work in the health service to redesign services, involving patients in the process. A RSA report identified three forms of power important to leadership – personal agency; the power of shared values and norms; and the hierarchical power of expertise.
Context matters too. What might work in a start up industry would not work in the culture of the public sector.
Some issues to explore further
What are the leadership behaviours and practices that we want to promote and how can we best articulate and embed them.
How can we convince others that a change is needed and would work? Can we deploy the complex/complicated/simple issue paradigm to persuade more leaders to adopt this thinking?
How can we build more self-efficacy and belief in those who do not see themselves as leaders?
How can we encourage greater thought leadership in the general media around the Better Way principles?
Notes of the discussion within individual cells:
Founding cell, 15 November 2017
2nd London cell, 29 November 2017
Note from Better Way London Cell 4: Leadership
Building Better Way Leadership, London cell 4: 13 December 2017
In complex environments when we face ‘wicked problems’ a command or management model of leadership is never effective. We need a leadership approach that recognises that a single agency will not produce desired change, that what is needed is the engagement of different agencies willing to work towards a common goal, and that leaders therefore need the skills necessary to bring many people and agencies together to work for a common cause. Keith Grint has written about this, making the following distinctions:
Command―critical problems―physical
Management―tame problems―rational
Leadership―wicked problems―emotional
Social sector organisations are usually dealing with ‘wicked’ overlapping problems, where multiple categories can apply in any one instance (eg homelesssness, mental health, offending, family breakdown). The need is to go ‘above and beyond’ such categories but leaders, whether acting as commissioners or providers, constantly collude in ‘officialising’ social behaviour. They adopt managerial practices which fulfil contracts and give the appearance of outcomes but simply don’t work for people, who end up receiving multiple interventions at many points driven by many leaders, all claiming they have created change, when in fact they probably haven’t.
In certain contexts we do need leaders able to fulfil command and management roles, they do sometimes need to have the influence and authority to get people to do hard things. But we should beware of people who feel too comfortable in such roles!
When we see leadership only in terms of command and management we tend to associate this with physical qualities, tall men in particular, and these forms of leadership tend therefore to become excluding and can have intimidating effects.
The RACI or RASCI models are widely used (implicitly if not explicitly). This identifies different roles in any change process:
R - Responsible - who is responsible for carrying out the entrusted task?
A - Accountable (also Approver) - who is responsible for the whole task and who is responsible for what has been done?
S - Support - who provides support during the implementation of the activity / process / service?
C - Consulted - who can provide valuable advice or consultation for the task?
I - Informed - who should be informed about the task progress or the decisions in the task?
This approach can be useful for simple managerial processes, where distinct functions can be allocated, but can become problematic when dealing with complexity, where the distinctions are sometimes unhelpful. In many social organisations we expect our senior staff to prioritise managerial tasks, and fail to distinguish between management and leadership, and as a consequence our CEOs spend too much time on the former and not enough on the latter.
Indeed, social sector leaders often present themselves as directive leaders, capable of strong centralised management, in order to win contracts and appeal to funders, even when they know this is not good enough.
So what are the alternative forms of leadership more suited to dealing with complex social change?
A shift towards shared leadership perhaps? But truly shared leadership is very difficult to achieve. Looking back, those who experienced collectives in the 1970s and 1980s found them ultimately unsatisfactory. Often chaotic, they would wear people down, and in fact usually created conditions for factional dominance. Looking forward we should not be complacent that new forms of organisation will necessarily generate a shift towards shared leadership: many social entrepreneurs and tech entrepreneurs are highly directive and controlling in their behaviours.
We can sometimes see a more distributed and networked form of leadership in smaller, local, neighbourhood based community organisations, where there can be a much closer connection with beneficiaries (‘they could so easily be my daughter or my grandpa…’), where managers and staff and volunteers can have a high level of day to day interaction, and where leaders can be more likely to lend a direct hand in service delivery.
Network-oriented leaders, who are very good at working with people, rather than telling people what to do, can be effective in such settings, but they often find it hard to gain access to circles of power, and when they do gain access, to be heard. This applies both to external gatherings of ‘sector leaders’, as well as internally where people who are less directive in their behaviours are often left out of key discussions.
As Toby Lowe from Newcastle University argues, we need to understand that organisations don’t produce outcomes, but that whole systems do. Good leadership therefore means avoiding the impulse to claim outcomes for a single organisation, but instead requires the skills to build a distinctive role within a wider system which produces change, and explain the value of ‘what we do’ in a very different way.
At a local level, it can be easier for everyone in leadership roles to get to know each other, and build system-wide working relationships, although it is also striking how often this doesn’t happen, and it is often the case that local agencies are not aware of each other, or if they are, they have a poor relationship.
The role of funders can be significant in this. Funders who are closer to whole systems are better able to support concerted and meaningful social change. The Big Lottery Fund for example struggles with this, because distance make it difficult to understand what added value a particular agency can bring, whereas local funders are, at least in theory, more able to build relationships and make the connections necessary to support whole system change, and support the models of leadership which allow collaborative working to flourish.
Note from Better Way London Cell 3: Leadership
Note of Better Way discussion in the third London cell, 4 December 2018
The group was discussing Better Way leadership, and was opened by some thoughts from Peter Holbrook, reflecting on the literature. It is said that a leader ‘knows, goes, and shows the way’ and that leaders have an ability to empower others and to do the right thing. Leaders should seek not to take the credit but be willing to take responsibility. Various styles were recognised, including coercive; authoritative; affiliative and democratic. Sometimes leadership was there but people do not recognise it in themselves. It can feel hard to lead the cavalry when you don’t feel comfortable on a horse.
One could get lost in the advice from the literature but ultimately one should treat others as one wished to be treated. The qualities of respect, kindness, generosity, nurturing, enabling and empowering others are important. Personal values matter and one should keep on learning and reflecting and act with love. This point resonated powerfully in the following discussion.
Love – warmth and accessibility - was not much talked about in leadership but was undoubtedly important, it was agreed. In the Oasis network, they seek to practice at all levels and in everything they do ‘nine habits’ which include joyfulness, patience, peace, love, self-control, hope and perseverance. Leadership requires ‘followship’. Their hope is that through this approach they are supporting lots of people who can be influential. It is about creating the right culture.
Generosity of spirit and the practice of love was not, however, the dominant model, the group reflected. Co-operation was talked about but competition was more common and the qualities that were more often rewarded were self-importance, lack of humility and ruthlessness. Leaders were often expected to grow an organisation and were judged on its financial stability. Under pressure, people often defaulted to a more primitive way of operating. It was argued that there is a need for more honesty amongst CEOs about leadership and what worked.
We argued for a bigger scale of ambition amongst social sector leaders and to look beyond one organisation. Gay rights had been achieved by more than one organisation and not by making minor adjustments to the status quo. Partnership was essential to achieve this kind of change.
We explored the model of ‘open sourcing’ in IT, which can make commercial sense. Resources are freely available but free input is also gained. At the same time companies like Google are knocking out competition and allowing no scope for plurality.
We reflected on the fact that sometimes people feel powerless to achieve change when in fact there are many resources and levers available to them. Leadership was partly about belief in ones own efficacy. Community organisers can help here and are another example of leadership. It would also be great to see more confidence from staff at all levels to push for change and believe in themselves as leaders.
The two questions from the group that could be explored further by the network are:
How we can embed a style of leadership that embodies collaboration and the generous quality of love.
How to create a sense of self-efficacy to unlock leadership amongst those at all levels of an organisation and in all communities who do not currently feel ‘comfortable on the horse’.
Note from Better Way London Cell 2: Leadership
Note of Better Way cell discussion, 2nd cell, 29 November 2017
The topic of discussion was a Better Way leadership and it was introduced by Richard Wilson who said that he had come to the view that it was system changes, rather leadership, that drives through real change.
One example of this was Sheffield Microsystem Coaching Academy, which hopes ‘to create a culture of sustained patient-centred continuous quality improvement’ within health services in Sheffield and trains ‘coaches in the art of team coaching and the science of quality improvement to work with front line teams to help the redesign the services they deliver…. It encourages coaches to deeply involve patients in their micro-system improvement, to help group members understand the value to the customer, drawing on tools including patient interviews and stories, patient representation in microsystems, and fictional patients. ‘
Richard said that this approach had really worked and as a consequence he had become really interested in geographical and issues based approaches. Harthill Consulting, which has worked with banks to encourage staff to think about their values and really apply them, is another example of this kind of technique. Some other examples of systems changes would be to give staff radical control over their pay and hours. At an aeronautics company, Matblack Systems they had a highly distributed model of leadership in which everyone had their own company. This was not going to work in the public sector, though. Context is key. Different contexts require different structures.
NESTA’s 100 days rapid response programme was considered as an example of trying to achieve systems change by bringing leaders together to explore radically different ways of doing things within a 100 days. It was a great idea but one experience of it in a local government context was that it was chaotic, involved few people working in the area and engaged no users of the services, and was too driven by a narrow and pre-determined view about the solution.
We talked about the problems of delivering change in local government. One issue was that if one leader who is sponsoring change moved on, things no longer progress. Or local authorities expect the voluntary sector to pick up innovations rather than carrying them through themselves. It could be very difficult to implement asset-based approaches when a top down approach is deeply ingrained. Systems changes could help guard against these problems. The Early Action Task Force talks of change only happening when three things occur: leadership and culture and systems change.
One type of systems review is carried out by Vanguard Consulting, which Locality had used to create its report, Saving Money by Doing the Right Thing, which identified how money was being wasted by the public sector by not sorting out problems early on and moving people on to multiple agencies who were unable to resolve their issues alone.
We discussed the idea that leadership was multi-faceted. A RSA report had found three forms of power were important to leadership – personal agency; the power of shared values and norms; and the hierarchical power of expertise.
It was certainly the case leadership does not necessarily take place at the top of organisations. Leadership can equate to influence, which can happen at any level. It is sometimes a question of finding the people who know how to make things happen.
If problems are complex, the literature in this area confirms that this always requires distributive leadership. This is not the case for simple problems, which can require a top down approach, nor for so-called ‘complicated’ problems. This analysis was powerful and chimed with the experience of the group that context mattered hugely and that no one leadership style was always appropriate. However, when it came to complex issues, on which both the voluntary and public sectors were often engaged, collaboration and partnership was critical.
The group was very struck by this last analysis and suggested that we further develop it in the Better Way network, as it could unlock fresh thinking about how to change services for the better.
Note from Better Way London Cell 1: Leadership
Building Better Way Leadership
Founding London cell: 15 November 2017
Our dominant culture of leadership runs very deep:
People crave strong leadership, someone to lead the way, someone with the answers, someone to believe in.
The dominant leadership model is highly gendered, emphasising characteristics which are seen as essentially masculine. Leaders are expected to be supremely confident, decisive, directive and willing to punish weak performance.
Leadership is defined by job title and an assumption of power and authority accompanies the title.
When people become CEOs it not only changes their behaviours but also that of people around them. If a CEO expresses doubt or lack of confidence a common response is, don’t worry, of course you are a leader, you wouldn’t be a CEO otherwise.
Others are not always prepared to share in leadership functions, especially in hierarchical organisations where financial reward is reserved for those in senior roles (‘what, you are asking me to do more, without rewarding me for this?’).
We are up against a major societal shift, where values associated with highly competitive and even cut-throat competitive business environments have infected our core sense of ourselves. Fifty years ago, when asked to describe themselves, most people used ‘obituary words’, typically focusing on character and quality of their relationships with others, whereas today most people use ‘CV words’, such as effective, impactful, smart etc. It is hardly surprising therefore that we place high value in the myth of the high-achieving command and control leader.
Better Way leadership might be something rather different. It might recognise that leadership is what happens when other people choose to follow you, not because of a job title. It might therefore mean divesting hierarchical power. It might also mean avoiding the impulse to present assured ‘solutions’ to complex problems, and instead cultivating a willingness to embrace uncertainty, and to work with others to find better ways forward. In other words, to create the conditions in which others can discover their ability to generate positive change and others can become more powerful.
This requires not only a shift away from controlling and punishing behaviours, but also a shift away from ‘rescuing’ behaviours. Better Way leaders should not see themselves as saviours. As the American labour leader Eugene Victor Debs said a century ago, ‘I would not be a Moses to lead you into the promised land even if I could, because if I led you in, someone else would lead you out. You must use your heads as well as your hands, and get yourself out of your present condition.’
Some leaders like to say ‘don’t come to me with a problem – come with a solution’. They believe that by saying this they are empowering others, encouraging them to take responsibility. But in fact that is not always the case, it can be an intimidating practice. What is more often needed is a willingness to engage with others to understand problems, and help them find a way forward.
It is a necessary and legitimate part of the charity CEO role to be a spokesperson, and we do need people who can operate on the public stage, challenging injustice, calling for action, and it is not always necessary to put forward solutions. Some of us thought that we could never make our Better Way propositions the basis of a mass movement or get the media excited. But others thought there was real potential to shift the public narrative. But that would mean speaking and acting differently from politicians in the media and talking about fundamental human values and questions, rather than simply accepting the current framework in which politicians work and seeking opportunities to fine-tune the policies they put forward. Talking human, rather than politics.
We discussed why so few third sector leaders have a big public profile. In the public arena, leadership requires ‘followship’. If we don’t get invited to the Today programme or Question Time or Breakfast TV it is partly because the ways we present ourselves are simply not interesting enough, we don’t provide sufficient ‘spectacle’. Camila Batmanghelidjh was a famous exception in this regard, but that did not make her a good social sector leader. On public platforms those who act as spokespeople for social change need to come across as authentic, driven by personal values, and also capable of displaying an ability to listen.
Various forms of community development, including community organising, are designed to grow bottom-up citizen leadership. However, there is always the risk that citizens who take on the role of leaders simply replicate the old way of doing things, ending up like Napoleon in Animal Farm. Better Way leadership will always need to be vigilant about the abuse of power.
A recent report by the RSA identifies three forms of power at community level: ‘the power arising from the individualistic agency of people, the solidaristic power of shared values and norms within communities and the hierarchical power of leadership and expertise within institutions.’ It claims that when ‘the interactions between all three powers come together in pursuit of common goals, much can be achieved.’ Leadership therefore, in its conventional sense, needs to be seen as just one element of the systems of power which can drive social change.
Perhaps we need to reject the idea that leadership means ‘an individual at the top’. It is not always an individual, and not always at the top. We must stop conflating leadership with managers and CEOs. The concept of ‘influence’ seems helpful. We all know people who are highly influential on those around them, and they are not always found at the top of organisations, in fact they can be found at all levels including junior levels. Doing much more to recognise and celebrate such people, and redefining leadership as the capability to exert influence in pursuit of common goals and so create the conditions for positive change, feels like an important part of the Better Way narrative. Imagine the possibilities if everyone in an organisation was a leader?
Some questions for further discussion:
How can we produce strong leadership, where others choose to follow, without leaders claiming they have the answers?
Should we seek to redefine leadership as ‘influence’, recognising that effective influencers are found in many places, not just in a single individual at the top.
How can we disperse leadership in an unequal power system?
How might leaders talk about the Better Way principles to inspire others?
Note from Better Way Organisations cell 4
Building Better Way organisations
London cell 4: 11th October 2017
The topic we discussed was how to build a Better Way organisation, following on from an earlier dinner on this topic by three other London cells.
We started by noting that we need to move away from notions of leadership and see ourselves as change-makers, and this requires an ability to build relationships rather than issue directions. It also means that we need to live with change around us, not treating organisations or our operating environments as static.
Those of us who are paid to work in social sector organisations are mainly from well-off backgrounds and we rely on these organisations for our income and prosperity. There is therefore pressure on leaders of organisations to maintain the status quo, to protect staff, allow us to pay our mortgages, ultimately to prevent us becoming ‘beneficiaries’. We are running essentially conservative organisations designed to keep things as they are, not to generate change.
We practice open recruitment for posts, but we know that this is not producing more diverse organisations, and inclusion and equality of opportunity is more talked about than practised.
We constantly promote deficit thinking – and we cannot just blame this on funders.
In many social sector organisations it is difficult to get people to talk about wider purpose and politics. We have ‘professionalised’ our staff teams, creating distinct roles, producing silos within our organisations, with a narrowness of function and outlook.
Cambridge House recognised these problems. It took various steps, including recruiting staff for 12 months only from St Giles Trust (ex-offenders). It created opportunities in the working day for staff to come together to have tea and cake and conversation. It closed down pro-bono relationships with corporates which were not adding value. It developed new strands of work, which required different ways of working, for example a Safer Renting initiative, supporting vulnerable tenants who are victimised by criminal landlords or negatively affected by enforcement action.
Sometimes such actions encounter opposition from staff and managers who want to keep things as they were. Change is difficult for everyone, but sometimes we need to remind our teams that the people they are there to help are having a much worse time. And we must overcome a ‘them and us’ mentality. A good question to ask – would you invite a service user to supper?
Galvanising action through fear is not the best means of achieving longer term change. In organisations which are driven by the need to protect their own institutional interests it can be particularly difficult, especially for staff at more junior levels, to make a stand against poor service practice, or against a target culture which is failing service users.
Organisations operate at different layers – the senior level holds the relationship with funders and commissioners, playing the game to keep things going, and this is kept entirely separate from accountability to communities. As in a trifle, the custard never permeates the jelly! The more layers of management there are between decision makers and the community the more it is difficult to ‘walk the talk’.
Many celebrated organisations are too dependent on a visionary, charismatic leader. When Wonsoon Park, founder of the Hope Institute in South Korea, was elected Mayor of Seoul and left the organisation, it lost its innovative edge. In contrast the Social Innovation Exchange (SIX) seeks to operate as a network organisation, with a very horizontal structure. At the same time it is attempting to operate an ‘anti-consultancy’ model, not making false claims of expertise, but rather building networks to connect innovators, for example creating a ‘social innovation community’ across Europe. But this is never easy and it needs to present itself in more traditional ways in order to win funding bids.
We recognise that we need to operate in the ‘real world’, that we must not retreat into a virtuous and self- congratulatory comfort zone. All organisations we create for social change are bound to be imperfect. We need to make constant complex adjustments and should not unfairly malign others, eg local authorities, who face equivalent problems. Nor should we categorically dismiss the private sector: there are some socially driven organisations which use private sector company structures because they allow for more operating flexibility than charity or other social models.
Having said that, we also need to recognise when an organisation becomes part of the problem. Some form of organisation is always necessary, but once something exists its inevitable tendency is to maintain itself at all costs. We should therefore encourage people to use existing organisations rather than setting up new ones.
We also need to get better at brokerage, providing platforms and connections through which people can come together, experience a sense of belonging, and from which many useful activities can emerge. At a local level, churches used to be good at that, as did friendly societies. Does a more hopeful future lie with new communities of shared belief, modern forms of mutual aid? But if so, we have to recognise that the forces stacked against this are immense. In so many areas of life positive human relationships are under threat, or have been all but eliminated, and this makes it harder than ever to build solidarity.
And yet, the impulse towards association runs very deep. The language we use and the stories we tell can remind us of this, and can build the confidence to drive change. Small changes in language can signal a deeper intention: at the Clitterhouse Farm Project the local volunteers who are bringing a historic Victorian farm in North London into community ownership are called ‘stewards’, and this works because the people involved recognise that their role is both responsible and reciprocal, and that they are all playing a part in a bigger and enduring story.
Note from Better Way Organisations cell 3
Building Better Way organisations
London cell 3: 5th October 2017
The topic we discussed was how to build a Better Way organisation, following on from an earlier dinner on this topic by two other London cells.
We started by noting that collaboration, and sharing, can produce added value. But a great deal of what we learn through life pushes us in a different direction, towards individualised achievement. Indeed at school we are often taught not to share and even that sharing can be cheating.
And some of the language we use, ‘sharing economy’ and ‘social capital’ for example, reveals the extent of the problem: as if collaboration can only be validated through the concepts we use to describe competitive free market economics. We need better ways of telling the story, and we discussed the power of parable (as in the Biblical story of the loaves and fishes).
We noted that in the voluntary sector, as public funding has reduced and the operating environment has become more difficult, collaboration has sometimes improved. One example is the recent co-operation among race equality agencies, with joint bidding, potential mergers, etc. But equally external pressures can produce the opposite response, with agencies keeping their heads down and fighting their own corner, and ultimately disappearing. This was the case with BME-led housing associations in Yorkshire, which rejected the opportunity to merge, and instead were swallowed up by mainstream housing associations, and their community identity was lost.
Under pressure, in times of crisis, we tend to act in a highly directive way, in order to overcome problems, and get the job done, but this can develop a centralised culture of control which is hard to break. When we cannot find time for involvement of others we act on our ‘instincts’ which are an expression of values for good or for bad.
We touched on the precarious nature of contractual relationships to deliver public services in a climate of spending cuts: we become an instrument of the state, but progressively starved of capital and revenue, we become constrained and limited in what we can do, and trapped in a failing system with no way out. The introduction of private finance and social investment into this mix can make things even worse, as our organisations lose their sense of core purpose and their agendas become determined by commercial considerations.
We discussed the implications of the Grenfell Tower tragedy. On the one hand we observed that many agencies, including charities, were quick to stereotype the residents as poor, marginalised, and vulnerable people, inherently victims. But this misses out the rich variety of their lives, their considerable skills and talents, the range of occupations and wealth, the pride that many took in their homes, the network of neighbourliness in the tower block. As this demonstrates, there is a prevailing tendency for social sector organisations to think about beneficiaries, service users, communities in negative terms, as ‘them’ - essentially different from ‘us’.
On the other hand, we felt that over recent decades in many groups of low income residents, there has been a loss in collective identity and solidarity, and consequently in grass roots social campaigning. People are concerned with addressing their individual needs, but much less so in collective action.
So what can we do about all this?
We talked about the role of intermediaries, skilled individuals as well as agencies, which can create bridges between people with power and resources, and those who feel powerless. Such individuals and organisations (eg community ‘anchor’ organisations) can be valuable change agents, building connectivity and relationships.
We considered the notion of ‘radical listening’, discussed at another cell meeting recently, where the direction of listening is primarily directed towards communities rather than towards funders or government.
This brings profound implications for the types of organisations which can achieve most to bring about positive social change. Can we develop ‘buildings without walls’ – truly permeable organisational structures – which nevertheless can be capable of sustained existence? In such organisations diversity and connections between diverse groups and interests would become an obvious prerequisite for success rather than a token gesture.
We often claim, falsely, that our organisations deliver outcomes. It would be better to say that we sow seeds – nurturing growth and development in individuals, communities, systems. Or, to use a different metaphor, we walk alongside (‘accompaniment’) and by promoting social change we help to clear the path.
Note from Better Way Organisations cell 2
Building Better Way organisations
London cell 2: 2nd October 2017
The topic we discussed was how to build a Better Way organisation, following on from an earlier dinner on this topic by the founding cell.
We started with the Better Way principle: collaboration is better than competition. Steve Wyler gave an example: the School of Social Entrepreneurs had recently created a new form of grant funding called ‘match trading’: pound-for-pound grant funding which matches an increase in trading income. This is designed to incentivise and reward income generating activities, and therefore to achieve more sustainable social impact. Early results were extremely promising and the School had wondered whether to ‘patent’ the idea for its own organisational gain but decided instead to collaborate with others to build a shared brand and community of practice, believing that would better meet serve its own cause as well as the wider social sector.
Other examples were explored and the point was made that collaborations such as these also bring multiple benefits. Relationships of trust are formed that make it possible at a later point to work together on bids, for example. Being forced into social impact bonds and competitive behaviour often lead to attempts to create a market when it does not exist. The model often does not work for activity with a social purpose, where value is generated differently. An understanding of social purpose is a core strength of the social sector and can undermined by competitive models, it was argued. The sector should have more confidence. How about a delegation to Silicon Valley to bring our knowledge of social purpose to them? Despite their initial idealism and mission statements, the big social media companies are driven cynically by money not people.
The discussion then moved to the role of quality assurance processes in driving organisational improvement. The problem here, the group thought, is that they are often driven by external pressures from funders, including government, and are motivated by the need to prove worth to those in Government or in funders because of lack trust. They can become 'a theatrical performance', may encourage organisations to think inside rather than outside the box and may help to validate ‘zombie’ organisations that should no longer exist. True accountability, the group felt, comes from within. It is far better when organisations move toward ‘reflective practice’, asking themselves honest questions, creating a journey that may genuinely lead to change and not simply reproducing what has earlier been regarded as ‘best practice’.
There were systems changes that could help. Involving HR and aligning personnel systems to reinforce key behaviours, for example, with a golden thread from the mission and objectives of the organisation down to personal objectives. But there is a danger that these systems simply become top down and target driven and fail to create the kind of inspiration and greater autonomy that genuinely creates a Better Way. As one example given in the group illustrated, when you recruit on the basis of the purpose of the new job, rather than specifying a skill set or past experience, you may find people with a better match to what you really want and be able to allow them much greater autonomy. Clarity of purpose is vital.
Clarity of purpose can lead to some radical places. At Scope, we were told that a new CEO has recognised that by focusing on services they are only reaching 1000 people and he is recasting the organisation to be a facilitator not a service provider, which has had radical implication for staff and revenue numbers.
The right governance and leadership are what really matter, rather than the processes. Systems, and the maximising of income that are the current focus of many in the sector. That said, it was recognised that giving too free a rein could lead to problems like those seen at Kids Company. Financial disciplines and clarity not just about purpose were important. There was a healthy suspicion of management tools but a recognition that we can take from the best of them. Money mattered but only when related to mission and good leaders were good at recognising this.
Part of the difficulty of breaking free of current patterns of behaviour and organisational models is that there is not a common space for new conversations. Currently, some organisations dominate discussions, particularly funders, because of their power. We talked of creating ‘an open square’ or a neutral space so that everyone enjoys the same status. One example of this is in the Ignite project in Coventry, where they try to encourage different conversations through a ‘walk in the park’. Local authority members, leaders and residents take turns to speak to each other informally. Perhaps the voluntary organisations should invite funders to come to them to talk about shared objectives, rather than spending time filling out their application forms and pretending that the work of the organisation would meet the funders’ objectives precisely?
‘Driven by dreams, judged on delivery’ from the statement of intent of Community Links was discussed (and picked apart) as a potential model. The general view was it was important to keep sight of how well the organisation was doing in achieving its purpose but that the current funding model of delivery of outcomes or outputs has led to problems. One quotation, ‘I don’t deliver outputs, I sow seeds,’ struck a chord with many in the room because it highlighted the need to take risks and take a long view – ‘oak trees, not annuals’. It also captured the reality that voluntary organisations don’t change lives, despite often claiming this, individuals do. Instead, voluntary organisations ‘accompany’ people on their journey. ‘Sowing seeds’ encouraged ‘humility’ as one person put it, but also encouraged the confidence to articulate an alternative model to the creation of social value to that dominating the sector at present.
The rallying cry that emerged from the discussion was to stop thinking about organisations and start thinking about social change in relation to A Better Way. We need ‘activist leaders’ and the sector should be much bolder and braver about how it works and start being much more innovative about how things are done. It should unlock the potential of individual communities through ‘radical listening’ and put them, not the professionals in the organisations, more in control. One model of new working methods mentioned was Tech for Good, which is creating technology with ‘humankind in mind’.
These changes must be based on mutual trust and genuine dialogue between social partners, rather than just the box ticking of quality assurance systems. Clarity of purpose and an internal culture of honesty that encourages reflective practice and the pursuit of excellence in the delivery of that purpose is also critical.
Note from network discussions: Building Better Way organisations
Building Better Way organisations
Overview of discussions in four London cells, September and October 2017
The overarching thought coming through all our discussions is that we need to fundamentally rethink what it means to be an organisation when we are looking to deliver social change.
Funders are highly influential in what organisations do and how they behave and many of our members called for a different kind of dialogue and relationship with them driven by shared objectives. But we also identified many organisations and their leaders as part of the problem, if not the problem, bolstering a ‘them and us’ status quo, reinforcing deficit thinking, protecting their own privileges, and colluding with funders and policy makers to protect themselves as institutions rather than putting the interests of the people they work with first.
But it need not be like this. Some organisations are adopting more positive behaviours:
Deliberately reducing ‘them and us’ practices, expecting everyone to play a direct role in delivery, including staff at all levels as well as volunteers and service users, to create a broad community united by a shared endeavour.
Pushing against the boundaries of traditional organisational forms, creating flatter structures, focusing more on relationships, networks and collaborations, rather than ‘professional’ functions.
Intentionally sharing knowledge and skills, adopting an ‘open source’ approach, and discovering that more can be achieved in that way.
And some funders do work with those they fund in a collaborative and open-ended way.
Ultimately we are seeking to create ‘buildings without walls’, whereby competitive instincts and self-interest can be channelled towards collaborative and generous behaviours which are mutually advantageous. Of course it is difficult to change organisational culture and behaviour, and resistance can come from many quarters, but we can be tactically astute, with a willingness to be tough and determined but also pragmatic, recognising that we are operating within an ever-changing and imperfect world.
Some of us are practising ‘radical listening’ where our focus of attention is directed towards communities rather than governments and funders. We believe that a willingness to attract and engage with diversity, building bridges within and across communities and identities, is not a nice-to-have, but a necessary condition for success, and to ignore this constrains the potential for social change. And we are rethinking the role of leaders in organisations as social activists, who put change first, not organisations.
We seek excellence, and realise this is best achieved through reflective practice based on a culture of openness and clarity of purpose and peer challenge, rather than imposed quality assurance frameworks.
Organisational models are still dominated by competitive market based thinking, but we can produce a different narrative, emphasising the added benefits of collaboration. The language we use to describe our organisations, our roles within them, and our purpose, can be instrumental in driving change, for good or for bad.
We can also tell a more truthful story about what we can achieve, avoiding spurious claims about outcomes and impacts. We want to move away from the language of projects, and acknowledge that we are sowing seeds which may or may not flourish, and that our most productive and effective work is when we walk with people and with communities, helping them take the direction they want and take action to clear the paths of obstacles they encounter.
While we share a sense of urgency we understand that this way of working depends on the building of trust, and requires a sustained effort. Financial and competitive pressure can reinforce the tendencies to drift backwards into self-serving organisational behaviours, and to seek the quick fix, in order to give the appearance of success. But we try to resist this and encourage others to as well. We are looking for a more honest set of relationships within our own organisations, and with partner agencies and funders, and a new kind of conversation about how best to achieve common goals that transcends narrow organisational interests.
To read the full notes of the four discussions please click on the links below:
Note from Better Way Organisations Cell 1
Building Better Way organisations
London cell 1: 12th September 2017
What are the challenges of trying to live up to Better Way principles in an organisation? That was the issue we discussed in the founding cell on 12 September 2017.
Steve Wyler opened the discussion by saying that two of the greatest challenges facing organisations that aspired to A Better Way were 'collaboration is better than competition' and 'mass participation is better than centralised power.'
On collaboration, he gave the example of the Development Trusts Association, which he had led before it merged into Locality. Like many voluntary organisations in recent years, it had become increasingly competitive in its relationship with other bodies, as resources diminished. It had developed methodologies to support community ownership, which it wanted to exploit commercially, even considering taking out copyright. But eventually it realised that this was not consistent with its values and it shared its knowledge freely with 'competitors'. Counter-intuitively it found that collaboration increased its financial success and the organisation grew.
The truth the Development Trusts Association discovered was that the model of market competition actually did not fit the situation, since products emerged though shared knowledge, and the market (funding for community development) was not finite but was capable of being grown. Furthermore, the way to achieve sustainability was to grow a confident, capable and outward-looking movement, and this would attract resources and investment and produce income-generating opportunities. Collaboration also put them in a much stronger position to shape the localism agenda for the benefit of their members and whole community sector. The same instinct toward collaboration led to the merger with BASSAC and the creation of a larger and even more influential body, Locality.
As we talked about it, it became clear that a focus on cause, rather than the organisation, took you naturally to collaboration. The need to find resources to keep organisations afloat was, we reflected, a very common challenge but it could easily take organisations away from their core mission and values and threaten their underlying independence.
Competition has generally been seen as the primary way to achieve efficiency in the post-Thatcher era, and this needs to be challenged, we thought, at least in the social sphere.
However, we also considered whether competitive behaviours can sometimes produce positive outcomes. They can greatly improve value for money, particularly in the private sector. It is also true that some small local charities do need the pressure to change that competition can bring and some are not fit for purpose. And there are examples where competition for funds has driven innovation in the voluntary sector. Competition, we recognised, was not always about money. Reputations, and the desire to maintain control, could lead to competition too. It could be quite a natural force.
We also noted that competition can be combined with collaboration. We see this for example in many sports where high levels of competition exist (clubs competing for the best players; players competing against each other to be selected for teams; teams competing against other teams to win trophies) but within this collaboration among players in a team is essential for sporting success and among teams in a federation for financial success. Similar patterns are sometimes found in the commercial world. Should the social sector always be different, or not?
We agreed that competition is an inappropriate model for activities that rely on the delivery of a common purpose or wider cause. In the West London Zone, for example, organisations work together to achieve place-based impact.
Collaboration is therefore important but it can end up being cosmetic, as happened for example in many Single Regeneration Budget partnerships, and which still happens in many collaborations which are little more than a device to raise funds and achieve profile for individual organisations.,
We talked about how competition has led the voluntary sector to create ever-larger organisations to create apparent economies of scale, taking work from smaller ones. This can bring benefits in some cases, if done well, but it can also lead to 'diseconomies of scale' and poor social value, as argued by a Locality report on this subject, particularly when it comes to providing support to individuals facing complex problems. An industrial model for social issues does not work and small specialist and/or community-based organisations are often better placed to create social as opposed to financial value. The 'forest floor', not just the big trees that provide the canopy, can be just as important, we concluded.
We talked about how charitable foundations had themselves adopted increasingly competitive models and about the pros and cons of this. One example was where a consortium of funders had invited competitive bids for a fund, but the organisations involved asked if they could work collaboratively instead. The funders turned this idea down, losing an opportunity for different place-based organisations to combine forces and learning.
It is also common practice now for charitable foundations to go out to tender for work to be provided by voluntary sector organisations. But voluntary organisations, unlike private sector ones, cannot recoup this sometimes very costly development work (some of which will always be unsuccessful) through their profits, as they already operate on a shoe-string, and there is an opportunity cost to the sector in using up its scarce resources in competitive activity in this way. That said, it was understandable that foundations wanted to get the very best support for their projects and competition is currently the tried and tested method for doing so.
Britain is crying out for a new vision of how social change is achieved which puts collaboration and shared goals at its heart, we thought. This would replace the view that competition is the best means for delivering real value. The new vision would be anchored on collective goals and driven by a new kind of 'weightless engine' achieved through collaboration. Self-interest in this new vision would be seen as leading to collaboration, not competition, and would be recognised as being more productive than the pursuit of selfishness.
We then had a brief discussion about the value of mass participation and the difficulty of consulting widely when organisations are undergoing potentially fatal financial challenges under great time pressure. We discussed examples where Boards and senior teams had had to move swiftly to protect the future of organisations and the challenges this brought. Might the decisions have been better if more people had been involved? Could other solutions have been found? We recognised that there are situations where rapid decisions are required and leaders are forced to rely on internalised values and their focus on mission when they work in emergency 'fight or flight' mode. But the danger is that the Better Way principles are only 'fair weather' friends. The real test of an idea is whether it can survive a pounding and whether our propositions can survive in the real world. Part of the problem here is that our models of leadership, which are internalised and deeply cultural, can lead us to command and control behaviours in times of pressure. Shifting that leadership model is required. We do not have enough examples of distributed leadership in the voluntary sector or indeed elsewhere, we thought.
We ended up by reflecting that the Better Way propositions are not prescriptive. Collaboration may often be better than competition, but not always, and likewise with mass participation versus centralised power. We are trying to swing the pendulum, not create a rigid set of rules, and should not be disheartened if 'rules' are sometimes broken.
Note from Better Way London Cell: Grenfell Tower - what stories will be told?
Note from Better Way London cell 1 – 13 July 2017
We think that what happened at Grenfell has the power to significantly influence the post-Austerity narrative which has just begun to be opened up and it will undoubtedly shape future policy on social housing and possibly public services in important ways. We’ve been here before. We were reminded about The Story of Baby P which documented what actually happened but also found that it was the ‘political story’, rather than the facts, that shaped the changes in social policy that followed, and not necessarily for the good. This is something we think is likely to happen in the case of Grenfell. We’d like to influence that narrative if we can.
There are clearly many angles to the Grenfell story, with vested interests seeking to skew things in various directions (eg national government wanting to highlight local authority failures). Some elements of what happened will only be clear once the facts are fully established. But what is evident now is that the voices of residents, who had been raising concerns in their building for years, were not heard and their expertise based on lived experience was undervalued.
This is in contrast to what happened at Ronan Point (as documented by Frances Clarke from Community Links in the Guardian). There, residents and campaigners - aided and amplified by Community Links, an architectural expert and his students and the Evening Standard – managed to get the building tested and eventually demolished, along with many others like it across the country (though this was only half a success, as wider lessons were not learnt, as demonstrated by the recent tragedy). One of the campaigners in Glasgow remains active to this day, and in Glasgow building standards in tower blocks are apparently higher today.
The moral of these two stories, we thought, was that society would be so much better if we can get the best out of all of us. What happened after Grenfell does illustrate this to a degree, despite the chaos and terrible weaknesses it also exposed. The many acts of kindness, the breakdown of communication barriers between rich and poor local residents as a result of individual and corporate acts of care, the individual voices that have now been heard in the media, these have all led to insights that before were lacking and new potential alliances. The human right to a safe place to live, which has been lost in the tangle of what looks like weakened regulation and enforcement, limited budgets and possible profiteering, has risen to the surface again.
It is so easy to see the Grenfell story in terms of conflict, eg rich versus poor, state power versus citizen’s rights - and there may be justication in this. But we all agreed that this was potentially a “teachable moment” in which new inclusive alliances could be built, unexpected allies created, and fundamental rights acknowledged and protected. In the face of understandable anger, it is important not to assume that everyone else is the enemy or to assert that one party has a monopoly on the truth: others, also, have insights into what has happened and forensic approaches to establishing the facts are important, alongside the need for empathy and listening to those who have suffered.
Ronan Point was demolished because of a coalition between those who had expertise through lived experience (eg residents who could smell cooking through the floor from two stories down who knew therefore that any fire could not be fully self-contained, despite “expert” assurances to the contrary) and experts, academics and the media. If this could have happened when local residents raised concerns in Grenfell Tower, perhaps the tragedy would have been averted.
It is often true, as Danny Kruger argues in his Spectator think piece, that change ultimately only happens when one member of the elite persuades the rest of the elite, but such change is far more likely to happen when these kind of coalitions are built and in particular where local people are given power in the debate. This is not a matter of “giving” people’s voices, or enabling them to speak, we thought. People already have voices and in the era of social media have no difficulty expressing that voice. Indeed, the residents of Grenfell Tower were articulate and well informed and had made their points persistently.
The shift needed here is to create cultures and environments in which those voices are heard. Public services and politicians struggle to hear within existing structures and constraints and need support and facilitation. Papers like the Sun and Daily Mail can appear to be the enemy but could be an important force, if harnessed. It is a core role of the voluntary sector to help voices be heard, we observed. But it is not doing this job well, we thought (though this was not the case with Community Links and Ronan Point).
Finally, an interesting point about backlash and Ronan Point. Local people who were homeless in B & Bs were very angry with those who wanted to demolish Ronan Point as they just wanted a roof over their heads and this frustration broke out in destructive ways. This may happen again. Their voice must be heard too if Grenfell is not to result just in widescale demolition in a way that simply fuels the housing crisis and results in currently homeless people being pushed further down the waiting lists.
Note from June 2017 national gathering
The first Better Way gathering 7-8 June 2017, London
This gathering was a chance for people from the different Better Way cells across the country to come together to strengthen our collective thinking and evidence base, build an agenda for action, and shape the future direction of the Better Way initiative.
Over dinner on 7 June, 30 people came together to share ideas about the future, informed by an opening speech by a guest speaker, Julia Unwin, formerly CEO of the Joseph Rowntree Foundation. Julia is currently Carnegie Fellow and Chair of the independent Inquiry into the Future of Civil Society established by the Baring Foundation and a consortia of other charitable foundations.
Speaking about the Inquiry, Julia said that the intention is to open a national conversation and stimulate fresh thinking and practice, not simply to produce recommendations to government. Julia invited members of A Better Way to take part in the debate and began herself by making the following points:
Our society is ever more divided – not least generationally; in terms of education; across different UK nations; and cities versus rural.
We should not waste too much time defining civil society.
We know that people and place mean a great deal. Everyone needs somewhere to live, something to belong to, someone to love. People also need a sense of control.
Difficult times lie ahead but civil society can help people create a stronger and positive sense of identity and community and help people take back control.
Civil society has never been better placed to step in. It has an impressive history but it must look forward and must be imaginative, not be content to do the things it has always done.
A lively discussion then took place over dinner, and this continued over the next day at a workshop where members shared what they had learnt so far, generated ideas and identified network activities for the future. In discussion, here are some of the points made:
Our task is to take the Better Way propositions and ‘convert common sense into common practice’. It is useful to remember that ‘the future is on the periphery’ - we must be future focused but must not forget about the inspiring examples in our past and in current practice and in particular the transformative power of community based action and mutual support.
We must look to ourselves, not others for change. In an uncertain political and economic environment, it is all the more important to unlock the energies of ourselves and of our people and communities rather than simply lobbying for change in government. Too often accountability in the voluntary sector has been seen as an upwards exercise to government, because of the money they have given, but the Better Way model must be mass participation and accountability to people and communities. There was an interesting discussion re the Dutch Buurtzorg model of neighbourhood care and why this is proving difficult to replicate in the UK context, where so much is controlled from the centre.
Putting the Better Way propositions into practice unlocks new energy and resources locally. We heard from activity in Hastings, Taunton and Coventry, where in places which have suffered many unsuccessful attempts to tackle inequality and deprivation, change communities of residents and front-line workers are taking action, in line with the Better Way propositions, pushing at the boundaries of conventional thinking about communities and services. The Heart of Hastings Community Land Trust is taking a mass participation approach to tackling dereliction and building community capability in the Ore Valley. A micro-provider network in Taunton has created opportunity for local self-employed care providers to provide services to local people in their community for a modest fee, with accreditation from Community Catalysts, keeping skills and wealth circulating within the community. A ‘mind the gap’ initiative in Coventry takes public sector leaders and decision makers out of the ‘dead spaces’ where decisions are usually made, into walk-and-talk sessions in parks and city centres with front line workers and residents.
The stories we tell – and how we tell them - really matter. Telling the story is a key way forward to make the Better Way real, to unlock belief, commitment and action. By drawing on the rich and positive experience around us we can ‘give ideas friends’. We also need to be willing to be braver and more outspoken in what we say. We can learn from the public narrative model of storytelling, starting with the self, then us, moving to why this is urgent now and ending with a call to action. This is more dynamic than case studies, which all too often remain "on the shelf".
Understanding the barriers to change is important and we need to do more of it. For example, the scaling up model is wrong and we should stop defining success by size but rather by the extent to which we are building the conditions for human relationships to flourish – ‘good rather than big’. Another example is that we need to unlearn almost everything we are conventionally taught about leadership - the role of social activists is to grow the capacity for change making in others, not simply to lead the change ourselves. And we should give much greater prominence to the role of the front-line, and encourage the blurring of lines between service users and paid workers.
The Better Way propositions are often given lip-service but not followed in practice - we are beginning to develop pointers for applying them well. For example, on co-production, we have started to evolve a litmus test (questions to ask: is people’s time valued; does everyone have the same information; who makes the decisions; does change happen as a result?). We can also develop distinctions that will help develop better practice eg between self-efficacy and co-production at a community level to create co-design.
Organisations as well as communities and services can be transformed by the Better Way propositions and become beacons. In discussion, we started to builda shared sense of what makes for a Better Way organisation- eg clarity of purpose; an ability to describe desired change; deep listening to service users/customers and other stakeholders; walking the talk in everything we have control over; generous and collaborative leadership where the common good is put before institutional interest; a practice of sustainable development; permeable models which allow users, staff and others, to play different roles at different times; honest story-telling which may include for example a collective-impact narrative which acknowledges that positive change is usually the result of several agencies working together; and radical transparency which provides insight into the benefits and disbenefits produced by an organisation.
A question to explore further is how best to encourage organisations to align their princples and behaviours along these lines while avoiding the kinds of standard-setting or quality assurance mechanisms which too often produce ‘gaming’ rather than real change - and which in any case others might do better. Another concern is that we become too focused on improving and preserving existing organisations when real change may be generated in other ways, and by very different groups. Indeed, we should be encouraging the breaking down of institutional walls and boundaries – permeable platforms may well represent a better future than many current organisational models. Possibly we can make progress by preparing ‘provocations’ designed to stimulate organisational reflection and change, but which are not prescriptive.
We must widen the network. This must include bringing young people with us, but not in a tokenistic/’bussing in’ way. We must go where the energy is but should try to stop the network becoming a civil society one alone and make it (naturally) more diverse. We should also welcome people into the network who can bring insight into ways in which emerging technology can help to advance the Better Way propositions
We want to build collaborations across the cells and the network will develop the IT support ("the scaffolding") to facilitate it. There is a real energy and interest within the network in working on certain areas, such as developing the stories that will be the foundation of a future call to action, new models of leadership and how to ‘bite the hand that feeds you’.
In conclusion, it was agreed that (subject to resources for the network continuing) the network will take action as follows:
We will set up a working group on the narrative, which will develop contagious stories that illustrate the propositions (and may potentially also point to what makes organisations embody A Better Way).
We will also set up inter-cell groups on leadership and on ‘biting the hand'.
We will put in place IT to allow for a better exchange of thinking across cells.
We will look for groups that are exemplars, including people we can invite into the network.
As we develop the network we will seek to broaden diversity in the broadest sense, including involving more young people.
Participants at the gathering (dinner or workshop or both)
Everyone attended in a personal capacity.
Geraldine Blake, London Funders
Richard Bridge, Independent, formerly Community Matters
Libby Cooper, Independent, formerly Charities Evaluation Services
Kathy Evans, Children England
Colin Falconer, Independent, formerly Foyer Federation
Jake Ferguson, Hackney CVS
Andy Gregg, Race on the Agenda
Athol Halle, Groundswell
Rick Henderson, Homeless Link
Peter Holbrook, Social Enterprise UK
DannyKruger, West London Zone
Rebekah Menzies, Carnegie UK Trust
John Mulligan, Esmee Fairbairn Foundation
Andy Mycock, University of Huddersfield
Polly Neate, Womens Aid
Liz Richardson, University of Manchester
David Robinson, Community Links
Chris Setz, Independent, Hornsey town hall campaigner
Philip Sharratt, Kjelgaard, Taunton
Caroline Slocock, Civil Exchange
Jane Slowey, Independent, formerly Foyer Federation
Jess Steele, Jericho Road, Hastings
Sue Tibballs, Sheila McKechnie Foundation
Julia Unwin, Chair of Inquiry into the Future of Civil Society (guest speaker)
Jennifer Wallace, Carnegie UK Trust
Clare Wightman, Grapevine Coventry and Warwickshire
Richard Wilson, OSCA, and formerly Involve
Karin Woodley, Cambridge House
Chris Wright, Catch 22
Steve Wyler, Independent, formerly Locality