Bulletin #6, July 2018
Our ‘Better Way Insights’ publication is now available. This contains 40 contributions by members of the Better Way network and others, and is packed with ideas, stories, and case studies, as well as accounts of our discussions – a hugely valuable resource to help us build our own practice and stimulate work with others. A big thank you to everyone who contributed. You can download the publication here, as well as pick up links to individual essays, and if you’d like printed copies, please contact Alison at Alison@carnegieuk.org
Our July national gathering was oversubscribed and we managed to accommodate 39 people from across the country. At the dinner, we heard from members about how our ideas are being reflected in wider debates. The next day, individual contributors to Insights for A Better Way told us about their essays and we discussed ‘hot topics’, shared experiences, made connections, and agreed how over the next year we will generate further momentum for the Better Way and build our network. A note from our discussions is here.
Please forward this bulletin to others who may be interested, and if you are not yet part of a Better Way group but would like to be, just let us know.
Steve Wyler and Caroline Slocock
About A Better Way
A Better Way is a network of social activists, from the voluntary sector and beyond, who want to challenge business as usual, rethink and improve services, and build strong communities. We have set out some simple propositions, which have been revised and refined though debate within our network, which we believe, if pursued with courage and conviction, would bring about a radical shift in favour of the common good. The initiative is hosted by Civil Exchange, in partnership with Carnegie UK Trust and is also supported by Esmee Fairbairn Foundation. You can find out more here: http://www.betterway.network/.
Better Way Blogs
If you would like to get a quick flavour of the insights featured in our new collection, you can read some of them on our blog pages:
The Bensham Food Co-Op: focusing on strengths and mutuality, by Ollie Batchelor
This is the story of a food co-operative in Newcastle which wanted to do more than simply hand out tins of food to the ‘needy’. Their mutual aid model helped to create a sense of belonging and community, in which kindnesses abound: ‘one person came back at lunchtime having cooked a meal for the volunteers using items she had been given only an hour or so before.’
‘Mass participation is mass enjoyment: the Selby Centre in Tottenham’, by Sona Mahtani
The Selby Centre was founded in 1996 and its motto is ‘Many Cultures, One Community’. It reaches 170,000 people a year and attracts nearly 800 volunteers. As Sona explains, the simple act of bringing people together unleashes creativity, opportunity and energy.
Leading thought by following your heart not your head, by Kathy Evans
In her leadership role as CEO of Children England, a membership family of children’s charities, Kathy realised it was better to follow her conscience, rather than ‘pretending to have clever leadership plans’, and doing what she felt was right even when she thought it was likely to fail.
The Good and the Bad, by Clare Wightman
In an estate in Coventry a couple were hounded by neighbours who spotted their vulnerability. The abuse went on for years. The answer wasn’t ‘services’ as they are usually conceived. Instead it was connecting this couple to other neighbours on the estate, who would look out for them, act as friends, and help ‘draw the couple in from the edge’.
How to move from targets to principles in schools, by Graeme Duncan
Education in England is becoming ‘a game of high-stakes accountability, where school performance is being boiled down to single performance measures’. This doesn’t drive improvement, it makes things worse. Permanent school exclusions have risen 40% in the last three years, and secondary schools can neither recruit nor retain enough teachers. Graeme explains how we can move from a target based system to a principles-led one, based on collective impact methods used successfully around the world.
It’s relationships, not transactions, that ‘get you through’ the bad times, by Julia Unwin
Drawing on her own experiences, when one of her children became seriously ill, Julia points out that ‘transactions may be fine when you’re buying a ticket to go on a train.’ But when you’re sad, or angry, lonely or sick ‘it’s the relationships that will get you through.’
Jane Slowey and Advantaged Thinking, by Colin Falconer
Our Insights collection is dedicated to Jane Slowey who sadly died last year, and her former colleague Colin Falconer describes how Jane led the way in developing ‘advantaged thinking’. This was about renouncing the conventional path of ‘problem-focused programmes seeking funding for an easy fix to disadvantage’, and instead identifying the ‘advantages’ more likely to generate real capability.
Articles featured in Civil Society
Several other Better Way insights were featured recently in Civil Society magazine:
Matt Kepple: Why we need the voluntary sector's collective expertise
Mark Johnson: Why we should treat lived experience like an asset, not a risk
So Jung Rim: Why we should engage diverse voices in mass participation
Sue Tibballs: 'Be the change you wish to see in the world'
Caroline Slocock: Why social infrastructure is key to prevention
Karin Woodley: Insights from a black veteran chief executive
Chris Wright: Success occurs more often in spite of the system than because of it
Steve Wyler: 'Never doubt that a small group of individuals can change the world'
New ‘must read’ reports
A report by the Sheila McKechnie Foundation urges civil society to unleash its ‘Social Power’ by being much bolder and braver. It offers tools to help practitioners: a ‘social change grid’ and the ‘twelve habits of effective change-makers’.
Valuing Social Infrastructure is a new Community Links report written by Caroline Slocock for the Early Action Task Force. ‘Our social infrastructure supports prevention and early action, helping to create the resourcefulness and resilience that prevent problems in the first place and providing support networks, services and activities that stop problems from getting worse.’
Better Way member Sally Young, from Newcastle CVS, reflecting on recent experiences in the North East, has produced a ‘thought piece’ arguing that as we move towards the end of the first decade of austerity it is time to ‘focus on intelligent commissioning, creating the time and resources for partnership approaches and ensuring public sector procurement and contracts enable commissioners and service providers to make the best use of local assets.’
Diversity starts with us
Earlier this year, Thomas Lawson from Leap Confronting Conflict wrote an excellent article Us white charity CEOs need to talk. As he said, ‘If our sector cannot demonstrate diversity in its leadership, then we’re not in a position to challenge the rest of society to improve.’ A recent survey by recruitment agency Green Park showed that only 41% of people in senior leadership roles in the big charities are women and only 8.1% are from Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic communities. That may be better than central government (35% and 6.3%) and the FTSE 100 private companies (24% and 3.8%), but it is still disgraceful. A recent Better Way discussion suggested that part of the problem is that our sector places too great a value on ‘content’ skills (professional qualifications, management experience) and too little on ‘context’ skills (lived experience, community knowledge). Can we shift our culture and practice towards the latter?
Power in our hands?
The independent inquiry into the future of civil society has published its interim report. This argues that the big role for civil society in the coming years is to ‘generate a radical and creative shift which puts power in the hands of people and communities - preventing an “us and them” future, connecting us better and humanising the way we do things’. It also says that civil society is not yet fit for this purpose, and there are ‘too many examples’ of charities and other civil society institutions being part of the problem. It is exploring what can be done to help civil society raise its game, with a focus on place, belonging, work, and organisational models. You can contribute your ideas here. Steve Wyler, our co-convenor, is on the inquiry’s panel.
And finally, should large charities choose not to compete with smaller ones?
Polly Neate, CEO of Shelter, and Better Way member, asks whether the charity sector is about service delivery at the most competitive price, or something more? She describes her previous experience at Women’s Aid where between 2010 and 2015 one in six independent women’s aid refuges were lost as larger charities or housing associations competed on price. Polly says: ‘It’s up to the large organisations themselves to rewrite this story: to choose not to compete. To choose not to win, even though they can.’ You can read her article here.