The case for a social movement - in note form

(or why voluntary and community organisations are the best place to redefine our social system)

Diagram showing the political dividing lines of the last 20 years

My submission to @NCVO’s 2015 Project on Volunteering

In reply to ncvo’s discussion paper for the #2015project There are some very odd things going on in volunteering at the moment:

• 1) Statutory bodies are increasingly recruiting volunteers directly as it’s cheaper than contracting a voluntary organisation to do it.

• 2) Increasingly front line organisations cannot afford to provide the infrastructure for volunteer placements when they have PBR monthly targets. 

• 3) private sector bodies (predominantly around sports) have learnt through social media metrics that recruiting volunteers as event organisers is both a cheaper deliver mechanism and also adds to the buzz surrounding the event.

So we're having private and statutory moving into a space where smaller voluntary organisations are retreating from. And the social attitudes surveys tells us people (especially young people) are more cause driven, but less motivated by sectors.

I think in time volunteering/ participation/ involvement will become mainstream, and the organisational framework will learn to sit better around larger groups of knowledgeable activists in some ways a return to the philanthropic organisations of the 12C albeit with more external focus. How this fits with a massive increase in opportunities on Do-it (and what succeeds it) and increasing health and social care needs as the state retreats and the family doesn't step in - I don't quite know.

I’m enthusiastic about the future of www.do-it.org.uk as I like the shared infrastructure principle (small and large orgs have the same way of attracting supporter) but also the critical mass we’re talking about needs a single focus. It’s still 9% of the population who do more than half the volunteering hours. Things like www.wewillgather.co.uk are great, but they rely on the same small number of people to deliver. A bit like the lurkers – maybe we need a strategy to increase the number of creators and contributors from the 90% of lurkers..?

 
As a trustee of InvolveYH we're looking at how we can involve more people in helping delivering our work, with different levels of involvement depending on people's knowledge and time offered. We think this will help us grow our supporter base whether we call them 'volunteers' or not.

CIPD presentation – working beyond our hierarchical boundaries

Here's my CIPD presentation for friday drawing on the parallels between volunteering and workforce development models.
Alternative title was "why your best people won't work for you"..

CIPD presentation – working beyond our hierarchical boundaries from Casey Morrison

Behaviour change in healthcare - what the future looks like

I found an excellent picture of the change in behaviour required to sustain a new healthcare model. Like changes to smoking rates, drink driving rates, 5-a-day healthy eating campaigns we can expect this to hugely change how we live our lives. watch it unfold..!

Desperately seeking a new organisational model (with own car & gsoh)

A lot of the conversations i'm having at the moment are about change (obvs). The largest problem i'm having is that this is not a change to, but a change from. Or more clearly: WE DO NOT KNOW WHAT THE DESTINATION LOOKS LIKE.

Lets be clear: there is no-one doing it that we can copy. There is no toolkit. There is not even very good examples that work after the initial enthusiasm has run out.But there are people all over the UK working on it. so we have hope too.

However, there are parallels to draw, associations to make. Voluntary organisations are being bought into public commissioning for their innovation, yet the public bodies are asking them to design projects which are not like anything they have done before. They want services that rely much more heavily on technology and on volunteer effort, and that (whisper it) are simpler cheaper.

So here's a parallel. The evolution of political organisation.

(I have a similar chart at home for how organisations operate, but the final box is still a blank.. )

So where do we start? I was talking to the CEO of a CVS about the amount of time they spend doing tasks which added no value to their work. then you multiply this. but merging is a blunt tool. I think we need to separate the task of running an org from leading an org. and i know some people employ an operations manager and separate this from the CEO. but this still keeps the problems in house.

I'm thinking of some way for small organisations to outsource their business functions (HR, payroll, even staff management in some respects) so that all participants are free to pursue the mission. So something like the fiscal sponsorship that @GMAddVentures are trialling. So something like a solicitors model may emerge for social change organisations along this spectrum:

Contracted out

Delivered by partners

Staff-led

Volunteer-led

Customer self-led

Now where did i put that GSOH..

(I also like):

• a national grid for community infrastructure - julian dobson
• participatory paradigms - tessy briton
• mititant optimists - david barrie

Strategic Planning for Networks.. (what can we learn from the planning behind wikipedia's 100,000 volunteer editors)

I'm interested in how we can leverage huge numbers of people from around the world towards a collective pro-social aim. The best example of this (and yet to be replicated) is wikipedia.

Below are some slides from their planning explaining how they moved from a mission of "all information for everyone" to 100,000 volunteer editors around the world, maintaining the 4th most read website on earth. This is a bottom-up, consensus-driven, multi-stakeholder model. Diverse volunteers can create fast, fluid and innovative projects that outperform the largest and best financed enterprises..

Lets be completely honest. Our current method of: context, gap analysis and strategic planning WILL NOT GET US HERE. This isn't about a communication strategy, or dissemination or viral applications. Its about how we sell a massive challenge and manage millions of separate contributions into a whole. And we cannot do that by using the same strategy tools.As the slides say: "the plan is not the point, the point is activation".

So how do we make it happen? Here's their 5 steps:

1. focus on asking Qs
2. make a space for it to happen
3. focus on people
4. model transparency
5. fail fast

Strategic Planning for Networks from Eugene Kim

the relational state

I was reading Nestas's report on complaints driving innovation and i thought their diagram on The Relational State was a pretty good summary.

Gov not funding social change, ever again..?

There were a series of tweets a few days ago from @gethynwilliams that i wanted to pull together and reflect on.

Its basically the stark outline (probably quite rightly) of a world of social change that operates without any government intervention. At all. For all the talk of ideology driving political funding decisions blaming austerity politics we may simply, and irreversibly have returned to the third sector operating wholly outside of government.

I wonder how many people currently working in the third sector would be surprised by it.???

1. a very difficult time for so many VCS people facing redundancy right now. complete reinvention needed - personally and organizationally.

2. particularly feel for those working in infrastructure - orgs need very bold new business models. fear may already be too late for some.

3. 1 thing certain - lobbying harder for state cash is pointless. we one of many competing for ever-shrinking cake. this evident for some time.

4. my advice - give up on government entirely. not sustainable, whoever is in power. orgs and staff need to be radical.

5. most VCS business plans based on assumption government can lead and fund social change - that's no longer true

6. @gethynwilliams ...And the challenge now is for the sector to do it itself, rather than ask central gov to ask local gov to purchase better
   — Jake Eliot (@housingJake) March 25, 2013

7. @housingjake thanks - and true - and still no guarantee of survival, but at least energies can go into something other than fire-fighting...

   @caseymorrison it's a nice idea. personally haven't seen much evidence it will work. 'investors' want high rates of return. you?
   

@gethynwilliams Completely agree. hollowing out businesses that can be done cheaper by private sector. but i'm an optimist & £ still exists.
— Casey Morrison (@caseymorrison) March 25, 2013

8. @ana_brankovic true that. plenty of folk came into the sector on a specific understanding of how things worked. now it's a new game...

9. @gethynwilliams All orgs claiming a social purpose have a duty wider than their own delivery role: to push for change to Govt, public, etc.
   — Mike Wild (@MikeWildMacc) March 25, 2013

Thoughts..?

Insight data on 21 century volunteering.. (presentation)

Insight data on 21 century volunteering - from a national trust conference last year..

1. we way we interact with everything has changed, but the way we help people link with causes hasn't
2. how we use our leisure time has moved beyond consumption
3. if we use platforms and devices for social media we can now connect millions more people

In summary there is a huge audience for something we're terming social leisure. (50,000 people applied to be volunteers for the 2014 Glasgow commonwealth games and as many predicted for Le Tour in Yorkshire.)

The organisation that meets this need will win the prize. The race is on. 

Ok Computer from elliottofhook

Micro-volunteering - some practical examples.. (presentation)

Micro-volunteering - some practical examples.. (A presentation i gave at the national trust conference last year)

Basically i think microvolunteering is one of those things that has massive potential if we think about it in a different way. There are lots of platforms, lots of small ideas but nothing that allows small chunks of time for people to do something useful, and feel part of a cause.

This was my attempt to outline some ideas of things we could do on nationaltrust properties, but would probably be applicable for any non profit..

It Only Takes a Minute from elliottofhook

Irreverent localism presentation from 2011

I just found this, but in 2011 I was asked to sum up the new focus on localism in a quick, slightly amusing presentation.

I suggested it focuses on balancing the potentially opposing forces of:

1. collaborative local action
2. protest voices

but also that we have a lot more tools now to change the debate, stop the strongest voices in the planning process. I also suggested we don't currently have a vehicle for doing this. Since 2011 arguably the picture has polarised even more with HS2, Section 106 changes and hospital closures.

(back in 2011 there was just a picture of a big horse..)

Irreverent Localism Workshop 2011 from Casey Morrison

Youtube as a search engine - how i have changed my default in how i search for information

My behaviour in relation to searching and filtering information has started to change quite dramatically after many years doing the same thing. I wonder where they will lead, and how out information portals will change as behaviour changes.

So what do these changes look like..?

1. I now use Youtube as my default non work search engine. 
2. I now use mobile apps in isolation (eg train times) but i find them increasingly less useful in general online activity (eg comparing different travel methods etc), so i'm increasingly looking for cross pollination of different information in a single app.
3. I'm subscribe to Youtube channels like i subscribe to blogs on an RSS reader.
4. I use flipbook as my RSS reader and occasionally look at twitter on it (mainly for the better display of pics) 
5. I follow people and search on Slideshare. This is a bit like watching a film over watching a tv programme: you know someone's worked very hard on a slideshare presentation unlike some thrown together blog.
6. I use image search before text searching if i know it will have a lot of results (to help with the filtering process) especially if i know they'll be a lot of hits and i'm looking for things of good quality.
7. I access more and more websites via mobile and I now notice when a website has a good mobile page. 
8. I differentiate between durable information and disposable information (mainly this is the distinction between blogs and twitter) along the lines of Thinking Fast and Slow
9. The news that Siri could be our default search, therefore eliminating the need for separate apps cones as no surprise. I use it as my default text input device now.

As someone who has promised themselves they will never read another academic abstract, starting in niche information places feels like a good place to start

but the speed of the change in my behaviour has surprised me..

21st Century expectations for leisure time volunteering

Here's a slideshare from @robjackson based on masterclasses for NationalTrust volunteer managers in 2013. It spells out quite nicely the landscape of volunteering, what the changed needs of volunteer support and how we might design something different for 21 century expectations..

In summary what's changed..? 

1. Demographic profile of volunteers
2. Expectations
3. Choice
4. increased leisure time (but more things to do with it)
5. different childcare needs
6. social media & Internet growth
7. people's changed connection with causes
8. 8% of the population provide half of all volunteering hours..

What do we do about it..?

Masterclass core slides 30 jan from hejones2

Digital Civil Society: Initial Thoughts.. (slideshare by Mary Joyce)

Thanks to @karlwilding for flagging this up on twitter. I'm posting it here so i can come back to it..

 

21st Century Civil Society: Implications for Open Government from Mary Joyce

Free will participation motivations: see, hear, think, say, pain & gain

This is a different way of looking at motivations or reasons for people's free-will participation.

It starts with the individual, and an empathy map, and the six categories of: See, Hear, Think, Say, Pain and Gain..

It might be useful when seen alongside the Social Attitudes survey - in our motivations in collaborating on otherness..

Bottling goodwill - olympic lessons for every brand..

Bottling Goodwill: Olympic Lessons for Every Brand from Jack Morton Worldwide

What can we learn from parkrun about self organising groups..?

What can we learn from parkrun about self organising groups..?


Parkrun:

1. Its essentially a franchise model so they know exactly how much it will cost: (about £6,000 including VAT). This includes all the equipment costs, the additional web and hosting costs and all the internal costs required to create the event. 
2. And they know how it will be funded. They look to the councils, NHS, and other commercial bodies to fund 50% of the start-up costs for each event. 
3. Its also quite a fixed process, so you can know your time commitment before jumping in to volunteer to set one up: "Our experience shows that we can get a new event up an running in about 6 weeks from the start of your enquiry depending on many variables. We also know that within 12 weeks of starting a parkrun, you will have over 50 volunteers to call on
4. They have a list of commercial sponsors who are aligned to the health message (addidas, locozade, pruhealth) which means its sustainable once its up and running.
5. They have 14 members of staff supporting who support this process, making it cheap, easy and deliverable.

Volunteering:
So that gets us to the point where someone wants to come forward to set one up. Why would someone do that without being paid? Well, we do things all the time without being paid (don't call it volunteering, with all that baggage..). its cool to set something up, you get the kudos and you are one of the users of the product.

Then we start to look at people's motivations for what we currently call volunteering: altruism, do-gooding, obligation. Not inspiring stuff.

So how could we make the latter more like the former? (the guardian had a good article looking at this from the Olympics motivations here and from the Third sector research centre here)

There seems to be a gulf between these two stories, one which i think its worth exploring. More structure, planning and franchising might help us get more people involved and get beyond the emotive stories good or bad..

Oh, and i think cold hard data is the way we get there..

On the Relationship Between Sound and the World

This is a little off my normal topic, but i think it has merit both on its own account, but also to draw a parallel between how the social sector selects talent, and how the music industry selects talent.

There are interesting bits in there about change vs conservatism, use of data in something which sounds organic and the difference between what we hear and what we think we hear..

On the relationship between sound and the world from Casey Morrison

Inter-relational mapping a city..

A few people have been working on interrelational mapping for a number of year (most notably @davidwilcox).  This is an example we worked on in York. it shows the interrelational map between statutory organisations and voluntary sector groups

I'm hoping we could do the same thing for BigLocal areas, esp round where i'm living, to map capacity and skills as well as relationships,.

Future Scenarios - Joseph Rowntree questionnaire on social trends to 2030

This is a presentation on future scenarios for the social sector. It was the result of a Joseph Rowntree Foundation open forum on the future of the social sector. 

We were all asked to imagine the challenges for 2030 and this is what i pulled together..

Jrf 30 yr questionnaire march 2011 from Casey Morrison

The story of change - why citizens (not shoppers) hold the key to a better world

The Story of Change urges viewers to put down their credit cards and start exercising their citizen muscles to build a more sustainable, just and fulfilling world. http://storyofchange.org
 

Emulating Consumerist Behaviour in Community Involvement

Evaluating how the private sector is looking for consumer action could be a great way of thinking about how we incentivise prosocial behaviour and social action..

The presentation below focusses on involvement in advertising campaigns, moving from passive consumption to sharing and doing.

The language is different but could ring a lot of bells with the social sector..?

Briefing for Participation from PatsMcDonald

Top 10 mistakes in behaviour change

Top 10 Mistakes in Behavior Change from Persuasive Technology Lab at Stanford

Why people choose NOT to engage with social issues

This is an interesting presentation looking at why people choose not to engage with social issues. The last 20 years have prioritised information & research in order to force action.

Maybe there is a way to short-cut action on some of our most pressing social issues..?

Maybe we need to turn live-aid on its head..?

It's been a long time coming from Jon Howard

Eight steps to transforming your organisation

100 Words on Community involvement & Civic Technologies..

What is it..? Civic technology is the use of digital technologies and social media for service provision, civic engagement, and data analysis. A bit more detail below from Civic technologies.

Improving quality of and accountability in public service delivery

1. Help city residents more effectively access and track responsiveness of public service delivery
2. facilitate resident engagement with government around service delivery issues
3. streamline resident access to public services. 

Facilitating resident-driven improvements to neighbourhood quality-of-life 

1. Enlist city residents to provide new data to support or inform government efforts
2. to organise community-based efforts based on that data
3. to participate in the development of strategies and policies to address these issues more effectively.

Deepening participation in public decision-making 

1. Developing more effective ways to collect meaningful resident input (especially from low-income people)