The impact of new community business models

We are starting to see the impact of new community business models. Is this a blueprint for more cutbacks in cultural and community services in the name of austerity or is it the release of control from an overcentralised state.?? People can judge that for themselves (mostly, lets be honest, depending on a political stance & points to be scored), but I think we're beyond debating the theory and moving into the practicals.

1. Locality have a model of community libraries: http://locality.org.uk/projects/community-managed-libraries-2/ and some front-line workers are starting to whistleblow through blogs (which I guess we’ll see more of particularly as it moves ino the NHS)  : http://www.publiclibrariesnews.com/campaigning/volunteer-run-libraries/practicalities/the-reality-is-very-different-a-volunteer-library-manager-speaks
2. Rethinking Parks is about changing long term delivery models and ownership of public parks and green spaces: http://www.biglotteryfund.org.uk/global-content/programmes/england/rethinking-parks
3. Delivering Differently programme for local authorities looking at changing how services are delivered: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/central-and-local-government-team-up-to-improve-local-service-delivery 
4. The Encouraging Social Action report has a range of case studies and measures: https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/262771/2901062_SocialAction_acc.pdf
5. Friends of groups are on the increase – google trends shows this graph (although there is no concrete data) http://www.google.co.uk/trends  

Here's some examples from the community libraries data:

Someone suggested to me recently that the ‘social’ in British life is being eroded, that it was ironic that “social housing is bad, but social media good”. In the age of the social everything we seem to like the concept but hate the practical. I'm not sure the wholescale move from civic life to health has been fully understood or debated yet.

So what might replace state institutions in neighbourhoods in 21C.

• Jobs and growth and typical politician answers etc?
• peace and love and more money answers?
• more imaginative ideas like shaping desirability out of market failure?
• idealists and new catalyst for action?
• Leveraging existing infrastructure - eg a new role of housing?

With the rolling back of the state – what options are there except less of the same..? We have a lack of imagination which is worst – Q what do we want?: A not the USA and not government control of everything.

Judy Robinson's blog on the north south devide is a good starting place for looking at the long term implications of these kinds of decisions: http://www.involveyorkshirehumber.org.uk/blog/rebalancing-the-north-south-divide/
One thing is for sure, I’m not sure that just recruiting a business development manager will get us there..

A Social Operating System and a Coproduction Readiness Tool

I like the idea of a social operating system, a little like Julian Dobson's National Grid of Community Infrastructure. Here's a Chamberlain Forum article that discusses it. I'm not so sold on the core economy stuff, simply becasue i think its unrealistic as a destination right now.. http://www.chamberlainforum.org/?p=1638

It means you could have some metrix and measurement on the indicators necessary for coproduction. 

In line with the 1) thuinking 2) testing 3) doing model we could communicate changes even when there seems to be little actually happening.

What do you think..?

The competitive environment for social action (thoughts on Porters Model)

A lot has been said in public sector circles about the benefits of mutualisation, oursourcing to communites and new community trusts. They increase donations, volunteer numbers and general support. I'd love to see some evaluations of these, but the general case seems to be so.

This has led to two things:

1. more mutuals/trusts/voluntary deliver, and
2. a change in attitudes in our institutions about being more enabling

So with a large number of new entrants into the voluntary/ social sphere i was thinking of the competitive environment for social action, in particular Porter's Five Forces:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Porter_five_forces_analysis


Has anyone done any analysis on this?

There is definitely a change in power in Suppliers (commissioners of services) and New Entrants. There is also the increase power of Customers (clinets, volunteers potentially) who have more information about their options and about the market. There's also fierce competition within the industry as charities compete for a shrinking pot. It would be good to measure an industry (maybe a brand tracker??) beyond the anecdotal attitudes surveys and confidence surveys.

Nice diagram on human and social capital..

Focussing on human capital and social capital seems to me like a good way of matching both skill development (individualism) and community enterprise (collectivity).

I'd like to see someone with a project plan along the lines of Encouraging Social Action: https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/262771/2901062_SocialAction_acc.pdf

Peak volunteers..?

In a few years will we will reach peak volunteers..? (like peak oil).

1. Current volunteering participation rates have been pretty flat for more than 10 years.
2. More than 50% of volunteering is done by less than 10% of the population.
3. With Baby boomer retirement numbers peaking in 2030 the situation when it changes will change fast.

So what will it change to..?

1. Gen x-ers have less time, less disosible income, less security, less of an asset base. They also think about their leisure time in very different ways.
2. They have a commercial outlook on many things and have less firm ideas on community and association.
3. They equate membership with transactions (and anyway membership has been plummeting anyway)
4. They are still committed to social causes, but won't use the mechanisms of the last generation to achieve them. 

Remember 30% more baby-booomers retired in 2012 than in 2011.  

So anyone planning services should not be thinking about today but should be thinking about memebership, donors and volunteers when  the wheels start to fall off in 10+ years time. The baby boomers will change a lot about everything (they will do to healthcare & care homes what they did to civil rights and individualism) which will need sorting out in itself, but remember its their sheer numbers that make things inevitable.

We can ride the good times over the next 10 years, but let's also have a plan for the worse..

A different way to think about money and the institutions that spend it

The lottery has spent £22 billion on social change since 1997. I remember asking the CEO at the time what he had spent it on (!) and of course he didn’t know and of course its a churlish question, and no-one can answer it about anything we spend our collective money on, but as a colleague said the NHS spends more on healthcare than the whole continent of Africa. Globalisation has provided the funds, resource allocation is the key. 

Seems odd to say in austerity times but maybe money is not the solution anymore. or not the whole solution anyway.

A common question towards the end of a grants term is “how do we sustain this”? Should we not have a strict plan for how this will not be needed anymore in 3 years time? The question on the application form about “sustainability” is laughable. But there are things we can do?

Could we not agree what voluntary orgs in principle we want to keep and make sure they’ll be alright for 2-3 years? It would mean borrowing some money or changing how we spend things. but it seems really odd we haven;t had a proper discussion on what we expect taxation to pay for, and what we expect philanthropy to pay for.  Would that mean the social mission for some was not needed anymore? Some of them. And in which case what would we do with that surplus of talent and time instead..? 

The issue of student loans (for example) is essentially an inter generational contract. We pay in during working years for early education and then for older care. If those figures don't balance then we have an issue. We currently have an issue. 

So housing is a bad example.

As is student debt. 

As is adult social care

As is anything to do with state provision. 

We don't have many good examples right now. 

The only work currently ongoing is reducing costs (via efficiencies in the current system) and reducing demand (by raising thresholds and making people more responsible for themselves)

So is the only way to change the system long term to look at the family model (or the core economy) and what it is able to provide? In Spain for example everyone lives with their family while they go to college which significantly reduces costs. And in Italy every older person lives with their family which significantly reduces costs. 

All in all there is a limited way of moving money around a system. Someone pays, it's just a matter of who and when. 

I remember suggesting to another lottery bod that we put all the lottery money tthrough a single bank account and use the endowment for something (it wouldn't remove the interest that the lottery distributors accrue either as its one step down the chain). It would mean a bit of hassle, and an intermediary account, but its surely not beyond us to move some imaginary money around. Make links between things that don't currently exist that get us beyond the 'least worse position' else end up in. I did 6 years volunteer dispute mediation where the focus was to move people from their positions to their interest. It sounds like we could do that to the rest of the economy. We have the desire, we just don't yet have the mechanisms to get beyond zero-sum. This is not an information problem, and is probably not an inclination problem. It is a logistics problem, the type of game humans are very good at solving with the right incentives. 

So maybe we need a different map of incentives in how we think about social change - as much as we need a different way to think about money and value..

And money might not be the solution, but it certainly alleviates problems. Stand in line for the foodbank and discuss it. 

That's 2014 for me..

Non hierarchical orgs - or does legal structure matter..?

The idea of a hierarchical vol org always seems a bit strange, yet everyone assumes that's the way that an organisation has to be run. Or is it? What if there IS a credible alternative that would save time and liberate staff from seeing themselves as part of one org and not parts of others..? (Disclosure: I don't have one) 

If we could form a network of people who cared about social change in a particular area then we wouldn't need to worry so much about organisations, or the logistics of keeping orgs afloat. NCVO used yammer this last year by opening up its consultation to be had via yammer. Once a week i would log on and quickly add any thoughts i had on the topics being discussed. Better 100 people's 2 minute scribbles that 10 people's 20 min scribbles. (more recently  I've done a similar thing with Genius, and yammer.)

The simple question on what constitutes social change, and what needs focusing on for a more just world is all down to detail. but it would be good to be having that conversation in an open, non hierarchical way..

Organisations need to be managed. But they also need to be owned. Things like one click orgs www.oneclickorgs.com/ are about working within the current model of organising, I'd like to separate these two things as much as possible..

A story from Uganda - of collectivity and different modes of living

Is it really so stupid to think we can live differently? Take an example: can we live collectively cheaper than individually..?

The second world war taught us that we can live very cheaply indeed. Food, clothing and furnishings are all 19th century products which involved moving goods around the world to lower costs. And housing as a collective good is relatively cheap, it only becomes expensive when we choose where we want to live (or more rightly, where we don't want to live). so the cost of living could be fairly low if we organised things differently - right??

So rather than talk about how we get to a low cost life (which might be one of the few options for the millenials building their form of living in the 21st century) this is a story from Uganda where i was for a few months fifteen years ago. I was doing research on musical styles for my degree (sound engineering - and trying to use synthetics to recreate natural sounds).

i arrived in a small town up in the hills in the middle of a power cut. now power cuts are pretty common, but normally you'd be somewhere, and you stay there until the light come back on. with any luck you've got warmth, a candle and a friend to pass the time with. but this was me being dropped off in the middle of pitch darkness on the side of a dusty street. no-one else got off with me, and there was no one around, just me and a bag of my possessions.

Now i can't describe the level of darkness. i waited for me eyes to become adjusted, but they really didn't. the moon must have been obscured, and there wasn't a generator anywhere. it was eerily quite and i became apprehensive about finding a hotel to sleep in, and also about general safety (after a few weeks in Nairobi you'd know why and i was full of the antimalarial laruim anxiety and hallucinations). But i couldn't stay still, so i walked very very slowly up the middle of the street with my arms out in front of me. It sounds strange to say it, but I walked straight into the very first person i met. very slowly, but straight into him.

I was instantly full of paranoia. My first impression was one of malevolence. I thought he was going to attack me, or rob me. 

but of course everything was fine and we laughed and he helped me and i saw him later. and then every day because there are only around 20 people in the village and we play football together etc.

But my first impression was one of malevolenceand i have begun to think how odd that is. what a recent phenomena.

But he took me to someone''s house, and i stayed a few days. I'm not sure if it was a hotel or not. i used taxis that i am not sure are taxis. i hitch-hiked, or i may have just got on buses when i put my arm out.

My point is that there was not much difference between individual and collective. Life is living. And there are not two separate modes of living depenig if we trust people or not. 

Anyone is more interested in a benevolent world should check out Historias Minimas (Intimate Stories in English) and count how many time you expect something bad to happen to the main character. which doesn't. And you start to notice how conditioned we are to think bad things happen. A bit like the Bechdel Test which counts female roles in movies and you start to conclude mainstream films are not normal at all.

So when i think about organising a different way of living i don't think about transition towns, or new involvement methods. I think #digitalbadges and recommendations and verification tools will be useful in changing what we think of as our own, but mainly I think about bumping into strangers in the pitch black- the unplanned opportunities for living, and finding the experience beautiful rather than terrifying..

How to make a decision after an incident..

Top 10 Mistakes in Behaviour Change - from the Persuasive Technology Lab at Stanford

I think we underestimate the role behaviour change is going to play in our lives over the next decade or so. For all the talk of the 'nany state' we're going to see largescale interventions in subtle ways into our ways of living mostly under the banner of saving money.

Health (smoking, fatty foods, cancer, dementia) are the obvious ones, but also family and social interactions are going to be a huge part of the new 'enablign state'. so we'd all better get comfortable with talking about, and often designing processes which are focused on changing other people's behaviour.

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