Working with Young People: a peer learning session

Posted on January 28, 2010 by sse

Just two days ago, the SSE was able to organise a learning session that not only transformed the way individuals thought about young people, but how to work with these young people to define and work towards common goals. This is how it went:
It began during my first week in the SSE office (January 4-9). One of my responsibilities was to ensure that we would have “at least 10 participants” for the event to be successful. Estimating that over half of those who RSVP would not show up, Cynthia advised me to confirm around or as close to 25 as I could.

Nervous at first, I became quite comfortable with the recruiting tasks and communicating with those interested in attending this event. Through countless inbound and outbound e-mails, I had an RSVP list of 34, with 6 more on a Wait List by 20 January, the end of the timeframe I was given. It was a success so far: some were not convinced and as a challenge, Cynthia and my fellow intern Matt decided to put a “Full English Breakfast” on the line at a local greasy spoon for who could estimate how many of the 34 would attend. I suppose I knew more information than the others, but regardless, that full English breakfast was delightful.

Returning to the event, we had twenty-eight participants (including myself and Rosie Ferguson’s young colleague) which packed the Michael Young room like a can of sardines. Prior to the start of the learning session, we had a glorious buffet of cold meats, cheeses, breads, salads, and vegetables catered by SSE’s very own CMN (Cynthia-Matt-Nick) Catering. The session then commenced and London Director of London Youth Rosie Ferguson took the floor and facilitated both the workshop through both large group and small group discussions about “how to engage young people once they’re on board.”

Within the discussions participants often tied working with youth with ideas of partnerships and sponsorships, stereotypes and generalisations, and the balance of professionalism and personality needed to build the bridge between young people and the entrepreneurial world. We were also able to do real-life case studies of each other’s projects and organisations in terms of how we meet the needs of our 6 P's (People, Place, Price, Promotion, Philosophy, and Product) and how our organisations are only as strong as the weakest of these elements.

Overall, the learning session was a huge success thanks to all of the recruiting work done by Cynthia, all of those who helped spread the word about the event, Capacity Builders for supporting the event, Rosie Ferguson for sharing her knowledge and experience, and all the participants for being extremely engaged in the discussions.

Learning from the week (other people’s wisdom)

Posted on December 10, 2009 by sse

It's been one of those "always in a meeting" weeks for me here at SSE. Quite a few of them useful and productive, but occasionally frustrating also (see 'patience' and 'exhaustion' on the left). But we are a learning-by-doing organisation, so thought I would share a few bits of learning + wisdom from the week. Hopefully these are of some interest, if slightly random.

– Total Place is becoming a much bigger deal / much more real on people's agendas: featured in two very different meetings this week, but its 'whole' area approach to public service delivery will become increasingly important as budgets get devolved to local authority level; particularly for social entrepreneurs / social enterprises who deliver multiple cross-cutting outcomes…more here

– From SROI's excellent Measuring Social Value conference (well done Jeremy et al), I took away the following: transparency leads to credibility which leads to trust which leads to support (hat tip to Daniela at the Impetus Trust)

– Someone else at the same event (my notes don't reveal who!) pointed out that it took 100 years for commercial business to arrive at the current set of metrics they use….which are still far from perfect; so we shouldn't beat ourselves up about it in the social sphere

– from Nina of FRC, talking about why measurement is important: "Are you busy with the things that matter….or just busy?"

– Campbell Robb of OTS at the same event: "At the heart of smarter government is a government that buys better"; he followed that with "there is no excuse for not having a go at proving your impact….and the organisations that put this at the heart of their business will be the successful organisations"

– (from Julie Harris at the Ambassadors meeting): 60% of people searching online are looking for video content [hope I got that statistic right]

– Leeds has the best value office space in European cities; Oslo has the least pollution; London is low down the list for both. From the fascinating (!) European Cities Monitor

– Also, did you know that: "Over 750,000 SMEs are based in London, making up 99.8 per cent of all
London businesses. With annual turnover exceeding £360 billion, this
sector also accounts for almost half of all employment in London." (see here for more) Which came up at the LDA meeting re. getting social + ethical businesses inside their economic development strategies…..

Forces for Good: a brief review

Posted on October 8, 2009 by sse

Forces for Good: The Six Practices of High Impact Nonprofits
by Leslie Crutchfield & Heather McLeod Grant (Jossey-Bass)

[review originally in Social Enterprise Magazine with a strict word limit: hence the brevity…]

This book could not come more heavily garlanded with praise from the other side of the pond and, as the name might suggest, it is an American book written primarily for an American audience. And there is plenty to raise the hackles of a cynical Brit: from effusive acknowledgements (running to four pages) to occasionally alienating business school jargon (“bench strength” etc.). But if you can get past those, there is much here to inspire and inform.

The six practices are:
1) to serve and advocate;
2) to harness market forces;
3) to inspire evangelists;
4) to nurture nonprofit networks;
5) to master adaptation;
6) to share leadership.

Some of these may strike you as obvious, others as simplistic, but the book goes into each in depth, and draws out further useful principles and case studies under each heading. And there’s much else of interest on the way, as you would expect from a book based on four years of research. Such as the average length of tenure of the CEOs of these high-impact organisations (just under 21 years) and the average size of their boards (just under 24): a stark contrast to the turnover rate and size that is often recommended here.

Most crucially, the book focuses on the scale of impact, not scale of budget or scale of organisation, and on action. For those social entrepreneurs and social enterprises trying to achieve such impact in the current climate, the most relevant points are to cultivate a network mindset (partner, collaborate, share, empower) and to be adaptable. Then more of us might still be a force for good on the far side of the recession.

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[added today:]

Looking back, it's definitely the network mindset aspect of the book that has stayed with me, along with the length of tenure not necessarily being a bad thing (one feature of SSE at the moment is that a majority of the staff have been with the organisation for between 3 and 7 years). The network mindset seems so obvious, and yet inter-organisational competition is still a feature of many in the sector: genuine partnership based on trusted relationships is hard to find, but prospers wherever it does. But knowing that such successful organisations focus on a network mindset, and believe in a combined service + advocacy model (SSE remains delivery-centric but has increased its policy and advocacy work, again in partnership), definitely helps reinforce and affirm the approach we are taking.

Still worth a read…and, reading my own review, probably worth a revisit!