Designing for Civil Society

Nonprofit support 'hubs' row spreads

Third Sector magazine is now really on to the controversy about specialist hubs to support the UK Government's Changeup plans to strengthen the voluntary and community (nonprofit) sectors. They have a story this week about the Governance hub.

Foundation for Good Governance researcher and spokeswoman Christine Morrison said Changeup is the wrong model because it imposes a centralised structure on a sector that is based on networks of support organisations, membership bodies, councils for voluntary service and local development agencies.
"There is little doubt that the Government's intentions are well-meaning - but unfortunately the model proposed for support is unlikely to work because it seeks to impose a top-down approach on a sector that thrives on diversity," she said.

The article references the Communities of Practice session we ran last week at a conference with Christine to demonstrate alternative approaches.
Third Sector also reports that the Home Office has stepped into the row about the IT hub that I wrote about earlier.
From the latter piece it is clear that the Home Office is still determined to get one proposal from the sector for each hub, and they see competing consortia as unseemly squabbling. The point Christine Morrison is making is that we need some diversity.
Don't hold your breath for rapprochement on the 'one bid' front, though.

ICT Consortium project manager Nicky Thompson, who works for the NCVO, said: "The consortium has always welcomed, and would still welcome, input from other organisations with expertise to share. The Home Office has shown confidence that the ICT Consortium was best placed to take this work forward, and indeed funded us to do so."

Should social researchers practice good practice too?

Should social researchers reflect, in their methods, the cultures and practices they study? And in today's fast-changing world is there much value for policy-makers in so-called 'best practice' drawn from yesterday's case studies?
No doubt these questions are, in themselves, a major field of academic study. However, I received some practical exposure to the issues through an invitation to a think tank seminar this afternoon on Community Governance in LSPs (I'll try and explain that later). My conclusion? A bit of practice what you preach (or study) wouldn't hurt if the aim is public benefit rather than Yet Another Research Report.

Nonprofits fall out over tech support

In my experience nonprofit organisations can be just a tiny bit combative and territorial among themselves, while showing the world a smile of compassion and collaboration. It comes from having to compete to get so much of their money from funders, sponsors and donors.
The UK Government isn't helping in the way that it is handling funds for the Changeup programme to improve the way nonprofits deliver services, with its plans for specialist 'hubs'. An acrimonious dispute has now surfaced between two consortia seeking to deliver technology support to other nonprofits. I wrote about this in June, and since then matters seem to have got worse rather than better. Third Sector magazine reveals that nine organisations have complained to the Home Office about the way that the National Council for Voluntary Organisations (NCVO) is behaving.

Forming communities of practice fast? First visit the toy store.

Can 200 people work out what they are interested in, find others with shared concerns, form groups, and decide what to do next - all in 35 minutes? I now know the answer. Yes, knowledge sharing by milling about does work.... if you have a few props from the toy store,
As I wrote earlier under that heading, my colleague Drew Mackie and I were offered the chance of trying this collective speed-dating at a conference on nonprofit governance last Friday. A Government Minster, scheduled to keynote, had pulled out at short notice - probably to spend more time helping plan this week's Labour conference. An understandable emergency call, though inconvenient. However, instead of substituting another exhortation from the lectern, conference organiser Christine Morrison bravely asked us to mobilise the collective wisdom of the conference participants. Well, do as best we could, after lunch, in the slot usually reserved for rest and reflection.
In the event the participants were magnificent. Here's how it went.

Taking public users - and systems - seriously

Louise Ferguson, over at City of Bits, uses a Demos publication about generalists versus specialists in the public sector to spark a mini-rant about the lack of people in public agencies interested in user-centred design/user experience/usability. The publication by Ed Straw had been blogged by Sophia Parker who suggests:
"Perhaps then what we need are civil servants who are specialists in systems and process design. In other words, people who are able to craft a process that is designed to include as many people as possible to participate in the creation of value."

Window wiki - the new low-tech discussion tool

Last week's Blogwalk 4 yielded a new tool (for me anyway) of the Wiki Window. I was a bit late arriving, and bloggers had been discussing issues that can arise in getting blogs and wiki introduced in companies. The upper room of the Old Crown pub in London's New Oxford Street didn't offer easy wall space for the Post-it notes, so reasonably enough they were posted on the window, topped with the title Window Wiki. It was a bit more, well, transparent than a flip chart.
Some of the items were about blogging as such (every bloggers need an audience), but many others were more general... improved networking...risk...vulnerability...need for commitment to share...culture change. It struck me that blog and wiki discussion had indeed provided a window into a set of issues around change - something I also picked up in discussion about the technology trap.
The whole day was a wonderful opportunity to explore these issues with people from different backgrounds and jobs. A bit of tech crept in - and very useful it was - but my sense was that the value of blogging (and bloggers) lay in the way it enabled individuals to make more of a difference than might be expected in large organisations, and small, and explore in the process all the issues that change and innovation brings. We walked as well, of course, and there are a few more pictures here of our more physical exploration of Bloomsbury. There's another metaphor in there somewhere, too.
More on blogwalk from those who were there
Update: Suw has now transcribed the window wiki

Technology traps corporates and nonprofits alike

It seems that the technology trap - believing new stuff can fix old problems - afflicts corporate, nonprofits and individuals alike. Last week's Blogwalk 4 discussed introducing blogs and similar collaborative tools to companies, and an old diagram I showed seemed to resonate, and I said I would put it online for those interested. The point of it is that you need to deal with cultural change as well as technology change at the same time. If you try and bring technology in without commitment from the top, regard to working practices and so on, you'll get resistance... or lots of systems that don't work. And if you try and innovate without using appropriate tools you could be frustrated in your purpose.
The diagram was originally developed with colleagues to help contain the enthusiasms a few years ago of nonprofits for the latest technologies, or (more often) to suggest they did have some value. You can find the full explanation here.

Funders ask: how should we spend our money? Nicely too.

The problems of rural communities don't get as much media attention as urban areas - except perhaps during outbreaks of foot and mouth disease. But transport for the car-less can be inadequate, the poverty brought by high costs and low incomes very real, services more distant, isolation potentially more profound. It is just all more spreadabout and masked by green not grot.
Yesterday two major funders - the Carnegie UK Trust and Big Lottery Fund - began the public phase of their investigation of how best to support rural communities by asking: how should we spend our money.
The main research takes the form of a Carnegie Commission for Rural Community Development chaired by Lord (David) Steel of Aikwood. They have issued a Prospectus and scoping studies. Later this year the two funders will also launch a £4 million development programme.

Situation vacant: community media application developer

Community media is great in theory, with radio, video, web and so on now much easier and cheaper for local groups to put together. There are some great showcase examples, but not as much happening as might be expected from the general growth of personal media. What's needed, I think, is more help from institutions who have technical resources and support staff, and who are prepared to make technology fun.
So it's good to see a new burst of energy from the University of Teesside, where former steelwork and musician Steve Thompson is Community Media Coordinator. Steve is one of those people who just gets on and does stuff, and he's now recruiting student volunteers. One role is for Community Media Application Developers, where the aim is "to share experiences and to pool skills to develop applications assisting ordinary people to generate and/or publish content utilising opportunities afforded by new media but without the complications of having to learn programming languages."
I'm sure Steve would welcome offers from wider afield, if you want to share ideas. You'll find his personal website here, with MP3s of some of his songs recorded by Celine Dion, Sheena Easton, and Elkie Brooks.

Knowledge sharing by milling about

I'm particularly looking forward to a conference on nonprofit governance next week where my colleague Drew Mackie and I will run a couple of sessions aimed at helping volunteers serving on management committees and Boards think through their responsibilities and the challenges they may face. As I posted earlier, we'll be greatly helped by a new 10-point plan for running an effective organisation produced by conference organisers, the Foundation for Good Governance
Earlier in the year I worked with a Foundation team led by Christine Morrison on a review of nonprofit governance for the Home Office, and you can see the results blogged here. The review was heavy-weight research, but for the conference Christine and colleagues wanted something a bit more fun. For one session we've developed a governance 'game', in which participants invent tough scenarios then role play solutions. I expect personality conflicts between chair and executive director, misappropriation of funds, unfair staff dismissals and worse.