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Influencing Policy, Driving Change Conference 25th March

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Thursday 25 March
10am-4pm
The Octagon, Hull

A one-day regional conference jointly organised by Yorkshire and the Humber Regional Forum and the NCVO Forum for Change.

We would like to invite you to attend Influencing Policy, Driving Change, a conference for anyone involved in campaigning and influencing in the voluntary and community sector.

This free event will help you make sense of the external policy environment and focus on the skills and expertise needed to get your voice heard where it matters – locally, regionally and nationally.

During the day we will explore:

  • Key trends in the external policy and campaigning environment
  • How to engage with regional and sub-regional decision making structures
  • The ‘rules of engagement’ with Westminster & how to get your voice heard
  • The principles for effective collaboration in your campaigning & policy work

Full details of the speakers and workshop choices can be seen by visiting our website at: www.ncvo-vol.org.uk/influencingpolicyconference.

You can book online, or contact Sue Beckett on 020 7520 2440 or by emailing susan.beckett@ncvo-vol.org.uk.

People in Policy Land

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Until people in policy-land stop implying that there are things called communities which can be called on to voice an opinion and take uncontested collective action that will be acceptable to the state, we’re going to see neither genuine empowerment nor meaningful co-delivery

Kevin Harris

Good stuff – and one of the reasons why I believe that the development of community is contingent on the development of people and their self interest.  Once individuals are clear on what matters, and what they are going to do in pursuit of it, then community starts to emerge as people associate in pursuit of shared interests and exchange.

Your corn is ripe today; mine will be so tomorrow. ‘Tis profitable for us both that I shou’d labour with you today, and that you shou’d aid me tomorrow. I have no kindness for you, and know that you have as little for me. I will not, therefore, take any pains on your account; and should I labour with you on my account, I know I shou’d be disappointed, and that I shou’d in vain depend upon your gratitude. Here then I leave you to labour alone: You treat me in the same manner. The seasons change; and both of us lose our harvests for want of mutual confidence and security.

David Hume 1711-1776

An Enterprise Escalator? No Thanks! Give Me a Sherpa Instead

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Kevin Horne is the CEO of Norfolk and Waveney Enterprise Services (NWES) ‘one of the leading business support organisations’ in the UK.  NWES is a members of the National Federation of Enterprise Agencies and Kevin has written a piece drawing attention to the NFEA’s Enterprise Manifesto.

Kevin goes on to describe the ‘Enterprise Escalator’ which provides a ‘comprehensive customer journey’, comprising:

  • Outreach and awareness raising.
  • Pre-start advice.
  • Start-up training.
  • One to one support.
  • Access to finance.
  • Mentoring.
  • Networking.

On the surface, good sensible stuff.  But it perpetuates a myth.  The ‘escalator’ implies that, if start up is right for me, I just have to get on and I will effortlessly ascend to the next level.  It is a false promise.  It is the enterprise fairytale.  Real world is less ‘escalator’ and more ‘snakes and ladders’.  Less gentle trip to the shopping centre and more laying siege to the mountain.  It is life making work.

And what if it is not right for me?  Kevin rightly suggest that we need to signpost to other services – but will any of those really help?  I have seen too many people with aspiration and potential be sent back to the job centre because the job of helping them find their enterprising feet will just take too long.  It won’t fit with the neatly packaged funded services that look to provide a start up fast track.

Perhaps we should offer an enterprise sherpa service.  Someone who has managed the ascent before – but who has also, on occasion, failed.  Someone who recognises that this is a risky endeavour and needs to be carefully managed if it is not to cause damage.  Someone who can recognise when the time is right to push for the summit and when the time is right to do more training and preparation at low levels.

If we are to engage people in communities then we have to engage them ‘where they are at’.  Some will already have made it to base camp and are hungrily eyeing the peak.  It might not quite be an escalator but we can certainly pass them the oxygen, clip them onto the fixed ropes and wish them luck.

But many remain in the valleys and seldom look to the cloud covered tops.

We have to personalise our services and we have to recognise that many are not yet close to being  ready to start a business – now is not the time to launch an assault for the summit – but instead to weigh up the pros and cons of even considering a short trek.

Different people are at different places.

Some will be highly motivated but with few skills.  Others will have skills (that they often don’t recognise) but little or no motivation.  Some will have neither motivation nor skill. A precious few will have both.

The real ‘enterprise’ challenge is to engage those who have already decided that the ‘labour market’ is not for them and to encourage them to reconsider what they can do with their lives.  It is about reconnecting them to their aspirations, helping them to find belief and confidence and finding ways in which they can unstick their lives and make progress.  It is about helping them to see that their is an enterprise journey that might be right for them.  Can we cost effectively extend our sherpa service to engage and inspire them?  What are the costs of not doing so?  This should be the realm of the enterprise coach.

It is often a protracted job that requires a long term, strong, supportive, challenging, trusting and non-judgemental relationship.  It is not about the ‘Enterprise Fairytale’ and fast start ups.  It is about the hard work of developing people and helping them to find ways to dare to move forward again.

I wonder if Enterprise Agencies have the skill and commitment to required to develop an enterprise based service that will really start where many people are at?

Self Interest as the Starting Point for Community

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In my community development work I am, on occasion, criticised for putting individual self interest right ‘up front and centre’.  I honestly believe that until individuals are clear on what they REALLY want, in which direction progress lies for them they cannot effectively learn to associate and community cannot be built.

Robert M. Pirsig in his classic Zen and the Art of motorcycle Maintenance which I first read 25 years ago and have recently re-read says this:

I think that if we are going to reform the world, and make it a better place to live in, the way to do it is not to talk about relationships of a political nature, which is inevitably dualistic, full of subjects and objects and their relationship to one another, or with programs full of things for other people to do.  I think that kind of approach starts it at the end and presumes that the end is the beginning.  Programs of a political nature are important end products of social quality that can be effective only if the underlying structure of social values is right.  The social values are right only if the individuals values are right.  The place to improve the world is first on one’s own heart and head and hands and then work outward from there.  Other people can talk about how to expand the destiny of mankind.  I just want to talk about how to fix a motorcycle.  I think that what I have to say has more lasting value.

This then is the focus of my work on working with individuals as the starting point of a process of community development.  Clarifying self interest. Pursuing ‘good work’ with head, heart and hands. Then, and only then working on association and mutuality in pursuit of collectively negotiated self interest.

Good communities are a product of good people.  And good people are a product of their own good work.

It is NOT all about the economy, stupid

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There is an assumption behind most economic development organisations that if we can just get the economy right, just about everything else will fall into place. There is a belief that the economy is in some way foundational.

It is not.

Economies are the products of communities.  Products of individuals and associations.  Products of mutual exchange and trade.  Products of aspiration, skill and education.

Community is not a by product of economy.  Economy is a by product of community. We are putting the cart well and truly before the horse.

If we want a better, more sustainable economy then let’s invest in better and more sustainable communities. And if we want better communities then let’s work with the people that live in them in ways that are constructive, inclusive, engaging, challenging and creative. Let’s shift to a different narrative for ‘development’.  Let’s throw less money at the architects, developers, placemakers and investors.

Instead, let’s invest in high quality, ‘street based’ education and development.  Real community coaches trained to offer a confidential, person centred, responsive but challenging service.  Let’s use it to unlock and develop the confidence, talent, passion and skill that so often lies dormant or unrecognised.

We don’t do this by engaging ‘the few’ community ‘champions in setting up Development Trusts, Enterprise Centres or in tidying up shabby spaces.

We do it through radical, respectful and skilled outreach work.  Models for this are few and far between – but they do exist.  Simon on the Streets is the best example I know of in Leeds.

Perhaps you know others?

Thoughts and suggestions welcome!