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Community Anchors: Regeneration Cause or Effect?

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Community Anchors are independent, community-led organisations. They are at the heart of their communities, physically and psychologically.  They are able to respond in a holistic way to local problems and challenges, by giving local people support to act.

Community Anchors come in many different shapes, forms and structures but they all share this basic purpose of animating and co-ordinating progress.  You can read more about them here and here.

It seems that there is a high correlation between communities that experience successful regeneration and the development of effective Anchor Organisations.

This has led many regeneration funders to seek to establish Anchor Organisations in ‘failing’ communities in the belief that they can weave their magic and turn things around.  And perhaps they can.

But I have a slight concern.  I would hypothesise that Anchor Organisations emerge from communities that are already working actively at their own regeneration.  They are a natural evolution as independent people and community organisations begin to reach out to each other in the realisation that only through association can they become more effective in their work.

Their success depends to a very large extent on the timing being right and incumbent diverse and fragmented community groups recognising that the development of a successful Anchor Organisation is in their best interest.  This realisation and consensus can take many years to accrue.

If this hypothesis is correct then we should expect Anchor Organisations that have been artificially seeded by external funders to find it tough going.   The local incumbents may not yet have reached the limits of their own development.  They may not yet see the need for the anchor.  They may see it as yet another project foisted on them by funders by more money with sense.

Instead of acting as midwifes to the birth of a wonderful new baby, regeneration professionals then end up putting a premature and often unwanted delivery into some very expensive intensive care – if the baby gets born at all.

I have had the privilege of working with some highly successful Anchor Organisations – which emerged from local people and groups in response to local circumstances and opportunities.  I have also witnessed Anchor Organisations struggle to get off the ground – and most of these seem to have been primarily ‘funding’ and ‘policy’ driven, conceived by outsiders as an appropriate ‘strategic’ response to the needs of local communities.

If my hypothesis is right then Anchor Organisations are a naturally emergent property of communities that are already on the up.  They are an effect of regeneration rather than a cause.

And instead of trying to seed them in communities where they perceive there is a need, funders should focus on facilitating local groups until such time as they decide that the time is right for an Anchor Organisation to emerge.

A leader is best when people barely know he exists,

when his work is done,

his aim fulfilled,

they will say: we did it ourselves.

Lao Tzu

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My Favourite Enterprise Podcast…ever

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While many businesses pay lip service to the idea of environmentally responsible practices, Patagonia has defined itself by “inspiring and implementing solutions to the environmental crisis,” says Chouinard.

The company has pledged that by 2010, it will to make all of its clothing from recycled and recyclable materials. Chouinard says that he would exit the clothing business altogether rather than compromise his standards.

Patagonia takes many steps to control its growth, such as drastically limiting its catalog distribution and not taking the company public in an IPO.

Chouinard even encourages his customers to buy less and focus on their needs rather than their wants. He insists that every time Patagonia invests in the environment, he sees an increase in the company’s bottom line.

Check out the full podcast here it is well worth the effort.

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An Enterprising Council?

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Leeds City Council is holding a plant sale this week-end to get rid of its surplus plants.

At first site this a great example of an entrepreneurial council hopefully raising some cash from surplus production that might just reduce our council tax by a fraction.

But on the other hand it is an example of a council leveraging enormous buying power and resources to take market share from local growers and no doubt business rate payers.

Is a public plant sale the best route for a council to take or could they do something more productive?

Suggestions?

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Surrealism is Alive and Well and Living in Leeds

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I had an eventful afternoon yesterday.  In order to vote I had to pop into electoral services in the Town Hall as my postal vote had failed to materialise.  A polite, efficient, helpful and very professional service. Well done to the electoral services team at the council.

Vote registered I then visited a fantastic project in Hunslet called Involve led by Kris Clayden.  Based in the old Salvation Army building – which is a bit of a 1970s concrete carbuncle – Kris and his team provide a service to young people from South Leeds who have been permanently excluded from school.

Delivered on a shoe string, through a cocktail of short term funding, working with some of the most challenging young people in Leeds, based in a building that is far from fit for purpose but doing an important job with passion and vigour.  It took me back to my time of working with children in residential care.  You learn a lot in these environments.

My next engagement was for the launch of the Leeds City Workshop.  This is the product of a collaboration between Leeds City Council and one of the major property developers in the city to provide a physical space where planners can engage with communities and developers to discuss plans for the physical regeneration of the city.

The Leeds City Workshop occupies a part of the Wellington Street Marketing Centre where the city developers promote their latest residential, retail and industrial plans to well-heeled entrepreneurs and investors.

On arrival we were served with wine and lime and lemongrass cordial while a string quartet played Bach.  The canapes reflected the tough times in the city – mini shepherds pies, chicken kebabs, crab cakes and and bruschetta.  The patio was hardly sun drenched, but the re-assuring crunch of astroturf underfoot and the views across the city were sublime.

One of the proerty developers who had kindly provided the workshop space, in their Marketing Suite, (three enormous shipping containers sliced, diced and welded together) opened the speeches.  He talked of tough times, but work on physical development of the city goes on.  He  told us how they work all over the country – but no-where else is doing city place shaping work quite as well as Leeds.  Then a council official talking about the significant progress that has been made on the physical development of the city.  How, where development projects are put on hold, they are working hard with developers to put interesting temporary projects in place – seeding lawns, marking out football pitches etc.  How work on the arena will start soon and be completed in 2012.  There si only one small problem – we ‘just’ need a planning permission.  Luckily the head of planning  permissions in the city was in the room – so I am sure that will not be a major problem.

All very impressive.

Then downstairs to see the actual workshop where the planning conversations are taking place.  Without doubt they have created an impressive space.  A square table for 22 people surrounded by high walls draped with impressive and colourful plans of the city.  Acoustics professionally engineered and a state of the art audio visual system showing a film of the future Leeds with the city’s golden owl acting as winged guide from one planning triumph to the next.

This workshop is to be the base for John Thorp, the City Architect and his team to provide them with a more conducive environment for planning than the mundane facilities provided by the council.   Leeds city planners  co-located with and, in part, resourced by the developers – it reminded me of Our Friends in the North.

John seemed much taken by some ‘new’ technology that he heard about.  Some kind of graphics tablets that meant he could draw images directly onto the audio visual system.  No more climbing up ladders balancing felt tip pens and tippex!  Try the Wacom Cintiq John I think you might love it.

The contrast between these two experiences was surreal.  Kris in his 1970s carbuncle in Hunslet and John and the developers in their architect designed and styled acoustically engineered palace in the city with Bach and canapes.

One couldn’t help but feel that somewhere we had not quite the balance right between investing in local people and investing in physical infrastructure.

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Community Empowerment Misunderstood? The Role of Enterprise…

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First let’s look at some definitions of community empowerment:

‘Community Empowerment’ is the giving of confidence, skills and power to communities to shape and influence what public bodies do for or with them.

An Action Plan for Community Empowerment: Building on Success – October 2007

Community Empowerment is about people and government, working together to make life better.  It involves more people being able to influence decisions about their communities, and more people taking responsibility for tackling local problems, rather than expecting others to.

The idea is that government can’t solve everything by itself, and nor can the community: it’s better when we work together.

The Scarman Trust Forum Lecture by David Blunkett – December 2004

Helping citizens and communities to acquire the confidence, skills and power to enable them to shape and influence their local place and services, alongside providing support to national and local government agencies to develop, promote and deliver effective engagement and empowerment opportunities.

David Rossington, Director, Local Democracy and Empowerment Directorate, Department for Communities and Local Government

Community empowerment is the process of enabling people to shape and choose the services they use on a personal basis, so that they can influence the way those services are delivered. It is often used in the same context as community engagement, which refers to the practical techniques of involving local people in local decisions and especially reaching out to those who feel distanced from public decisions.

Communities and Local Government Website – August 2008

So it is about giving individuals and communities confidence, skills and power.  But to do what?

…to shape and influence what public bodies do for or with them…

…to influence decisions about their communities…

…taking responsibility for tackling local problems, rather than expecting others to…

…to shape and influence their local place and services…

…providing support to national and local government agencies to develop, promote and deliver effective engagement and empowerment opportunities…

…to shape and choose the services they use on a personal basis, so that they can influence the way those services are delivered…

One of the first lessons that we have to learn is that if we can empower people it is follow their own agenda – to pursue their own self interest.

Not to engage in the government’s agenda or the reform of public services, or local decision making.

I don’t know too many people who are champing at the bit to ‘shape public services’ and to ‘influence local decisions’.  Self interest, if defined at all, is rarely defined in these terms.

If we really want to empower communities (rather than just tap into them for ideas to save a few quid) then we have to start from a very different premise.  And I would argue that it is a premise that puts the individual first.  We have to use informal education processes to make the pursuit of self interest and power both legitimate and effective.

‘Community’ is a by-product of individuals actively pursuing their own self interest with power and confidence.  Such ‘enterprising’ people quickly realise that there is  power in association.  That negotiation matters.  That learning how to help and be helped are critical to making progress.  That shaping infrastructure and the environment matter – because they influence the extent to which any of us can pursue our self interest.  Without good schools, transport and housing how are we to pursue our interests?

So the starting point needs to be not ’empowering communities’ but empowering individuals.   And this is done by helping them to clarify and refine what is in their best self interest – not the community’s or the government’s or anyone else’s. Self interest needs to be properly negotiated with the self interests of others.  It should not be confused with selfishness.

And in parallel to the development of self interest there have to be systems to help people to develop their power to pursue it.  Processes to build confidence, skills and the ability to organise people and resources to make real progress.

So let’s worry less about empowering communities and more about helping individuals to clarify and pursue their own self interest with power and vigour.

Let’s invest time and money in helping individuals learn how to negotiate their self interest in the modern world.

Let’s invest in person centred processes of informal education.

Let’s re-shape formal education to focus more on helping people to become effective negotiators of their own self interest –  rather than passive consumers of a curriculum.

And as a by-product we will develop much healthier, more harmonious and politically engaged communities.

Why not….

Hat tip to Julian Dobson’s post ‘The Great Community Empowerment Heist‘
 which planted the seeds….

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