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Posted By Clore Social Leadership,
17 February 2020
Updated: 23 October 2020
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I remember sitting in the reception of the Mental Health Foundation in London thumbing through materials on the coffee table. I picked up a flyer for a new leadership programme, Clore Social Leadership, something I had never heard about at that point. I subsequently secured a space on the inaugural Clore Social Leadership programme as part of the 2010 cohort. In April 2009 I had registered Dementia Adventure as an organisation but in reality, the organisation at that time was just me in a spare bedroom at my parent’s house. No staff, no resources, no hierarchical power. But what I did have was a vision of a better life with dementia. The more I told people about this vision and the idea of Dementia Adventure the more it grew. Before I knew it I was becoming a leader, not because I was a CEO (there was nothing to be a CEO of at that point) but because people like Clore Social believed in me. People wanted to follow me, wanted to join with me to make this idea, this dream, a reality. There were a number of pivotal experiences on the Clore Social programme including producing and launching the research, taking part in Action Learning Sets and mentoring sessions with an in the USA. But perhaps most critical was the experience, confidence and validity I gained from the Clore Leadership programme at Windsor Castle. I learnt over a few days that you are a leader regardless of your position or status in an organisation. You are a leader if you have a vision and a mission which others believe in and want to make happen by choosing to take positive action towards the goal you have articulated. The Clore Social motto resonated then and still does today: ‘know yourself, be yourself and look after yourself.’
Ten years on and thanks to Clore Social, and many many others, my vision is now a reality. During my ten years of leading Dementia Adventure from a back bedroom idea to a £1M organisation supporting thousands of families, I learnt a great deal. Leadership involves following your path, listening to your followers, coping with self-doubt, staying true to your values and having the courage and bravery to fulfil your purpose. I guess looking back I did better at the first two elements of the Clore Social motto: knowing myself and being myself, than I did with the crucial third element, looking after myself. With hindsight, I should have invested sooner in more consistent peer-based support, something which worked so well during the 2010-11 programme period. Being with and talking through challenges with other leaders in an Action Learning Set is now something I have brought back into my life as the host of the Clore Social Chapter for the North of Scotland.
2019 was quite a year. Dementia Adventure celebrated its tenth birthday. My extended family and I relocated to North East Scotland, from Essex, to live a simpler life by the sea and the mountains. As I sit here in 2020 I am deeply proud of everything the growing team of people at Dementia Adventure has achieved and will go on to achieve. In the same way that I am deeply proud of my children, the work has yet to produce more great things. My current path involves writing more and supporting other social sector leaders, as well as swimming in the icy coastal waters of Scotland. Reflecting back on 2010 is an important thing but how many of us plan the next ten years? Where will you be in 2030? What will you be doing? What will you have in your life? For more reading and resources on planning your next decade do please read my blog post: Little green (& black) books.
Neil is a 2010 Clore Social Leadership fellow and Chapter Lead for the Clore Social Leadership North of Scotland Chapter. For more information on the work of this chapter click here to visit their page.
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Posted By Clore Social Leadership,
08 March 2018
Updated: 23 October 2020
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Today is International Women’s Day. A day to celebrate women. A day to reflect on women’s lives, in our communities, our society, our country and across the world. A day to review how far we have come in achieving equality between women and men, and to consider how much further we have to go.
I spent 2016 as a Gender Specialist Fellow, supported by Esmée Fairbairn Foundation, on Clore Social Leadership’s Fellowship Programme. Having worked for twenty years in and around the UK women’s sector, it was an enormous gift to be able to step back and examine the sector with fresh eyes. I have used the year to reflect on women’s position in the UK, how the social sector represents and champions women, where the funding is, where the leadership is, what it looks like and how it is addressing the challenges for gender equality today and in the future.
During the year, a series of unexpected, seismic, often catastrophic events unfolded in the UK and across the world which, taken together, made 2016 a very bad year for women. From an American Presidential Election mired in misogyny to the fetishizing of motherhood in a Conservative leadership contest to the brutal murder by a man of a female MP, to a referendum result which will see the UK leave the EU and potentially jeopardise women’s employment rights to the endless silencing of women on social media who dared to opine on culture, economics, politics or sport. All these events combined show that, in the UK, women are not considered equal to men; that gender equality is not embedded in the way that many had hoped; that a general agreement that gender equality is “a good thing”, is not widely or deeply held in our society, and currently the UK’s women’s sector is too constrained to effectively address this problem.
In my piece, I set out what lessons individuals, organisations, institutions and funders need to urgently learn of last year if there is to be any hope of rebuilding an agreement on gender equality in the UK. I argue that the funders have a vital role in enabling the women’s social sector to contribute to long term thinking about gender equality rather than constantly having to meet short term targets; that there needs to be a greater pooling of knowledge and expertise within the sector to influence and shape broad public policy issues which affect women’s lives alongside the specific areas often categorised as ‘women’s issues’; and that the women’s sector itself needs to refresh its language and reframe the arguments to engage more people in this process.
2016 presented a wake-up call for those of us who care about gender equality in the UK. 2017 isn’t looking much better. In keeping with this year’s International Women’s Day theme, we must ‘be bold for change’ and learn the lessons and take the radical steps required as a matter of urgency.
You can download Rebecca’s full provocation piece here. Please share your views and comments below, or you can contact Rebecca on Twitter.
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Posted By Clore Social Leadership,
03 August 2017
Updated: 22 October 2020
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Clore Social Fellow Baljeet Sandhu has published a report examining if, and how, social purpose organisations in the United Kingdom value lived expertise.
The Value of Lived Experience in Social Change shines a light on the social sector’s attitude towards, and engagement with, so-called service users and beneficiaries. Written as part of Sandhu’s Clore Social Fellowship, it was informed through conversations with eighty social sector leaders in the UK and US and twelve senior staff working in grant-giving and philanthropy.
The report unpicks the structures and implicit biases that reinforce a culture which undervalues the knowledge and expertise of those with lived experience and calls for a fundamental shift in attitudes. It also highlights the huge benefits that developing leaders with lived experience can have, both to social purpose organisations and civil society as a whole.
Calling for a change in attitudes, Sandhu highlights the need for a new style of leadership that is more “proactive, fluid, reflective and equitable… and recognises the vital role all key stakeholders play in the social sector’s ecosystem – including the people we serve”.
“To its detriment, the social sector often fails to recognise, cultivate and harness the insights, knowledge and lived expertise of experts by experience relevant to its work. The sector now broadly understands that lived experience is important, but still thinks of experts by experience primarily as service-users and informants, rather than drivers or leaders of change. There was general agreement that commitment to lived experience in our work is far from universal; that this is an underdeveloped and unsupported area and in dire need of better leadership."
Read the introduction to “The Value of Lived Experience in Social Change” below and access the full report and accompanying website.
This research was inspired by the simple notion that all members of society have the power to create positive social change in the world – including people and communities with direct experience of social or environmental issues our wider social sector seeks to tackle.
Indeed, history illuminates the power of individuals and communities who have worked to solve the social problems they have directly experienced. Consider the women’s rights movement; the civil rights movement; Alcoholics Anonymous; the world’s first safe house for women and children (Refuge), set up by a child survivor of domestic violence; the family from South East London tackling ‘institutional racism’ following the murder of their son, leading to far-reaching police service reforms – and the list goes on.
Throughout my own career in the social sector, I have and continue to be, inspired by the ingenuity, courage, compassion and leadership of ‘experts by experience’ who have ignited, designed and implemented significant social change initiatives on a local, national and global level.
The aim of this report is to explore how, today, the wider social sector currently cultivates, develops and evolves its social impact efforts through the work of such experts by experience, and how it can go further and do better to harness their knowledge and change-making capacity to lead positive social change now and into the future.
The full report.
Get involved in the conversation around "experts by experience" by using #livedexperience and Tweeting us @CloreSocial, or feedback to Baljeet, here.
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Posted By Clore Social Leadership,
10 May 2017
Updated: 22 October 2020
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This blog was originally published on Civil Society Futures, The Independent Inquiry, and is written by 2014 Clore Social Fellow Louise Cannon, UnLtd Award Manager, Building Futures Lead.
I was recently invited to talk to the group responsible for the inquiry into the future of civil society on behalf of UnLtd and the social entrepreneurs with whom I work. Following some scene setting about what the group are looking to achieve, the current challenges facing communities and the scope of the inquiry; one of the members asked me, and another invited guest, whether we were optimistic or pessimistic about the future role of civil society?
Here is my answer.
To state the obvious and somewhat predictable, I believe there will be an important place for social entrepreneurs in the future of civil society. Consistently over the years I have seen social entrepreneurs bring forward enterprising solutions to social issues. Regardless of the challenges of the operating environment, people have come forward to make a change and UnLtd have supported them on their journey.
Whilst we are supporting great ideas and passionate individuals who are achieving results, I have seen a limited number of social entrepreneurs tackling the root causes of the social issues we experience today, due either to the complexity of wicked social issues, or because they are stuck in the day to day operations trying to survive and grow. We are continually looking to improve our ability to support social entrepreneurs and so our own journey must be one which enables us to understand the barriers which prevent a larger proportion of social entrepreneurs from being able to look beyond their individual solution. We need to invest in collaborative approaches to address broader systemic challenges.
However, the burden of responsibility cannot solely be carried by those individuals without support. We exist to provide that support, but how do we help those who are not within our network to start up and thrive, or support others to do so?
In 2015, myself and a small team of colleagues in Birmingham were tasked with exploring how we could reach more social entrepreneurs with the same resources. It might have been easy for us to assume we understood the challenges facing social entrepreneurs, but we decided to make sure and test our assumptions. Our first step was to speak to as many people as possible, in fact, we conducted in depth interviews with over 50 people, both social entrepreneurs and supporters of, and tested the results on over 1,000 more social entrepreneurs. The results were in, and the challenges and opportunities were clear, some even a little surprising. Of those that stood out, were just how regularly social entrepreneurs experience feelings of isolation. Social entrepreneurs are also finding it hard to access funds beyond seed capital, because they simply don’t have the resources to spare for failed attempts. We also discovered some powerful actions that can have a transformative effect for social entrepreneurs.
So we had our answers and so began a series of prototypes to test out ideas and methods looking at each of the challenges and prototyping solutions. Many of the ideas we tested were not new ideas but slight adaptations which allowed us to test their impact for social entrepreneurs. We have used and commissioned research to understand ideas we saw around us that were working in helping people to connect, collaborate and share. We will be sharing the results in the form of a Playbook which will map out ideas we love, tools, methods and solutions we have tried, and more importantly, how others can do the same. We are also working to map the state of social entrepreneurship in Birmingham and the wider West Midlands Combined Authority area which will be replicated if it proves useful for social entrepreneurs in navigating support and finding their own allies.
To come back to the question. I am positive about the role of civil society and the willingness of citizens to act but there are three challenges we cannot ignore:
Empowerment
We need to continue to find creative ways of supporting people to connect, share learning and support each other, this will be critical in embedded solutions coming from communities.
A sense of community is not something which can be dictated by top down idealism, active participation is required. Less empowered individuals and communities need people who they know and trust to help break down the few visible and many more invisible barriers standing in the way.
Scale
We still need large scale solutions, and to drop the hang ups about scale and innovation. Some ideas are worth spreading and innovations worth scaling.
Massive urban growth and climate change require city administrations to realise both the legitimacy and potential of local communities and grassroots movements. Small actions build to large movements.
Limiting Financial Burdens
- For social entrepreneurs trialling new technologies and solutions, the impact of BREXIT and loss of European funds for R&D will be a stymie if not replaced.
- Successful ventures are limited by restricted funds which prevent them from doing what they do best, turning money into impact.
- We need to invest in opportunities for collectivism so that social entrepreneurs and stakeholders can work beyond their individual solutions, and in collaboration to resolve social issues.
- We seek answers to community resilience through social entrepreneurship and community participation to build the bridges to the future without destroying what already exists.
To find out more about how we are doing this get in touch, and finally, to share some of my favourite examples of people, and places making things happen;
Please share you comments below about this blog, or you can contact Louise on Twitter. Louise is an UnLtd Award Manager, Building Futures Lead and Clore Social and Winston Churchill Fellow.
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Posted By Clore Social Leadership,
19 April 2017
Updated: 04 December 2020
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Daina Leigh is Global Conversation Catalyst for the Bavubuka Foundation and founder of fashion social enterprise Fabric of Life.
Word – Sound – Power is the belief in the power of the vibrations within speech and music to impact the world directly, for better or worse. The power of voice, and its capacity to inspire and initiate change, are central to the practice of the young indigenous hip-hop practitioners that I have had the privilege of working with as part of my role as Global Conversation Catalyst with the Bavubuka (youth) Foundation in East Africa. Observing their practice over the last couple of years, I have noticed something important about leadership that I want to share.
These young leaders utilise the power and position of the Emcee - the leader/performer - to use spoken word to convey their authentic self using their indigenous language to communicate ideas and positive affirmations, and to engage dialogue around finding community solutions.
This performance medium is being used most powerfully within Cyphers (community spaces) where young people use their gifts, such as freestyle rapping, to tell stories, share ideas and celebrate who they are. This unique way of engaging young leaders has inspired even more young people to step forward and serve their community in their own unique way.
What I have learned from participating in these extraordinary events is that voice and sound alone, without a deep knowledge of self and context, is not sufficient to generate transformative energy within communities. The power to lead that these young Hip-Hop practitioners hold, is rooted within the discovery and nurturance of their own unique gifts and personal stories, which people in the community can relate to.
What has been truly significant for me is seeing the way young leaders continually offer themselves in service to people and their surroundings, totally transforming perceptions of a ghetto youth, while also developing a new sense of pride. The young leaders I encounter do this willingly because they believe in the underlying ethos, which is that without service and connection to the community, they really have nothing of significance to say on the microphone. This is powerfully shared within the Kenyan movement ‘Hip-Hop Beyond the Mic.’
Having watched this community activity through my own eyes as a development worker, I see that despite the challenges these young people face, they have some important lessons to teach me and other social leaders about the art of leadership. For me, this has been about understanding that everything I need to be as a leader lies within me, and my aim is to find my own authentic self, leadership style and compelling story.
Finding my own voice remains a challenge, but I continue to learn in my leadership role in Uganda. Here I support the personal development of the young people I work with to utilise the Word–Sound-Power magic that is available to them to help them address the issues they encounter, whilst learning to thrive within their surroundings. Being of service to the community in this way has given me direct experience of what authentic leadership is really about.
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