Before now…
- In the summer of 2020 I set out on an open-ended research journey exploring why relationships matter and whether people who put relationships at the heart of their work feel connected to others doing the same. I was lucky to collaborate with The Relationships Project on this and my time was mostly funded by a Paul Hamlyn Ideas and Pioneers Award (which incidentally is an amazing fund and you should check it out if you haven’t already).
- In March 2021 I shared some emerging insights and reflections in ‘Through Thick and Thin’. In this research report I identified the need for greater collaboration and collective action if we are to achieve what many people desire: a world where good relationships are fostered in all aspects of our shared and common life, where they are seen not as the ‘extra mile’ but as the first mile.
- At the same time I shared a starter for 10 for what an infrastructure for relationships could do to support this vision and how. And since then The Relationships Project and I have been experimenting in small ways to start bringing these ideas to life by catalysing a conversation on the tricky question on how to measure relationships and by working with Grapevine to bolster collective efforts locally and nationally on what relationship-centred high street recovery looks like in the months and years ahead.
This week The Relationships Project has submitted an expression of interest to the Bringing People Together Fund at the National Lottery Community Fund to bring to life the idea of an infrastructure for relationships
In February this year, Joe Mitchell and friends in the democracy sector shared their application for a grant to support greater networking and connectivity. They described a ‘magical future’ where grant bids are always published. They made the compelling case that if we all did it more it would help grant-writers compare their efforts with others and could raise the quality of grant apps over time. It would help different organisations who put in similar bids realise that they could probably work together in future. We think this is a very good idea so we’re doing the same.
So you can read the full proposal here. But to save you some time, here are a few highlights:
In short, the expression of interest we’ve submitted to the Lottery is for a two year project to design, test and build the necessary infrastructure to support shared learning and collaboration in the field of relationships and relationship-centred practice in the coming decades.
We believe an infrastructure for relationships is needed to boost collective action, therefore we have started as we mean to go on by developing this proposal with others. We are especially grateful to the following friends for their honesty and ambition in helping hone the ideas and content of this proposal: Clare Wightman and Mel Smith at Grapevine, Lily Piachaud at New Constellations, Rosie Evans at Saffron Foundation, Alex Evans at Larger Us, Zoe Cumberland at The Connection Coalition, the team at The Roots Programme, David Barclay at Good Faith Partnership and Andy Dixon.
Why infrastructure?
We aren’t alone in being big fans of infrastructure. From migration to democracy, infrastructure creates the conditions for big paradigm shifts; for practices which are disbursed and fragmented to move from the margins to the mainstream. Done well it is the work that few people notice but creates the conditions for a sector or society to operate efficiently and effectively.
The infrastructure for relationships we think is needed would seek to:
- Connect people who are in the currently fragmented field of relationships by creating opportunities to share, learn and collaborate focused on the needs of the field.
- Grow momentum, energy and funding for relationship-centred practice including amongst those who are skeptical of relationship-centred practice.
- Design and seek long-term funding to sustain an infrastructure for relationships rooted in the learnings from these initial 2 years.
At the heart of this infrastructure would be ‘The Collective’: a gathering of organisations representative of the diversity of the field of relationships across perspectives, sectors, communities, identities and geographies. The Collective would be a ‘servant-leader’ group, focused on convening, plugging gaps, generous activity and practical action.
This group would be recruited openly, define their priorities once recruited and be remunerated for their time. The Relationships Project will provide administrative and coordination support to the recruited collective.
The priorities:
The Collective would ultimately decide what its priorities are and how to grow and build connectedness, sharing and learning in the field, but a few ideas for what his project would seek to develop over the two years are:
- Developing a comprehensive network map of the field of relationships, populated publicly, helping people see where they fit in the landscape, identify fellow travellers and possible collaborators.
- Delivering breakthrough experiments that The Collective identify to meet the needs of the field and have the potential to unlock societal progress towards a relationship centred world. Examples of this include: a collaborative initiative to shape relational philanthropy practice; and peer-to-peer learning group focused on how best to measure the impact of relationship-centred approaches.
- Developing a set of open and evolving handbooks which help users navigate the evidence base around relationship-centred practice, and find practical resources to strengthen their work.
- Growing a diverse community who share a commitment to building a relationship-centred world.
- Piloting funder collaborations to unlock new sources of funding for relationship-centred approaches.
- Seeking funding for the continuation of the infrastructure for relationships if successful.
We’re doing this because we believe:
- By nurturing a field of organisations, communities and individuals who are prioritising relationships, we will create and strengthen new, more inclusive networks, decision making processes and flows of power.
- It is only by putting relationships first that power can be more evenly distributed, and only through better relationships that people and communities everywhere can thrive.
- We will foster stronger collaboration by building infrastructure that brings people together to share practice and which in turn will strengthen the relationships they foster in communities, especially those which are so-called left behind.
- We are focused on creating longer-term change by creating the conditions and support for communities to place good relationships at the forefront and heart of change.
After 2 years sustainable success would be indicated by:
- People from all four nations, some already known to us, many not, have participated in the experiment. New people join the work continuously. From the outset we will be drawing together organisations and individuals from diverse perspectives and experiences.
- People tell us they are making new and valuable connections that foster solidarity, learning and new collaborations. They learn from and are inspired by things they hear/see/learn/do.
- We try new things and learn from them. Some succeed/are valuable, others don’t/aren’t.
- People don’t feel like we are leading this for them/doing this to them, but we’re supporting them to explore and experiment with things they’ve been thinking about but haven’t had capacity to do themselves.
- People are able to access new types of funding to help them work in this way; they’re able to make a compelling case for why their approach is important, giving it a better chance of sustainability.
We’ve applied for £300,000 (the highest possible amount from this fund) to do this work. If successful, funding will be used to: 1. Provide some core capacity to coordinate The Collective and wider field mobilisation; 2. Provide some project costs for experiments to strengthen the field; 3. Provide an annual contribution / honorarium / grant to facilitate and sustain the engagement of Collective members.
We need you
The thing about wanting to build infrastructure to bolster collaboration and collective action is that you need people to want to find time in their busy days, alongside busy jobs and lives, to engage in it with energy, consistency and commitment. If your ideas aren’t compelling or your offer isn’t appealing, you simply won’t get engagement.
Therefore this proposal is based on all our conversations and research over the last 18 months. We believe that there is the need, the appetite and the opportunity to build a collaboration that is useful and worthwhile but we are only just beginning. So we need your views, thoughts, critiques and ideas for how this thinking could be strengthened. Please get in touch to tell us what you think by email or we could have a chat.
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Active Neighbours – Kate
“I just think it’s really nice we can each all be each other’s solutions – people are volunteering not because they feel obligated because they’re family -they just want to help you. I always think that’s really powerful. If everyone put in just a few hours a week to help in their community, we can change so much. And I think that’s what we’ve seen during Covid.”
Active Neighbours – Julie
“The satisfaction you get from volunteering is really fulfilling. You get home and know you’ve helped someone that day. It enabled me to meet new people – other volunteers, those we helped. Having the opportunity to talk to some elderly people in the community. When you’re not from somewhere, when would you ever have the opportunity to talk to someone from a different generation?”
Active Neighbours – Josie
“[Covid] was an almighty stop. There are so many people that are natural doers – volunteering and helping others was possibly the only thing they could do. A lot of people potentially thought that was their only option to continue to do something. Covid gave everyone the opportunity to step slightly out of their comfort zone. Everyone needs that door to be slightly open to be able to step through [….] I just have to say that the food bank needs peanut butter, 12 hours later there will be 56 jars on my porch”
Active Neighbours – Jen
“I’m a big believer in gratitude and what you give out is what you get back, and the law of attraction. So I’m that kind of person: what you give out is what you get back. So just being a nice person, and just trying to help and be generous with your time … if you can. Anything you can do to help somebody.”
Active Neighbours – James
“Not patriotism, but I think society is under stress at the moment. I don’t think the government, whatever your view on this particular government, is necessarily capable of meeting all needs. So it’s quite nice to have a purpose to do stuff when you can see an overwhelming need for it. So yes, a massive sense of fulfilment. And I think as I’d alluded to before that when I’d retired I felt I needed something to do. But it’s been great because I’ve met more people in the neighbourhood, working in the kitchen I’ve met some great people – learned much more about food! So generally I’ve enjoyed both experiences a lot.”
Active Neighbours – Isabel
“I think what was really cool at the beginning was it felt like you had this whole potential to really rethink how you interacted with your local area. There was a real sense of possibility that you were really kind of mini-world making or something […] I think politically a lot of people really frown down on traditional charity models – particularly the bifurcation of service users and service providers, and felt like what was needed was something that really lifted people up in the community, and made everyone feel like they were valued and had something to contribute […] which is still a noble goal – but I think it’s hard to do in practice.”
Active Neighbours – Brianne
“So it’s just the connections that have been made, the nice people and the people who have really needed the help that I’ve met. And just seeing everyone come together. I’ve always thought this area has a great sense of community, but this has shown it even more. And it’s shown the people that don’t normally have the time to give to this community – they’ve gone ‘here you go’.”
Active Neighbours – Anna
“In the past I’ve done very much paper-based volunteering, because I guess that’s where my skills lie – but maybe I’ve realised that I quite enjoy meeting people and having that interaction. In particular, I think I’ve enjoyed meeting people that are outside my social circle – because you know, we’re all guilty of having our own little group […], so seeing that people have very different lives – not better or worse, just different, you know – I think has been really interesting for me.”
Active Neighbours – Alan
“I think it’s an interesting one actually for people of my age – single men. At my age – there’s a question of ‘what are you allowed to join?’ that will be positively received? […] There’s a sort of suspicion. But the Covid thing – I think what I really liked about it was the sense that anyone could join and we couldn’t see what each other looked like – we didn’t know how old we were. We didn’t know what social background we were from, we weren’t even talking to one another – because it was all text-based. And so in that sense it was a great leveler, I thought.”
Active Neighbours – Elizabeth
“And getting out of your own comfort zone a bit … empathy more than sympathy was somebody else’s phrase … trying to help people out not just because they are like you or because they’ve been through what you’ve been through, but because they just need a bit of help. That to me is what citizenship and community are about.”
