citizens uk impact report

UK IMPACT REPORT

2013

INTRODUCTION

WhO ARE CITIzENs UK? WhAT Is ThIs IMPACT REPORT fOR?

Citizens UK is the home of community organising in the UK. Citizens UK is an alliance of civil society institutions, founded in 1989. There are now local alliances in London, Cardiff, Birmingham, Milton Keynes and Nottingham. As of April 2014, all local alliances will be affiliate members of Citizens UK.

Community organising was brought to the UK by Neil Jameson, Citizens UK’s Chief Executive, after he saw its impact on com-munities in the USA. Community organ-ising brings together the institutions of civil society – charities, churches, colleges, mosques, schools, synagogues, trade unions, and others – into common membership. Citizens UK’s membership is currently 254 dues-paying members, who work with our Community Organisers, the staff at Citizens UK. Overall there are 34 people employed as Organisers or in our head office in London.

Citizens UK has earned a reputation for its large and successful campaigns. The Living Wage, Citizens for Sanctuary and CitySafe have all captured the imagination of the pub-lic and politicians. This report will show how the success of these campaigns re-lies on the techniques of community or-ganising. Ultimately, Citizens UK is aiming to develop individual leaders in public life, to strengthen the institutions of civ-il society, and to build networks between institutions in local communities. By building local power in this way, citizens are better equipped to achieve the changes they want and hold those in power to account.

The purpose of this impact report is to communicate clearly with members about the overall aims of the Citizens UK alliance. It is a statement of how Citizens UK makes a difference to people’s lives, and it backs up these claims with evidence. As a first impact report, it does not cover everything Citizens UK does, but it is an important first step. The report is based on consultation with leaders and others who work with Citizens UK, and aims to be transparent about findings.

The report was shaped by a steering group made up of Organis-ers, leaders, trustees and evaluation experts, led by Jess Daggers from Intentionality CIC. The report is by Citizens UK, with the expert guidance of Intentionality in complying with impact re-porting good practice.

This is not an evaluation or an academic piece of research. In-stead, we have attempted to follow the six principles of how to report impact, as suggested by industry experts1:

It is down to Citizens UK members to judge whether we have achieved these principles. Please do get in touch with [email protected] if you have any com-ments or queries about the report.

01. ClARITy Clearly connect our work and objectives

02. ACCEssIbIlITy Make impact data accessible

03. TRANsPARENCy Provide a full, open and honest account of our impact

04. ACCOUNTAbIlITy Inform leaders of progress and intentions

05. VERIfIAbIlITy Back up our claims with evidence

06. PROPORTIONAlITy Report at a level of detail that reflects the size and complexity of our work

INTRODUCTION 3

ACTION 8

ThE IMPACT Of CITIzENs UK 9

PEOPlE 9INsTITUTIONs 12ChAllENGEs 14

CAMPAIGNs – A bRIEf OVERVIEW 15

WhAT hAPPENs NExT? 15

1. Principles of good impact reporting March 2012, produced by ACEVO, Charity Finance Group, NCVO et al

CONTENTs

CITIZENS UK IMPACT REPORT 3

32%

22%

18%

13%

7%

5%

2%

TELCO

SLC

NLC

NOTTINGHAM

BIRMINGHAM

MILTON KEYNES

WLC

CORPORATEBODIES

PUBLIC BODIES

ACADEMIC COMMUNITY

FUNDERSOTHER CIVIL

SOCIETY INSTITUTIONS

BENEFICIARIESOF CUK

CAMPAIGNS

WIDER INSTITUTION MEMBERSHIP

CORE LEADERSHIP

TEAM

PARTNERS PROVIDING PRO-BONO SUPPORT

GOVERNMENT DEPARTMENTS

E.G. PEOPLE SEEKING

SANCTUARY IN THE UK

E.G. LOW PAID WORKERS

AND THEIR EMPLOYERS

E.G.SHOPKEEPERS, POLICE AND

YOUNG PEOPLE

E.G. COMMUNITIES

AROUND MEMBER INSTI-

TUTIONS

LOCAL AUTHORITIES

NHS

POLICE

UK BORDER AGENCY

OPPORTUNITIES TO WORK

TOWARDS SOCIAL JUSTICE

OPPORTUNITIES FOR RESEARCH

INTO CIVIC ACTION AND

PARTICIPATION

FUNDERS

PARTICIPATE MORE IN

PUBLIC LIFE

DEVELOP LEADERSHIP

SKILLS BUILD LINKS WITH

OTHER INSTITUTIONS

IN CIVIL SOCIETY

FULFIL CSR OBJECTIVES

STAFF LEARN NEW SKILLS

ABLE TO NEGOTIATE

MORE EFFECTIVELY

WITH POWER

ABLE TO NEGOTIATE

MORE EFFECTIVELY WITH CIVIL

SOCIETY

BUILD MORE AND STRONGER

RELATIONSHIPS WITH LOCAL

COMMUNITIESBETTER

UNDERSTAND NEEDS AND DESIRES OF

COMMUNITIES THEY SERVE

CHILDREN NO LONGER

KEPT IN DETENTION

CENTRES

PART OF A STRONGER,

MORE DIVERSE NETWORK

ABLE TO MEET FUNDING

OBJECTIVES

SENSE OF COMMUNITY AND

FEELINGS OF SAFETY BUILT UP

THROUGH CITYSAFE

BENEFIT FROM LOCAL CHANGES

BROUGHT ABOUT BY CAMPAIGNS E.G.

BETTER ROAD MARKINGS, NEW

STREET LIGHTING

LIVING WAGE GIVES

BETTER STANDARD OF

LIVING

MEMBER INSTITUTIONS

WhO DO WE WORK WITh?

hOW DO WE KNOW WhAT OUR IMPACT Is?

Across the Citizens UK alliance, we have a huge number of partners and collaborators, who are directly impacted by our working partnerships. Tens of thousands of people are impacted by the changes brought about by our campaigns. Over time, Citizens UK intends to build up its impact measurement work to include the impact we have on more of these partners. For this, the 2013 Impact Report, we have concentrated on the people at the core of our work: our member institutions and the leaders we train to participate in public life.

In the past year Jess Daggers from Intentionality CIC has worked with Community Organisers and leaders to:

1. Interview 26 member institutions – roughly 10% of the total – to ask them what impact working with Citizens UK has had on them

2. Gather feedback from 86 leaders on 2-day and 6-day training, using ‘before’ and ‘after’ question-naires2

3. Develop a new mobile application (“the app”) for Community Organisers. The app allows Organis-ers to record ‘output data’ – the number of 1-2-1s and actions taking place – as well as information on ‘outcomes’ – including the ways in which peo-ple are developing as leaders

These activities generate evidence about the impact of Citizens UK. This evidence is not yet very robust, but it is an important step on from anecdotes and individual sto-ries to a more collective understanding of what is taking place across the alliance.

Reporting on impact is a work in progress. It is some-thing Citizens UK seeks to continually improve, and we appreciate the time and support of members in taking part.

INTRODUCTIONINTRODUCTION

2. 303 people in total went on 6-day and 2-day training in 2013. The questionnaires were not used at one session, a number of participants did not return questionnaires, and the final trainings took place too late to be included in this report. Citizens UK intends to improve the coverage of the training questionnaires in 2014.

MEMbERshIP ACROss CITIzENs UK

Of our 254 dues-paying members, 218 (86%) are in London, which is split into The East London Communities Organisation (TELCO), South London Citizens (SLC), North London Citizens (NLC) and West London Citizens (WLC). In addition to Nottingham, Birmingham and Milton Keynes, Citizens UK has local alliances in Cardiff and Scotland, but these most recent alliances do not yet collect dues from members.

TyPEs Of INsTITUTION

FAITH

EDUCATION

OTHER

LABOUR4%

12%

31%

52%

Overall, just over half of member institutions are

faith-based, and almost a third are educational

institutions.


Overall, community organising is a method for building the power of local communities. The way the method works is best explained by an example:

COMMUNITy ORGANIsING IN NORTh lONDON

Citizens UK began its expansion into north London by making con-tact with key civil society institu-tions. The Community Organis-er leading the creation of North London Citizens (NLC) organised a series of 1-2-1 meetings with the leaders in these institutions. Over 3 years or so, these meetings built a network of relationships, cul-minating in 30 institutions agreeing to become founding members of the NLC Chapter.

With every 1-2-1 meeting the Com-munity Organiser was searching for people who showed leadership potential, whether they were al-ready the headmistress of a prima-ry school, or a member of a church congregation who had never tak-en a leadership role before. Those

people were encouraged to attend the 2-day and 6-day training, where they could learn more about the ideas of community organising. With every 1-2-1, the Organiser was explaining and advocating the tech-niques of community organising. The Organiser was encouraging leaders to do their own 1-2-1s with their staff, congregations and stu-dents, and to listen to people’s opin-ions and desires about the change they wanted to see.

After NLC was founded as a chapter, with 30 organisations agreeing to work together, the Community Or-ganiser trained and supported lead-ers to run a listening campaign. The issues they identified were ana-lysed and turned into a series of pos-sible campaign plans. The decision about which issues to collectively pursue were then put to the vote at a Delegates’ Assembly, where each member institution has a vote.

At the same time, smaller working groups were set up around issues that needed more immediate action.

INTRODUCTION

WhAT Is COMMUNITy ORGANIsING?

WhAT Is CITIzENs UK TRyING TO AChIEVE?

The broad aim of Citizens UK is to build the power of civil society. We achieve this aim through our many and varied campaigns, each of which has its own specific aims and outcomes.

Underpinning this work are our three core outcomes:

1. Building networks and relationships between the institutions of civil society

2. Developing individuals to participate as leaders in public life

3. Strengthening institutionsThese core outcomes are the foundation of every one of our campaigns. None of our achievements would be possible without them.

WhAT DO WE MEAN by bUIlDING NETWORKs AND RElATIONshIPs?

Institutions are stronger when they have good relation-ships with others in civil society. By becoming part of the Citizens UK alliance, we support our members in getting to know other institutions. If they already have a relationship, taking action together helps to build on and strengthen it.

Diversity is an essential part of a Citizens alliance. Com-munity organising teaches institutions how to build and strengthen relationships with a diversity of institutions, to find common ground, and to work together to achieve a shared vision of the common good.

Action is essential to community organising. It is only through taking action that leaders can experience how community organising works in practice. Importantly, action has to be strategic. It is based on a pow-er analysis of the decision-makers in control of a situation. Communi-ty Organisers teach leaders how to make a campaign winnable.

Action can be part of a local cam-paign, but it can also be part of the national campaigns run by Citi-zens UK. While some campaigns are specific to a local area, others are coordinated on a larger scale. In North London Citizens, for example, leaders took part in the national Liv-ing Wage campaign to get Islington Council to commit to a Living Wage for all its employees. Locally, leaders organised a Citizens Inquiry into the Tottenham Riots in 2011, and negoti-ated with the Leader of Brent Coun-cil to spend a day with the leaders of member institutions.

Throughout the development of NLC – which now has five Organ-

isers – leaders and Organisers con-tinued to do 1-2-1s, to build links between institutions, and to find opportunities to develop their own and others’ leadership skills. At the core of the community organising philosophy is the idea that Organis-ers should never do for people what they can do for themselves.

hOW ARE COMMUNITy ORGANIsERs TRAINED?

As Citizens UK grows, we are devel-oping the training available to our Organisers. Four of our Organisers have completed the MA Commu-nity Organising at Queen Mary, University of London, and a further five are studying for a Post Graduate Certificate in Community Organ-ising, which we have developed as a training course for Community Organisers.

We are developng a Guild of Community Organisers that meets three times a year to reflect on our progress and learn from collective experience.

WhAT DO WE MEAN by sTRENGThENING INsTITUTIONs?

We encourage institutions to use the tools of community organising to build and strengthen relationships between members, to actively listen to their needs and opinions, and to recognise and encourage potential leaders.

Importantly, we believe the strength of an institution is also reflected in how well it organises its money. Citizens UK depends on the membership dues paid by institutions to help cover the cost of Organisers’ wages. We fundamen-tally believe that if people value something, they will be willing to pay for it.

WhAT DO WE MEAN by lEADERshIP DEVElOPMENT?

There are lots of skills and attributes that go into mak-ing an effective leader in public life, and we seek to create the opportunities for leaders to develop these skills. An effective leader can build relationships with a diver-sity of people, communicate well in public, negotiate with power, and more. Citizens UK has created a tool – a ‘leadership development matrix’ – to be used collabora-tively between Organisers and leaders to help capture this change through the mobile app. More on this tool can be seen on page 10.

MAKE A CAMPAIGN WINNAblE

Campaigns are made winnable by turning the overall problem into specific issues with identifia-ble solutions. Campaigns are successful when it is clear what is being asked for, and the ask is possi-ble and reasonable.

POWER ANAlysIs

Power analysis identifies where the decision-mak-ing power lies in an organisation, so that action is targeted effectively. It recognises the difference between power that comes from a position, and power that comes from relationships.

ACTION

‘Action’ is understood very broadly in communi-ty organising. It can be internal, such as a coffee morning to build relationships between different groups within a congregation. It can be a strategic meeting between leaders from different institu-tions to decide how to tackle an issue. And it can be public action, which aims to bring attention to an issue and get a reaction from those in power.

l IsTENING CAMPAIGN

A listening campaign is a coordinated effort by an institution or a group of institutions to ask people – both the members of the institution and wider afield – what they would like to change about their area, or take collective action on.

ChAPTER

The different London alliances are called ‘Chap-ters’. There are four Chapters making up Lon-don Citizens overall.

1-2-1 MEETINGs

1-2-1 meetings are incredibly important. They are more than just a chat, as they are used to un-derstand each others’ interests and motivations. They signal that the participants value each oth-ers’ time and opinions, and want to build a public relationship.


1%

2%

6%

15%

16%

36%

24%

NOT RECORDED

FAITH

OTHER

EDUCATION

COMMUNITY

YOUTH

LABOUR

CITIzENs UK IMPACT REPORT

ACTIONREsUlTs fROM ThE APP:

1-2-1s by TyPE Of INsTITUTION

Of 1-2-1s WERE WITh NEW PEOPlE

Our Organisers and the leaders at our member institutions take action on a regular basis. Citizens UK thinks it is increasingly important to keep track of the dozens of actions we help to organise each month. Doing so will help us to understand how we are distributing our time and resources, and to communicate more effectively what it takes to create the kind of changes we bring about through our campaigns.

For this reason, we have developed the app that some of our Organisers have started to use to record their activity. All Organisers will be using the app by Christmas 2013.

We are pleased to share some preliminary results, which represent just a small propor-tion of the action that takes place across Cit-izens UK as a whole:

19 organisers have so far recorded 326 1-2-1s, between March and October 2013. This does not reflect the true level of activity of Or-ganisers, but it gives us some interesting information:

12 organisers have recorded 79 actions, with a total turnout of al-most 3000 people.

501500

OVER 50 DIffERENT NATIONAlITIEs WERE REPREsENTED AT ThE ACTIONs

OVER 1500 PEOPlE DID sOMEThING ThEy hAD NEVER DONE bEfORE, IllUsTRATING hOW COMMUNITy ORGANIsING bRINGs PEOPlE INTO PARTICIPATION IN PUblIC lIfE

ThE IMPACT Of CITIzENs UK

CITIzENs UK TRAININGOverall, Citizens UK’s work has an impact on tens of thousands of people across the UK, through our numerous campaigns. At the heart of this change are the institutions in the Citizens UK alliance and their members. These institutions and individuals form the focus of this section.

Importantly, we have included the issues or problems that have arisen in our conversa-tions with leaders – some of the unintended impact of Citizens UK – with a public com-mitment of how we are responding to these issues. (see page 14)

PEOPlECitizens UK develops people as leaders in public life in a number of ways:

On the 2-day and 6-day training courses, which are run several times a year

At ad hoc training sessions run by Or-ganisers at individual institutions

Through individual meetings be-tween leaders and Community Or-ganisers

We have been asking for leaders’ thoughts on leadership development through evaluation questionnaires used at all 2-day and 6-day training, and through the institution inter-views that took place in July – September 2013. The recent evaluation of the CitySafe campaign also gives some insight into leader-ship development with young people.

TRAINING AIMs TO DO A NUMbER Of ThINGs:

1. ExPlAIN ThE ThEORy Of COMMUNITy ORGANIsING

Community organising uses concepts such as ‘power’ and ‘self-interest’ in a specific way. The training gives leaders from all backgrounds a common language for building alliances and working together.A crucial feature of training is therefore teaching leaders the ide-as that underpin community organising. Out of the 86 responses to our training questionnaires, 97% agree that they better un-derstand what community organising means and involves. 100% agree that they better understand what Citizens UK is about. A number of the leaders we interviewed said that it was only after the 6-day training that they really understood how community organising is supposed to work. And “Understanding of power dynamics” has consistently been the biggest area of change on our ‘distance travelled’ measures, with leaders moving an aver-age of 2.5 points up a 10-point scale.

2. MOTIVATE, INsPIRE AND ENCOURAGE lEADERshIP POTENTIAl

Community organising demonstrates that the actions of or-dinary people can contribute to positive, concrete change. In the words of one of our leaders, community organising “makes the normal person feel powerful”. The training leaves most leaders feeling positive about taking an active role in leading change through their institution. Over 90% of trainees agreed that they are more optimistic and more moti-vated about local action following the training.

97% feel better equipped to lead on and tackle local issues

90% feel better equipped to support others to have greater in-volvement in local decision-making

88% have a clearer idea of possible solutions to local problems

75% 25%75% 25%

WERE REPEAT 1-2-1s


3. TEACh lEADERs NEW sKIlls

The training teaches leaders how to use 1-2-1s to build effec-tive relationships, how to analyse power, how to bring people together to work on an issue, and more. Using 10-point scales to capture ‘before’ and ‘after’ data, the questionnaires indicate that many people already have lead-ership skills when they arrive on training. The biggest areas of change have consistently been:

Overall, the training allows leaders to build on existing skills, while effectively teaching how to use the tools of community or-ganising. It tends to motivate leaders and generate greater opti-mism that their actions can lead to effective change.

However, our training is not always as effective as it could be. For example, some of the leaders we interviewed said they left train-ing without a clear idea of how to apply what they had learned back in their institution. This is despite efforts to ensure lead-ers agree a plan of action with their Organiser before they finish training. To keep track of when leaders are left in this situation, we are aiming to introduce a routine 6-month follow up with leaders who have been on 6-day training. We encourage all lead-ers who are not clear on how to put community organising into practice to get in touch with their Organiser.


lEADERshIP DEVElOPMENT

Citizens UK have seen countless examples across the alliance of individuals transforming their lives through involvement with community organising. Of course, there are also many individuals who are not affected much or at all. We are beginning to measure the change we bring about, so that we can better understand what happens, and where we are most effective.The mobile app is an important part of measuring change in leadership skills. It is both a strategic tool to help Organisers be targeted and reflective in their approach, and a way to capture numerical data about how our leaders are changing.

The leadership data is displayed on the star diagram to the right, with examples from two leaders.

From the institution interviews, leadership development was consistently the strong-est area of impact. Even people who have been in leadership positions for many years said that community organising had helped them to improve.

Leaders also pointed out that developing leadership skills takes a long time, and that it is particularly effective with young people. A recent evaluation of the CitySafe cam-paign – one of the main ways young lead-ers in London get involved with Citizens UK – confirmed this. For example, 80% of young leaders said that being involved in CitySafe meant they were more keen to get their friends to join them in taking action to change their local area.

EXAMPLE 1PETER

SARAH

EXAMPLE 2

CORE SKILLS

PERSONAL QUALITIES

WILLING/ABLE TO INVEST TIME

IN BUILDING RELATIONSHIPS

ABLE TO UNDERSTAND AND ANALYSE

POWER DYNAMICS

HAS STRATEGIC

ABILITY

HAS CONNECTIONS WITH OTHER PEOPLE IN PUBLIC LIFE

HAS MOTIVATION ROOTED IN ANGER AT INJUSTICE

ABLE TO BUILD RELATIONSHIPS WITH DIVERSITY

OF PEOPLE

ABLE TO ORGANISE

TIMERELIABLE

0

10

CONFIDENT

ABLE TO COMMUNICATE

IN PUBLIC

MEETS WITH OTHER

LEADERS

INTERESTED IN WORKING

IN OTHER INSTITUTIONS

SHARES LEADERSHIP AND POWER WITH OTHERS

DESIRES PARTICIPATION IN PUBLIC LIFE

PARTICIPATES IN ACTION

PARTICIPATES IN BROADER

CUK DECISIONS

INVESTS TIME AND MONEY IN CUK MORE

BROADLY

SPREADS THE WORD

ABOUT CUKSHOWS INTEREST IN

WORKING WITH ORGANISERS

UNDERSTANDS AND IMPLEMENTS

COMMUNITY ORGANISING

ABLE TO ORGANISE EFFECTIVE INTERNAL

MEETINGS AND ACTIONS

HAS STRONG CONNECTION

TO INSTITUTION

HAS AN INTEREST IN DEVELOPING

OWN AND OTHERS’

LEADERSHIP ABILITIES

ABLE TO TURN OUT OTHER PEOPLE TO ACTIONS

USES ORGANISING TOOLS TO

STRENGTHEN OWN INSTITUTION

INSTITUTIONALLEADERSHIP

COMMUNITY LEADERSHIP

CITIZENS UKLEADERSHIP

ExAMPlE 1: PETER f, yOUTh ORGANIsATION

Peter has been a Citizens UK leader for 1 year. He has mainly been involved in CitySafe walks and a listening campaign in Islington. His average scores to the questions in each of the five areas are shown on the BLUE line

Peter and his Organiser agreed that he has ‘improved slightly’ in all five areas, and these changes are ‘mostly’ down to Citizens UK rather than other factors. They have agreed to concentrate on finding opportunities for public speaking.

ExAMPlE 2:

sARAh l, sIxTh fORM COllEGE

Sarah has been a Citizens UK leader for 2 years, and has been working on the Living Wage and Jobs cam-paign as well as encouraging Islington Council to set up a replacement bursary for the EMA worth £39,000 Her average scores are shown on the RED line:

Sarah has shown a big improvement in three leadership areas, and a slight improvement in the other two. The change is ‘mostly’ down to Citizens UK, apart from in institutional leadership skills, where she also gets training from her own organisation. She has agreed with her Or-ganiser to concentrate on receiving more CUK training

UNDERSTANDING OF POWER DYNAMICS

BEFORE

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

UNDERSTANDING OF HOW TO BRING PEOPLE TOGETHER TO CAMPAIGN

UNDERSTANDING OF HOW TO INFLUENCE OTHERS

AFTER

“The whole framework of rounds, giving everyone voice, it’s very different, at the beginning I found it a bit tedious. I’m used to doing things quickly. As it devel-oped I realised how important that was. I always believed that once you empower people you give them so much more. To have the structures there to see how an-other group goes about doing that, that was really quite good.”

Leader, secondary school

“Have you seen people in your institution develop as leaders?”

“Not yet, not yet. I can understand how this can happen, but it didn’t happen yet. Change is slow.”

Leader, Islamic organisation



Citizens UK works with our member institutions to make them stronger and more active in public life. Measuring this change is challenging, as we have a huge diversity of members who work in very different ways. As a first step in reporting our impact on our member institutions, we did 26 semi-structured interviews asking leaders what they think of their involvement with Citizens UK, and what has changed for them as a result.


INsTITUTIONs

INTERNAl CUlTURECitizens UK encourage members to strengthen their internal culture by conducting frequent 1-2-1s, by actively listening to the issues and problems experienced by members, and by searching for opportunities to develop individuals with leader-ship potential.

Based on the interviews we did, the internal culture of member insti-tutions is changed for the better for the majority of members. In some cases, adopting the tech-niques of community organising is transformational. A few institu-tions, for example, have employed staff whose job is specifically to pro-mote community organising inter-nally, or have encouraged all staff to attend training and use organising methods in all aspects of the work.

More commonly, institutions take up some elements of community organising, such as a renewed focus on leadership, or adopting certain techniques for running meetings. Community organising gives them tools to continue doing things they are doing anyway, perhaps making it easier to achieve their aims.

A few institutions make no chang-es at all - this may be because of a clash of cultures, or because the internal culture is already very strong/defined, or because they felt like they were already doing what community organising suggests.

POsITION IN ThE lOCAl COMMUNITyMany members benefit from the huge diversity of the alliance they find through Citizens UK. Most in-stitutions find membership makes a difference to the variety of people

they are in contact with, and in the quality of the relationships they have, though they often had good relationships with other institu-tions independently of Citizens UK. In numerous cases institutions are brought together who had never interacted before.

A small number of institutions feel membership makes no difference in building links with others, or are doubtful about how sustainable new relationships will turn out to be.

RElATIONshIP WITh ThE ORGANIsERsCommunity Organisers largely have very positive relationships with leaders across the Citizens UK alliance. The Organisers play an important role in giving momen-tum to campaigns, encouraging ac-tion, boosting confidence, suggest-ing ideas and linking people up. A number of leaders mentioned how impressed they are with the dedica-tion and hard work of their Organ-iser.

Organisers are typically working on numerous things at once, and lead-ers are asked to do a lot to support the campaigns and internal actions that take place. We understand that this relationship has to be balanced. Sometimes, unfortunately, it is out of balance, and leaders are not hap-py with their working relationship. Please see the end of this section (page 14) for more detail.

DIffERENT KINDs Of INsTITUTIONsThe effects of membership vary across different kinds of institution. Key differences include:

fAITh INsTITUTIONs

Churches, mosques and syna-gogues collectively are the larg-est contingent of institutions, and often see community organ-ising as a way of putting faith into action.

The Citizens UK alliance pro-vides an opportunity for effec-tive interfaith and interchurch dialogue, in a manner that is seen as complementary to (or even better than) other forms of interfaith work. A Jewish or-ganisation, for example, found that membership of Citizens UK allowed them to access public life in a way they had previously found difficult.

The principles of community or-ganising can be particularly ef-fective in small congregations. The internal culture of a small institution can be transformed by helping the priest to become a better leader. In larger, more hierarchical churches, there can sometimes be more resistance to adopting techniques such as 1-2-1s and listening campaigns.

Some religious leaders find ideas about power to be incompatible with scripture, but others have come to see that “power is not a dirty word”.

Faith institutions are some of the most active members, because their congregations often in-clude people who no longer work and have more time available.

EDUCATION INsTITUTIONs

Schools and colleges tend to be highly organised already, with a strong internal culture. They

are less likely to experience much change to the way they run things, but offer Citizens UK as an extra-curricular activity to students. In some cases the use of listening campaigns is contro-versial and clashes with school leadership, but in others it is wel-comed and school-wide listening campaigns are run.

Community organising provides a way for young people to get in-volved outside the school gates, but in a manner that is safe and monitored. Young people in par-ticular tend to benefit from the opportunities Citizens UK offers.

Community organising matches very well with the Citizenship re-quirements of a school.There are challenges with finding times for pupils to participate, especially when coordinating with adults who work in the day. CitySafe is a very popular campaign with schools, because it is highly rel-evant to the children and can fit with the school day.

OThER INsTITUTIONs

There are a huge number of oth-er kinds of institutions, including academic institutions, chari-ties, a think tank, trade unions, and youth organisations. Each of these adopts the elements of community organising that match their internal culture – some join because of particular campaigns, others want to focus on leader training and develop-ment, others want to be part of a bigger and more diverse net-work.

“OUR ORGANIsER hAs GOT Us WORKING WITh ThE CAThOlIC CAThEDRAl! ThAT WOUlD NEVER hAVE hAP-PENED! ThE VICAR Is MAK-ING A VIsIT TO bRANChEs. IT’s AN INTEREsTING ExPERI-ENCE fOR All Of ThEM. WE WOUlDN’T hAVE DONE ThAT bEfORE.”

lEADER, TRADE UNION

“COMMUNITy ORGANIsING Is A WAy Of ENACTING WhAT WE shOUlD bE As A ChURCh.”

lEADER, fAITh INsTITUTION


“It has taken a year of work to get to the publication of this impact re-port. We decided collectively that producing a report like this was an important first step, as was doing our first ever round of institution interviews, building our first mobile data collection tool, building up our work to evaluate 2-day and 6-day training and finding a way to meas-ure leadership development. It is important that this work continues so that our evidence base gets more robust and more comprehensive over the coming years.

This report is for our membership and I hope it will act as a point of discussion for local leadership teams. It should be a source of celebration of the things we are doing well, and a source of reflec-tion about things we need to change and improve. If members think this is a useful and worthwhile activity, we will aim to produce our next impact report in the next year or two. Thank you to everyone who contributes their time and energy to the work we do, and who take part in the crucial activity of collecting and analys-ing evidence about how well it works.”

NEIl JAMEsON, DIRECTOR

IssUE ThE bAlANCE IN ThE RElATIONshIP bETWEEN lEADER AND ORGANIsER IsN’T AlWAys RIGhT: fOUR Of ThE INsTITUTIONs WE INTERVIEWED sAID ThEy fElT ThE RElATIONshIP WAsN’T RECIPROCAl, OR ThAT ThE OR-GANIsER AsKED fOR MORE ThAN ThEy GAVE.

REsPONsE “The new Citizens UK constitution empowers Local Leadership Teams - consisting of experienced leaders from member institutions who have done the Citizens UK National Training - to direct the work of their Organ-iser and ensure the reciprocity of the relationship. It is always tricky to get the balance right and we apologise when we have not done so. If this continues to be an issue we encourage you to raise this with the Lead Organiser of your chapter.”

sOME INsTITUTIONs DO NOT fEEl lIsTENED TO: TWO INsTITUTIONs sAID ThEy DID NOT fEEl ThEIR INTEREsTs WERE bEING TAKEN INTO ACCOUNT, AND ThAT ThE REsUlTs Of lIsTENING CAMPAIGNs WERE IGNORED IN fAVOUR Of CAMPAIGNs ThAT ARE “PREDEfINED”.

“Citizens UK’s campaigns are chosen by its members and we try to ensure that we work on a broad range of issues. It is not possible for us to action every single campaign and we are sorry if your issue is not selected. It is not com-pulsory to participate in actions and campaigns, but we encourage member organisations to show solidarity with other members and their campaigns. The role of the new Local Leadership Teams is to safeguard the interests of member institutions and ensure that the agenda of your local Citizens alliance genuinely reflects your interests.”

CAMPAIGNs ARE NOT AlWAys RElEVANT: fOUR INsTI-TUTIONs COMMENTED ThAT ThE CAMPAIGNs bEING RUN AT ThE MOMENT DO NOT CAPTURE ThE INTEREsT Of ThEIR MEMbERshIP

“It is not possible to work on every issue of interest to our members, but even if the main issues our alliance is working on does not capture your interest, by working closely with your Organiser we hope you could find a way to act on the issues that emerge from your listening cam-paign - perhaps on a very local level to begin with.”

ThE ORGANIsER Is NOT AROUND ENOUGh: fOUR INsTITUTIONs fElT ThEy DO NOT sEE ENOUGh Of ThEIR ORGANIsER / ThEy NEED MORE sUPPORT fROM ThEIR ORGANIsER IN MAKING ThINGs hAPPEN

“If you haven’t already, please tell your Organiser this. If that doesn’t work, speak to the Lead Organiser for your chapter. The Organisers’ role is to help you to take ac-tion.”

ThE ORGANIsER/CITIzENs UK MORE bROADly IsN’T AlWAys ORGANIsED ENOUGh: fOUR INsTITUTIONs MENTIONED A lACK Of ORGANIsATION ON ThE PART Of ThE ORGANIsERs/ lACK Of INfORMATION AbOUT WhAT Is hAPPENING WhEN/IN ENOUGh ADVANCE

“We hope you agree that we have a bright and talented staff team - but we need to invest more in their formation so that they are more effective Organisers. So in part-nership with Queen Mary University of London we have developed a Postgraduate Certificate in Community Or-ganising, which provides masterclasses in the key skills and virtuous habits of Organisers. By drawing in the ex-pertise of a time management and personal effectiveness expert, Roger Black, we hope to improve the way our Or-ganisers organise themselves.”

ThERE IsN’T AlWAys A fOllOW UP ON 2-DAy AND 6-DAy TRAINING – lEADERs DON’T KNOW hOW TO APPly WhAT ThEy hAVE lEARNED, OR (IN ONE CAsE) hADN’T hEARD fROM ThE ORGANIsER sINCE ATTEND-ING TRAINING.

“We allocate time in the training to spend with your Or-ganiser to agree next steps. We are also implementing a system in which Organisers routinely follow up with leaders 6 months after they attend 6-day training, but Organisers should also be in contact with leaders in the weeks following training to check in.”


An important part of any impact report is consideration of ‘unintended outcomes’. For Citizens UK, unintended outcomes occur when the relationships with and between member institutions do not function as community organising suggests they should. Citizens UK would like to publicly acknowledge the issues that have been raised by leaders in the interviews, and to give a response. Please feel free to discuss these issues with your Organiser or the Lead Organiser in your area.


ChAllENGEs

CAMPAIGNs

Across Citizens UK there are tens of campaigns run-ning at any time. They all rely on using the techniques of community organising to develop individual leaders, strengthen member institutions and build networks in civil society. Here is a quick overview of the national campaigns.

The CitySafe campaign now has over 500 business-es across London signed up as SafeHavens, and 50 member institutions (including 30 schools) have agreed to make CitySafe a priority. An evaluation was recently done of the CitySafe campaign, which can be found on the Citizens UK website. It shows how com-munity organising techniques are key to the success-es so far, and looks at challenges ahead for expanding CitySafe further.

There are now 470 Living Wage employers. While many employers now take the initiative to sign up for the Living Wage, many take some persuading by Cit-izens UK leaders. All of the local Living Wage actions are organised by leaders using the techniques of com-munity organising.

Citizens UK has run a number of successful cam-paigns to improve the lives of refugees and economic migrants. The Citizens UK Diaspora Caucus now fo-cuses on building the power of these communities on a national level by encouraging participation in and training through local Citizens alliances.

A new campaign tackling issues in health and social care was launched in October. Listening campaigns across member institutions have exposed serious concerns around the provision of care. Leaders and organisers have developed a Care Charter, which in-cludes demands for carers to be paid the Living Wage.

The East London Community Land Trust addresses housing problems in East London, and will provide affordable housing to local residents on completion in 2017. The Trust is owned by local people who take on leadership positions in negotiating with develop-ers.

The Tech City jobs initiative is working with member institutions to find young leaders to take up appren-ticeships in the Old Street area of London.

A bRIEf OVERVIEW

WhAT hAPPENs NExT?


CITIzENs UK

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INTENTIONAlITy CIC

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