four ways to turn ideas into action

Four ways to turn ideas into actionCase studies in social change from the RSA Fellowship October 2013 by Sam Thomas

www.thersa.org

Politics used to be the way people would get engaged in social issues. Fifty years ago, me, I would have just joined a political party to change my country andmy city. Its not that Im not interested in politics, I just dont see that as my way tochangethings. Rob Greenland, RSA Fellow and co-founder of Leeds Empties

Contents

Introduction 2

1. Meet with others 4

2. Connect online 10

3. Share your skills 14

4. Grow your idea 18

Conclusion 25

Key learnings by project 26

Acknowledgements 27

Join the RSA Fellowship 28

1

Four ways to turn ideas into action2

Introduction

The RSA was founded in 1754, and during its long and busy life has achieved many things. Common to all of them is one consistent principle: that ordinary people are capable of changing the world around them for the better, by developing and acting ontheir ideas. Our mission today is to seek out enlightened thinking and put it to work in practical ways.

One of the most important ways we do this is through our27,000-strong Fellowship: a diverse group of people from awide range of backgrounds, united by a desire to build a better society. One of the things weve learned working every day with this extraordinary group of people is that when addressing complex social issues, having a good idea alone isnt enough. People come up with new ways to solve problems all the time, butmost of them never come to fruition and those that do usually follow a long, difficult path before they can have a real impact on theworld.

At the RSA, we work hard to support our Fellows in developing and growing their ideas, and weve learned a lot aboutwhat helps turn them into practical action. In what follows, youll learn about ten very different ideas that RSA Fellows have developed, and some of the ways in which we and others have supported them. Weve grouped these into four sections, to correspond with the four ways that we encourage our Fellows tohelp contribute to our charitable mission:

3Introduction

1. Meet with othersGood ideas about anything let alone the question of how society can beimproved rarely emerge as perfect, fully-formed blueprints. Ittakes discussion, debate and argument to improve an initial thought to the point where it can serve as a spur to action. The RSAs Fellows have been doing this since its inception, and they now organise lively events and meetings all over the UK, and beyond. Well look at three examples of how bringing people together can develop ideas and connectcommunities.

2. Connect onlineThe web and social media make it possible for people whove never mettowork together. These tools can help spread ideas and help people participate in them more easily but technology itself isnt enough: it has to be used effectively. Well explore two projects from the Fellowship that have used social media in different ways to engage people in debate and action on social issues.

3. Share your skillsOnce you have an idea for how things could change, it takes a range of skills and talents to make sure it happens. Luckily, more and more people are looking to share their professional experience with each other and with worthwhile projects, and RSA Fellows are no different. Well look attwo case studies of how this kind of sharing can work in practice.

4. Grow your ideaIf something works, it only makes sense to try to help it grow. If youve found a new approach to a social challenge, it can be a struggle to prove that it works. For over three years, the RSA has been helping RSA Fellows do this through our Catalyst fund and the support we provide alongside it. In this section we look at three inspiring examples of projects that have grown from a good idea to do amazing things in theircommunities.

Not everything these projects tried was successful, and theres a great dealto be learned from both the things that went well and those that didnt. In all of the examples that follow, though, youll find three things: a commitment to work collaboratively with others, the confidence to try things out, and a shared aim to change society for the better.


1. Meet with others

The RSAs Fellows met for the first time in 1754, at Rawthnells coffee house in Covent Garden. They came together because of their common interests and concerns, but from the outset they were determined to workfor the benefit of others in society.

The idea of people meeting for the common good is nothing new: think of civic associations, trade unions or political parties. Many of these forms of association have struggled in recent years, with membership of the main political parties declining rapidly over the last thirty years.1 However, the impulse is still there for people to cometogether andshare ideas for making things better and the scaleand severityofthesocial problems we face today makes itevenmoreimportant that we do.

A good place to start is by bringing together a group of people, and exploring what they have in common. The RSAs Regional Programme Team supports Fellows in organising events and workshops to explore issues facing their communities, and provides advice on how to organise and facilitate them effectively. In this section, well give some examples of Fellows coming together, and how they make the time they spend witheach other productive and enjoyable.

OpenDinnerRSA Fellows debate topical social issues over aninformalmeal

1. See Participation: trends, facts and figures, NCVO, March 2011 (bit.ly/ncvoparticipation)

Education writer and campaignerFiona Millar speaksat an OpenDinner

51. Meet with others

When focusing on serious issues, its easy to forget that people also want to enjoy themselves. The things that we look for when we spend time with our friends and family good conversation, laughter, food dont cease to matter when the focus shifts to solving a problem. In fact, sometimes thebest work gets done when people forget that theyre working and enjoy themselves.

Longstanding RSA Fellow Kevin Donovan is firmly of the opinion that discussing important issues shouldnt mean adopting a serious tone. Through the OpenDinner events hes been organising in Liverpool for the last couple of years, he sets out to create an alternative to the stuffy atmosphere of the formal dinner. My approach as chair of the meeting is to get people to relax and realise that were having some fun some serious fun together, Kevin says. Its being an MC more than a chair. Its informal, its friendly and its collegiate.

The Liverpool OpenDinners take place at Delifonseca, a restaurant in the city centre owned and managed by an RSA Fellow. They aim to provide an entertaining, informative evening of debate and discussion. Topics discussed at the meetings have ranged from criminal justice to education, with a speaker sharing their personal experience in order to provoke discussion. One of the best, says Kevin, was education writer andcampaigner Fiona Millar: her delivery and style were obviously very,very good, he says. Experienced, professional and political: sheknew how to provoke questions.

The success of an event isnt just down to an engaging talk, though: theres also careful planning involved. Whenever possible, Kevin meets with the speakers in person ahead of the evening, to discuss what theyre going to talk about and put together some prompts to get others talking. These are particularly important: a set of questions or provocations, shared with attendees on the night, which help give the evening some focus. This ensures that as well as being sociable occasions, the dinners provide plenty of opportunity for debate, with everybody encouraged tocontribute.

Sometimes this preparation can be quite involved. At the most recent event, RSA Fellow Michael King gave a talk on an unusual and perhaps unpromising subject: heavy trains. Drawing on his PhD research, Michael had prepared a Cluedo-style game that challenged diners to think about an engineering puzzle: why are British trains heavier and hence less energy efficient than those of other countries? By inviting attendees to consider all the economic, organisational and engineering factors that might be responsible, as well as the key characters from John Major to Richard Branson he prompted a wide-ranging debate on the complexity of addressing climate change.

The dinners are always lively and spirited, but Kevin reflects that sofarthey havent sparked off any activities that go beyond the evening. It hasnt made that little important click in peoples heads, Kevin observes, to see that they can now use or be involved in the RSA in more active ways. I find it frustrating that it still isnt happening. Perhaps it need not perhaps Im trying too hard.

Nonetheless, hes already making plans for the next dinner, which willbe the last he organises, featuring Gemma Bodinetz, artistic direc-tor of the Liverpool Everyman and Playhouse theatres. The reason for


having her is that later this year the work will be completed on the new theatre, so we plan to dedicate a seat to the RSA.

Kevin has no doubt that itll be a memorable way to cap off his time organising these events, and is pleased to have already found two volunteers to organise future events. Hes challenged them to develop the events further, and build on the relationships that have already formed around the evenings.

Key learning: People learn more and make lasting connections when theyre enjoying themselves

Find out more about the philosophy behind OpenDinners in Kevins RSAComment piece: bit.ly/opendinner

Unleashing PotentialConnecting community organisations and RSA Fellows in the eastofEngland

Most voluntary organisations hold an annual conference a chance for people to reflect on a year of activity and form plans for the next. A good idea in principle, but the reality can sometimes be dispiriting. The formal-ity of these occasions can stifle creativity, with time spent chewing over administrative issues, or debating the finer points of group governance. Increasingly, RSA Fellows who work together in regions across the UK to plan activities and projects are trying something different: making their yearly meet-ups an opportunity to share what theyve been working on and draw inspiration from others.

When Chris Kington, an RSA Fellow based in Cambridge, was thinking about plans for an annual meeting of Fellows in the east ofEngland, he struck on the idea of bringing them to the Centre for Mathematical Sciences a striking modernist building on the outskirts ofthe city, light and spacious. Exactly the kind of place, he thought, toget people to reflect expansively on what they could achieve together through the RSA. On 29 June 2013, after much preparation, the Centre opened its doors for Unleashing Potential a day-long event with a tightly-packedprogramme.

RSA chairman Vikki Heywood hears about local community projects (photo: R. A. Porrer)

7The conference was designed to showcase Fellows activity in theregion to allow light into previously unlit areas, said Chris. AnyFellow who needed a voice was encouraged to be heard. And there were plenty of takers: 23 different organisations and projects were represented on the day, ranging from a local community radio station in Norwich to the Big Issue whose editor-in-chief and founder JohnBird gave a keynote speech.

Having two excellent, engaging speakers John and the RSAs chairman Vikki Heywood certainly helped to give the day momentum. As well as this, though, Chris and his fellow organisers provided plenty of space for attendees to discuss issues facing the region, inviting them to suggest topics in advance. Having facilitators for a series of different interest groups, which were all set out in the programme, meant that people were free to join whichever discussion interested them most.

Topics up for discussion ranged from environmental protection to education and employment and gave local Fellows a chance to plan the activities that will take place in the region during the year to come. One group identified lack of help with parenting skills as a pressing issue, andidentified a Norwich-based charity, Home Start, which might benefitfrom the support of local Fellows.

Organisations represented on the day found it useful too. Not only was the general feedback very encouraging, but a number of connections were made with Fellows who actively want to get involved in a personal capacity, said Gavin Shelton, who runs community food sharing organi-sation The Peoples Pantry. Just one of many great outcomes from a highly positive day.

When surveyed afterwards, 80 percent of attendees said they were satisfied with the event and there was much positive feedback on the day. Robert Porrer, a Fellow who attended the event, found the diversity of the discussions particularly impressive. I went round all of the groups, and each one was being run differently, he commented. It was entirely appropriate they were different topics, different people andinterests.

Often the risk with engaging, noisy events is that all the energy they create disappears when everyone goes home. Chris has avoided this by working with other members of the regional team to produce a follow-up newsletter, which identifies 12 different ideas discussed at the event to pursue as well as reports on all the discussions and talks from the day. And hes confident that the momentum will keep up: all in all, he says, it was an immensely satisfying day with so many new links made and plans are taking shape.

Key learning: Strong facilitation will help people to have more rewardingdiscussions

Read the follow-up report from the conference: bit.ly/eeconference

1. Meet with others


Keep Calm Prepare for ChangeAn event exploring how we can live and work more sustainably

In October 2012, RSA Fellows in the north-west of England met to discuss how we could start to live more sustainably. The Keep Calm Prepare for Change conference they organised drew on the now-ubiquitous wartime branding, but those organising had a straightforward reason for using it. The famous slogan was aimed at raising morale in difficult times, and as a society we face such times today in a different way: living within our means, and the planets capacity.

Lily Barton, chair of the RSAs north-west region, explains where the spark for the event came from. After joining the RSA I realised that the Fellows I met were very much an innovative and entrepreneurial bunch, says Lily. They had so much knowledge, experience and get up and go that it got me thinking: why not harness their strengths for the benefit ofthe many instead of the few?

Lily worked with other local Fellows to organise a day of events in Manchester, which brought together business people, social entrepreneurs and community groups. The days programme mixed debate and discus-sion with invited speakers and practical workshops, on subjects ranging from why businesses find it hard to adopt green policies, to how behaviour change can help tackle environmental problems.

Lily and 10 other Fellows in the regional team gave their time tohelpwith organisation on the day, as well as 18 volunteer speakers. Noindividual can deliver a successful event alone, says Lily. I believe inworking in collaboration with others. So I would say that that is the one thing I did to make the day a successful one: we all have different strengths and, being realistic, its impossible to be strong on all fronts.

The team made a map of all the local stakeholders and, informed by this, built partnerships with Manchester Metropolitan University (MMU), the University of Manchester, Corridor Manchester and Business in the Community. These relationships made the event possible: MMU provided space at their new business school, and also contributed to the day by sharing their work and promoting the event to their audiences.

The conference inspired several RSA Fellows across the region to start putting the ideas discussed on the day into practice: for instance,

More than 100 people attended events across the day (photo: Michael Ambjorn)

9JulesBagnoli has just received funding from the RSAs North-West Venture Fund totrialasystem for using shipping containers for food farming, using hydroponic technology.

What made this event work and set it apart from other conferences and meetings was the extent to which it brought people together around a shared aim. Collaboration between organisations and people is becom-ing increasingly important, particularly within the environment we have to operate in today, Lily explains. Those that dont work together in partnership are letting great opportunities slip away.

Key learning: Find people and organisations that share an interest, and let them spark off each other

Find out more about Keep Calm Prepare for Change: www.keepcalmnw.co.uk

Find out more about Jules Bagnolis Refarming project: www.refarming.co.uk

Support and resourcesInspired to meet with others to solve a problem facing your community? Heres where to go next:

See the RSA ChangeMakers handbook for more advice on facilitating meetings: bit.ly/changestarts

If youre an RSA Fellow, your regional programme manager can provide advice and support on facilitation. Find out how to contact them here: www.thersa.org/fellowship/contact-fellowship

Find out more about RSA networks and meetings near you: www.thersa.org/fellowship/where-you-are

1. Meet with others


2. Connect online

Its never been easier to share your idea with the world. The web and social media provide a way of communicating with people thats both quick and inexpensive, and RSA Animate videos have shown how chal-lenging ideas can reach a worldwide audience. However, people are quickly realising that as useful as the new tools we have are, they remain just that: tools. Theres a craft to getting your message across well online, just as there is when youre talking to a room full of people.

In the last section, we saw how bringing people together in person can help generate excitement about an idea. Not everyone, though, is able or willing to spend time at events or meetings and if the focus of what youre doing is wider than the immediate community, there may be people with insights to offer from further afield. For this reason, people are increasingly turning to social media online tools that allow people to communicate easily and quickly, such as Twitter and Facebook as an alternative way ofpromoting causes and projects in which theyre involved.

RSA Fellows are a vocal presence on social media, as youll see if you look at one of the many places where theyre talking about their work together. Increasingly, RSA events and meetings have a second, parallel life on Twitter, with people commenting, sharing and contributing their own knowledge. The Fellowship has a group of voluntary digital champions who help others to get involved online, and theres also plenty of free advice available to get started. In this section, well look at two examples of Fellows projects that have used the web to engage with two very different communities.

Leeds EmptiesA Fellow-led campaign to bring empty houses in Leeds back into use

Leeds has over 5,000 empty residential properties (photo:Anthony Farrimond)

112. Connect online

Leeds Empties started with a simple, stark fact: more than 5,000 homesinLeeds have been empty for over six months. To Rob Greenland, a social entrepreneur whos been working in the city for over a decade, itdemanded a response. Theres nothing more basic than needs around food and shelter, Rob says. It felt like an issue where theres a gap to do something different, and we thought itd engage people. You can point toan empty home, and just ask: why?

It turns out, in this context, that why? is a difficult question to answer. Nine out of ten empty homes in Leeds are privately owned, whichmeans the city council although keen to address the issue doesnt have the power to solve it on its own. And the reasons that homes lie empty are numerous, ranging from poor maintenance or lack of finance to family disputes. Rob and his business partner Gill Coupland took to the web to raise awareness about the issue, and the result was Leeds Empties, acampaign working with property owners to help emptyhouses becomehomes again.

I have no doubt at all that we would never have got to the point of action without social media, says Rob. It allows you to find a critical mass of people quite quickly. By focusing on a single issue in a single city, he and Gill were able to generate a real buzz around Leeds Empties. Partly this was down to Robs strong network of local Twitter follow-ers, many of whom were also RSA Fellows, who helped get the message out wethought RSA Fellows could be a good network, whether its academics, architects, local community activists, he says.

Sparking a debate also helped. It was more about asking questions than saying we have solutions to problems, he says. Wed say did you know there are 5000 empty homes in Leeds? People respond to that, andconversations begin there.

These conversations came together at a face-to-face event. Rob created an Eventbrite page to allow people to register, and 100 people signed up a huge turnout for a brand new campaign. At the event, people were encouraged to pledge support for bringing empty homes back into use, and the team followed up these promises afterwards. On a very basic level, there was an energy to that day that came from there being 100 people who all saw other people being quite generous, hesays.

Rob is also clear that keeping up momentum following this event was the hardest part of the project. After six months of donating their time and pulling in favours, he and Gill found they were hitting a wall. Its easy to get people to explore ideas, he says, but to go back to them a week or two later and say that was really interesting, lets get together and explore how it might work as a business theres a need for someone, in most cases, to be paid to work with people to do that stuff.

Rob and Gill started to seek financial support for the project, and secured funding from the RSAs Catalyst fund and subsequently Leeds City Council. Theyve been able to trial a number of initiatives, including an Empty Homes Doctor service that provides intensive support for owners of vacant properties who want to bring their home back in to use. This scheme was so well received that the council has now committed a further 100,000 toexpand it a huge vote of confidence in Rob and Gills hardwork.

Social media will continue to play an important role, not just in pro-moting this scheme, but letting people know about its impact. Hopefully


in a couple of months we will have proper stories of real people whose home was empty three months ago and now have got tenants living in it, Rob says, and we want to tell that story.

Key learning: Use your own networks on social media, and ask questions that draw people in

Find out more about Leeds Empties: www.leedsempties.org.uk

Shout Out Suffolk!Using social media tools to share young peoples views on education inSuffolk

Theres plenty of potential to use social media to get across a message, but its real strength is that it works in both directions. The ease of connecting using these new tools gives them the potential to amplify peoples voices, and uncover those that might otherwise not be heard. If youre trying to work with a community of people, theres no better way to involve them in what youre doing than letting them speak for themselves.

In July 2012, the RSA and Suffolk County Council launched an inquiry into how to improve education in the county, which is underperforming compared to the national average. The project brought together school leaders, teachers, parents and educational experts from other parts of the country to create a response to this huge challenge. RSA Fellows in Suffolk also lent their time and ideas, and firmest among these was a commitment to help make sure young peoples voices were represented.

Dr. Emma Bond, a senior lecturer in Childhood and Youth Studies at University Campus Suffolk (UCS), worked with other Fellows, including local RSA Fellowship councillor Suzanna Pickering, to design an online research project that encouraged young people across the county to share their views about education using social media. If we are really going to grasp why Suffolk is failing to meet the educational needs of young people, Emma explained at the time, we need to understand what theireducational experiences are like and we need to listen to theirviews,as they are the very people who are going to be affected.

One of hundreds of submissionsto the project, fromMakia, aged 10

13

The project received support both financial and in-kind from RSA Catalyst and UCS, which made it possible to make progress very rapidly. Young people were encouraged to submit their ideas which could be inthe form of drawings, text or videos to Pinterest (an online pinboard tool that makes it easy to collate different media). These were then shared with a wider audience through a Twitter account for the project.

Emma and others produced an engagement guide that they sent out to schools, young peoples organisations and RSA Fellows, which explained how young people could make their contribution to the project. It was important to ensure that as many young people from as broad a range of backgrounds as possible were able to join in. The project accepted submissions through arange of tools including Facebook, Twitter and email and worked with the Widening Participation team at UCS to engage students from disadvan-taged backgrounds. The team also used targeted advertisements to reach more of the 40,000 Facebook users under the age of 20 in Suffolk.

The project involved an incredible 568 young people, and their contri-butions covered subjects ranging from bullying to the pressure of GCSE choices. Many submissions were illustrated, and one group of students produced a YouTube film with the support of a theatre company. Emma was struck by the range and quality of the contributions, and produced adocument collating the young peoples views for the inquiry to consider alongside evidence from teachers, the public and RSA Fellows.

The team involved in the project are keen to ensure that it has a legacy beyond the publication of the final report in May 2013, which drew on the projects work. They plan to seek further Catalyst funding to develop the project so that it can be adapted elsewhere in the country, and have published an evaluation report that explains how they designed the project tohelp others learn from the experience.

Key learning: Social media can help you to capture voices that would otherwise be left out

Find out more about Shout Out Suffolk!: shoutoutsuffolk.org

Read the projects evaluation report: bit.ly/suffolkeval

Read the final report of the Raising the Bar Inquiry, No School an Island: bit.ly/noschoolanisland

Support and resourcesThere are plenty of ways to get started using social media no matter your level of familiarity with them:

You can get started by visiting RSAFellowship.com, our online social network, and reading about the seven ways to be an online Fellow

Connect with RSA Fellows by searching for#FRSAand#thersaon Twitter, joining ourLinkedIn group, or liking us onFacebook.

See the RSA ChangeMakers handbook for more advice on how to use social media: bit.ly/changestarts

2. Connect online


A Social Entrepreneurs Networkbreakfast meeting (photo: Anthony Epes, www.anthonyepes.com)

3. Share your skills

Theres long been a popular image of volunteering as carrying out selfless, often thankless tasks in aid of good causes. In many cases, such as the per-ennial bake sale, they have little relation to the cause in question beyond the money they raise. Increasingly, though, people are seeing volunteering differently: as an opportunity to use the skills theyve developed in their professional lives to help others intheir community.

These skilled volunteers are more focused and demanding, and may see their volunteer roles as a natural extension of their professional life: in fact, the line between the two often blurs, particularly for those who are self-employed or work flexibly. The growth of social enterprise, which blends a commercial approach with values drawn from the third sector, is a big part of this shift, as people come to see their working lives and their commitment to social causes as intimately linked.

RSA Fellows have a diverse range of skills, are often active in their communities, and are increasingly giving their time and expertise to pro-jects and organisations they find through the Fellowship. A recent survey found that 70 percent of RSA Fellows were interested in supporting each others initiatives, and the RSA SkillsBank helps them do this by pledging time to projects. As well as this, there are opportunities for Fellows to become involved in our programme of action and research.

In the examples that follow, youll see some of the ways that RSA Fellows are sharing their skills, and benefiting from the expertise of others.

Social Entrepreneurs NetworkHelping social entrepreneurs learn from each others experiences


Social enterprise, at its simplest, is doing business with a social purpose. In the UK its growing rapidly as a sector, with more and more people looking at how they can solve issues in their communities using app-roaches drawn from the commercial world. As both the public sector and charities struggle to cope with cuts in state funding, policymakers and politicians are increasingly looking to different models for providing services and solving pressing social issues.

Many RSA Fellows are at the cutting edge of this movement, and in 2010 a group of them started to discuss how they could help each other with some of the challenges they faced. As people working in a relatively new sector, they discovered they had a lot to learn from each other. They decided to arrange regular meet-ups and, with support from RSA staff member Sarah Tucker, founded the Social Entrepreneurs Network, aloose affiliation of people working in or interested in the sector.

Since then, its helped hundreds of entrepreneurs share what theyve learnt through the exhilarating, frustrating process of starting a social business and inspired many others to make the jump themselves. Its members have pooled their expertise on issues ranging from finance and fundraising to how to communicate effectively, and provided an informal marketplace for tips, contacts and moral support.

At the start, this happened very informally, through meeting over breakfast at the RSAs House in central London, and events where invited speakers drawn from the network would share what they had learned. As more people became involved including growing numbers from outside the Fellowship many said how much they valued the opportunity to reflect on the challenges they had faced, and share problems with others who might have been through a similar experience.

In response, Fellows and staff worked together to set up the Spotlight programme, which helps nine social entrepreneurs each year reflect on their experiences setting up a business. Each time they meet, the Spotlighters share three things: a success they have had since the last meeting, a challenge they have faced, and a pledge of what theyll do next.Talking about the bad as well as the good is a crucial part of this, and one persistent theme thats emerged from their discussions isthat common sense about what works and what doesnt isnt always ascommon as weassume.

Bringing together people with different perspectives and skills in a safespace somewhere they can talk about their work in a free and candid way allows them to admit the things theyre unsure about and share insights that might seem obvious to them, but were in fact hard-won through experience and trial and error. Given so many of those involved in social business are trying to do something new, the opportunity to share this kind of knowledge in confidence is invaluable.

RSA Spotlighters often lead the regular meetings of the network, andthe programme has just completed its second year with an event thatbrought together over 100 people at Westminster Hub, a shared working space in central London. Sarah Tucker quotes one of the best pieces of advice she shared with the network, from one of the more established entrepreneurs involved: ask people for help: they usually sayyes.


Key learning: Create a safe space to share experiences and ask difficultquestions

Join the Social Entrepreneurs Network online: rsafellowship.com/group/socialentrepreneursnetwork

RSA Family of AcademiesRSA Fellows helping young people think clearly about their skills andaspirations

The RSA has a growing family of Academy schools that are working together to improve the prospects of young people in London and the Midlands. As an organisation, the RSA has a long history of working in education from the vocational examinations it established in the mid-20th century (now managed by the OCR exam board) to our recent interventions in government debates on school standards and admissions.

The Academies are state schools serving communities with above aver-age levels of deprivation. Schools and students benefit not just from the RSAs expertise in educational practice all the schools teach the Opening Minds curriculum developed at the RSA but also from the skills and connections available through the Fellowship. Through these, students canaccess opportunities that they might otherwise not have access to.

For instance, Peter Johnson got involved with the RSA Academies through a conversation with Rich Pickford, an RSA regional programme manager who works closely with the schools. Peter helps senior figures from businesses and charities right up to the board of companies that have a turnover of billions of pounds every year understand their own strengths and behaviour. He was organising a training session and offered some free places to teachers at an RSA Academy.

As Peter recalls, Mark Healy, vice principal at Arrowvale Academy in Redditch, had other ideas. He said: hmm, any chance we can send some of the students? The head boy and girl at Arrowvale went on the programme, and came back raving about their experience. They fitted in phenomenally well; they were delightful and everyone thought they were fantastic during the session. They went back to the academy saying this is brilliant.

The training the students attended builds a profile of their strengths and capabilities, using a model called Insights Discovery. Peter, an accred-ited trainer in using this tool, felt it was a particularly valuable experience for the students because it helped them to understand their value and their uniqueness and that they have strengths, no matter where they are. Celebrating that is very powerful. This kind of experience, more com-monly experienced by students at schools in the private sector, reinforces the Academies work to help students realise their potential.

Its clear that there are huge benefits to this kind of skilled volunteering for both students and staff at the schools but what about the Fellows who give their time? Peter is clear that he gained a great deal from work-ing with the students. The experience was uplifting there are some fantastic young people coming out of the schools, he says. Whats more, though, it provided a route into the RSAs work. Ive been a Fellow for 15 years, Peter explains, and Ive been relatively passive because Ive notknown what to do, how to get engaged.

17

Another example of a Fellow sharing their expertise with the RSAs Academies is Bruno Taylor, a designer who is working to tackle the root causes of youth unemployment. He and his team are building a web plat-form, with the working name of Flip Yourself, which helps young people showcase their skills and achievements to employers. Bruno has been working with RSA schools to trial the tool, and feels they have welcomed his approach to solving problems.

Our design and development process is very much user-led, he says, and I dont think many people get young people as involved in the design process as we have done. Weve been focused on what provides real value to the young people first, and then the school. The trials of the software are about to begin, and the project will soon launch as a fully-fledged social venture.

Like Peter, for Bruno the RSA Fellowship is a good place to apply his skills to social challenges, and he looks forward to doing more. Imconstantly surprised, and very pleasantly, about what the communityhas to offer, he says.

Key learning: Applying your professional skills to social challenges can open new doors

Find out more about the RSAs Family of Academies: bit.ly/rsaacademies

Support and resourcesIf you want to share your skills with others, or get help with a project youre running, here are some ideas:

If youre an RSA Fellow, register for RSA SkillsBank and we will try andmatch you to projects and opportunities that fit with your skills andinterests: www.thersa.org/fellowship/skillsbank

Explore GoodPeople, a website run by RSA Fellow Richard Tyrie thathelps connect people and opportunities to do good: goodpeople.co.uk



4. Grow your idea

Weve explored some of the ways that ideas are strengthened through being discussed, shared and improved by the skills and experience of others. At some point, these ideas need to prove that they can work in practice. This can demand a lot of things funding, persistence, luck but its also about making sure that the right support and guidance isinplace to help an idea take root.

For the last couple of years, RSA Catalyst has been supporting Fellows ventures and helping them to achieve social impact. Through it, weve given nearly 300,000 in small grants to projects, and made hundreds of connections between projects and individuals or organisations that help them meet their goals. Catalyst aims to support ventures that gobeyond the community of RSA Fellows.

In this last section, youll see how three projects led by RSA Fellows have come to play an important role in improving their communities.

Changing ChelmsfordA group of RSA Fellows who helped their town to become a city

In 2010, a group of RSA Fellows led by Malcolm Noble came together todiscuss a big question: how could Chelmsford become a moresuccess-ful place? The Essex town had plenty of things going for it, but the group felt that its civic and cultural potential were not being realised, andthat local people deserved a greater say in some of the decisions thatwere being taken about its development.

Over the summer of that year, they organised a series of debates, workshops and talks that brought together over 120 people and 80

The Ideas Hub in High Chelmer shopping centre, Chelmsford (photo: Sam Thomas)

194. Grow your idea

organisations including residents, politicians and experts from otherparts of the country. Many of these came to the project through theprojects partners: the RSA, the two local councils and the Academy of Urbanism. Over 100 ideas emerged from the events, and to capitalise on this the partners created a Community Interest Company (CIC), ChangingChelmsford.

Since then, the team has gone from strength to strength. Last year,theyopened an Ideas Hub in an empty unit of the High Chelmer shopping centre. Its designed to be a space fit both for business and community activity, and as Malcolm explains, it hasnt been short of users. People can rent space for working; weve had exhibitions on; wevegot all sorts of different age groups doing workshops; elderly folkdoing crochet one week, fathers and children next.

Malcolm attributes much of this success to the way that Changing Chelmsford built its network gradually, starting with groups (like the local civic society) who were easier to engage. Start with groups that areeasy to make contact with and involve, he advises. Identify who youreasy allies are to begin with, whoever it is, get them on board, andthen work out a strategy of moving stage by stage.

Another advantage of a broad partnership like Changing Chelmsford is its ability to inspire new projects. Young Urban Explorers, the brain-child of local architect Annabel Brown, worked with over 100 young people from the area to re-imagine the citys under-used spaces. Itreceived funding from RSA Catalyst to create an interactive online map of their photographs, and with the support of the CIC they were able to present their ideas to representatives from the council, having their say about what would improve their neighbourhoods.

Looking to the future, the project is increasingly focused on opening up Chelmsfords civic buildings. For instance, the Shire Hall in the middle of town which had long been largely inaccessible to the public is now to be the object of a million-pound restoration, due in no small part to Changing Chelmsfords efforts. Theyve had even greater success with the former Marconi factory in the town an iconic building that hosted early experiments in radio broadcasting. The site had been derelict for some years, but a concerted campaign led by the organisation which attracted coverage in both the local and national press has persuaded the develop-ers who own it to adapt their master-plan for the site, creating a walking link between the university and the city centre.

More than just assuring these sites future, though, theyve also helped create activity in the meantime. We also commissioned some public art on Marconi around the building, Malcolm says, and had volunteers digging, making the garden look nice. Funded by the local businesses and the council, its a great illustration of how a volunteer campaign can also be an effective lobbying tool: the sheer number of people and range of activities around these historic buildings proved to the developers that there was interest and affection for them.

Malcolm says that while the problem at first was finding enough people to help keep the project afloat, they now have the opposite problem: you get to a tipping point, and were well past that tipping point, where youve got so many people involved that the issue becomes managing them which is a nice place to be. One thing thats helped


enormously is having talented project managers initially Stephanie Mills, and now Leonie Raymondt keeping everything together, but he admits that finding funding for these vital positions has been a realchallenge.

Changing Chelmsford shows how a simple idea that the places we live could be better and that citizens have a role to play in shaping them can become an enormous source of civic pride and energy. In 2012, the project was cited in Chelmsfords successful application for city status as a leading example of good community engagement, and this has been reflected by growing awareness about the project and its impact. Malcolm explains the difference: when we started not that many people knew about Changing Chelmsford. You wont find that now.

Key learning: Grow slowly and steadily, and dont be afraid to be political

Find out more about Changing Chelmsford: www.changingchelmsford.org

Vertical AllotmentsBringing urban gardening to sheltered housing schemes

Lynette Warren and Mike Anstey have turned Vertical Allotments their idea for growing vegetables upwards, not outwards into a promising social business. Mike and Lynettes journey started when they took the decision to leave their jobs at the University of Bedfordshire, and strike out on their own.

We went a bit demob happy, and had so many ideas bouncing around, Lynette recalls fondly. At the university, the pair had managed a programme which created spin-off companies to adapt academic research for profit. Its therefore hardly surprising that they started to think about how they could make a living from some of their own interests.

We picked up the feeling that grow your own initiatives were well, growing! And that there was a shortage of allotment space. Looking at the high rise flats, we thought: wouldnt it be nice to green the environment there as well? They were interested in working with older people, especially those in sheltered housing, to tackle the problem of

Growing vegetables in a vertical allotment (photo: Centre for Sustainable Technologies)

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growing plants in very confined spaces: a small patio, for instance, or thebalconyofa high-rise flat. We thought: why not grow upwards? Lynette says. Itmakes sense youre utilising wall space that does nothing, and if you start growing on balconies or walls it gives a muchmore pleasantappearance.

An initial challenge was that equipment available on the market was too expensive and sophisticated for their purposes. Instead, they took matters into their own hands. Mike was interested in Meccano as a boy, Lynette says, so he said the easiest thing to build is something that follows those lines. After a great deal of research to find the best materials for the job, they settled on a flexible design that used inexpen-sive plastic tubing and steel joints to form a growing frame which they calledGutterGrow.

Mike and Lynette were able to secure good partnerships with housing associations. Most of the housing associations weve had contact with are charities or social enterprises, so we have the same ethos. Theyre always looking for initiatives that will help their residents. The project has been a huge success in terms of participants reactions, with the new gardens helping to bring people together, sharing food that they had grown with their neighbours. It was a real focal point new residents that came in said they had really like to get involved, so in that way its cer-tainly demonstrated that it was a pleasurable activity, Lynette explains.

In building these partnerships, they benefited from receiving an RSACatalyst award, which provided funds to make the first pilot of their technique possible, purchasing equipment and tools. It also helped to get their foot in the door with other organisations: going to talk to people, the fact that we were Fellows from the RSA gave us credibility, and you cant discount that people took it more seriously.

The project also demonstrates the challenges of partnership working, particularly when it comes to engaging volunteers. Through an RSA connection, Lynette and Mike teamed up with Cambridge Hub, an organisation at Cambridge University that helps students give their time to good causes. They recruited several volunteers, but found the growing time as dictated by nature clashed with the students exams. Although the students were enthusiastic, they struggled to commit time to the project; Lynette hopes that planning their involvement more carefully willmean they can make a fuller contribution in the future.

And thats not the only way that she and Mike are looking to the future. Theyre currently applying for further Catalyst funding to support an apprentice, who would work to promote the model to other housing associations, while also developing horticultural and business skills. Their ambitions are big, too: wed like to set up an apprentice scheme that could be emulated across different regions, Lynette says. Our ideal vision is for the social enterprise to be run by a whole team of young people. All in all, Vertical Allotments shows how a good idea can benefit from the support of willing partners especially when they can see the benefits for their own work.

Key learning: Finding the right partners is crucial in helping your idea take off

Keep up with Lynette and Mike via Twitter: twitter.com/Guttergrow

4. Grow your idea


Plan ZheroesHelping fight food waste and food poverty in London

Every year in the UK, 1.6 billion tonnes of surplus food is sent to landfill sites by retail outlets. And at the same time, in the same country, four mil-lion people are in food poverty. In 2009, three campaigners Lotti Henley, Maria Ana Botelho Neves, and Chris Wilkie decided they wanted this tochange. The impulse came from Lotti, whose experiences of food shortages during the Second World War left her appalled by the idea of good food going to waste. Their response was Plan Zheroes (short for zero food waste heroes): a project to raise awareness about food waste and food poverty and help tackle the two together.

From talking to small businesses, they realised there was a need for a simple way to link businesses with food to spare and charities who could give it to those in need. Initially, this seemed a straightforward goal. Atthe beginning we were nave, full of enthusiasm, Maria Ana recalls. Wejust had a vision, we knew where we wanted to be, and had no clue how difficult it is. What the team hadnt counted on was the complexity of thesurplus food problem.

What works for a hotel doesnt necessarily work for a shop or a supermarket, Maria Ana explains. Sometimes you have food that is only surplus for 12 hours, and you need to quickly find a place that will consume it, while at other times it might be packaged and fine for three months. And charities needs are very different too, from the soup runs on the Strand where theres no phone contact, its just something that happens toorganisations like the Salvation Army, who have fully-equipped kitchens. Theres also the question of health and safety regulations, often given as the reason that food must be thrown away. According to Maria Ana, this is often an excuse: in most circumstances, safety shouldnt be an impediment.

The more they learned, the more the team realised that the biggest role they could play was learning from organisations like FareShare and companies such as Pret a Manger, who have already done the groundwork and found out what works, and inspire smaller businesses to do the same. We [felt we should] focus on whos doing it those are the real heroes and then learn from them and become gossipers, Maria Ana says: just tell others whats possible.

Mapping food waste in London at the launch of Plan Zheroes (photo: Sam Thomas)

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The project received funding from RSA Catalyst and support from the campaigning organisation London Citizens, and was launched at Londons City Hall in February 2012. Its not all been plain sailing, though, and Maria Ana is all too aware of the costs of seeing an idea through to completion. She explains that from the start everyone involved saw the project as a collaborative one between equals with shared own-ership, and shared leadership. That meant that as the campaign gathered pace, it became difficult to make decisions: everybody the co-founders felt this is my project.

This open approach extended to working with volunteers. Maria Ana explains the format of early meetings: we would say okay, introduce yourself, and the next thing we would say was now, do whatever you think you can do. This is the worst way to engage volunteers! There isnt a single person that wants to be thrown a huge opportunity and not know where they fit.

These challenges became so severe that Plan Zheroes success became impossible to manage and several people involved having to step back from the project due to the pressure of keeping everything afloat with little funding or structure. As a result, they decided to put together a busi-ness plan and budget, create proper procedures for managing volunteers and are now registering as a charity. However, Maria Ana is adamant that they had to decide to do these things the hard way, and that the initial freedom or chaos, as she puts it was necessary. If wed been very structured, you know what would have happened? Wed have given up, she says. The reason we didnt is because there was a lot of enthusiasm more than that, determination.

Its a real dilemma: a campaign like Plan Zheroes needs to be inclusive and exciting enough to inspire people and get them on board, but struc-tured enough to survive in the long term. How to get that balance right will differ for every project. One important lesson, Maria Ana explains, was to learn to say no to new ideas. People will throw you fantastic, fantastic suggestions, and youre not ready, she says. Stop being over-whelmed and panicked because its not the right time but put those ideas in a place where you can visit them as the journey progresses.

Theres little doubt now that it will. Maria Ana and the Plan Zheroes team have recently worked with the Greater London Authority and other partners to design the London Food Map, a new tool allowing anyone in urgent need of food to find the nearest provider that can help whether thats a food bank, a soup kitchen, or a caterer or sandwich shop with left-over stock. This has encouraged the team to start thinking about how they offer their model to other local authorities. However, Maria Ana insists that the focus has to remain on the social impact of what theyre doing. What we cant do, because it will kill the project, it will kill the culture and why were doing it, is just look for ways of making money, she says. Because its not about making money, its about solving a problem.

That sense, that the project is tackling a real and pressing issue, is never far from the teams minds. We feel special every day we receive an email from a charity to say what they achieved by being part of Plan Zheroes, she says: that they can help another 50 people now, or they cansave the money they have spent on food.

4. Grow your idea


Key learning: Have enough structure to make your idea sustainable whilekeeping things fresh

Find out more about Plan Zheroes: www.planzheroes.org

Explore the London Food Map: www.londonfoodmap.org.uk

Support and resourcesTheres more opportunity than ever to test out your ideas for social change. Heres where to start:

The RSA supports Fellows ideas that aim to have a positive social impact through Catalyst. It provides grants to ventures, connects them to support from within the Fellowship, and helps them run crowdfunding campaigns: www.thersa.org/fellowship/catalyst

Find out about some of the big ideas that RSA Fellows are developing, and how you can get involved: www.rsablogs.org.uk/tag/big-idea

Conclusion

The path from having an idea to making it happen might be a long one, but as weve seen, there are ways to make it much easier. These projects diverse as they are point to the potential of good ideas when developed in the right kind of environment, and where people work together and pool their expertise to improve and act on them.

The first step in developing an idea is to meet with others to discuss it, and draw on their knowledge to improve and refine it together. These meetings neednt be stressful or glum indeed, they should be some of the most inspiring and enjoyable time you can spend with others. The key is making sure that the conditions are right: plenty of support, a relaxed atmosphere, and strong facilitation to make sure that everyone is able to make their views heard.

Next, put it out into the world. Its never been easier to tell the story of something youre working on to others including those youve never met who might share your interests. Creating excitement around an idea will enlist others to your cause, but new technology also gives you the oppor-tunity to seek others views, and get them to critique what youre doing.

At this stage, its time to draw on the skills and experience of others. You may be sure that your idea is a good one, but its highly doubtful you are able to realise its potential alone. This might mean asking for help to make your idea happen, or it might mean finding the people who will benefit from it. Either way, networks like the RSA Fellowship are a fantas-tic place to find willing volunteers.

Finally, test your idea and make sure it works. At this point, difficult questions start to arise: how do you persuade others to take notice? What kind of scaffolding do you need to make your idea stand up? And perhaps most crucial of all, whos going to pay for it? None of these have easy answers, but the support is there if youre willing to look for it.

Perhaps this makes solving social problems seem like hard work. If so, thats because it often is: none of the people featured in this booklet, whether theyre rescuing empty homes or tackling food poverty, would describe their achievements as easily won.

All the same, we hope theyd agree that discussing ideas, sharing themand putting them into action is time well spent. We hope their example inspires you to go out and do the same with your idea whateverit may be.

Conclusion 25


Key learnings by project

OpenDinner (page 4)People learn more and make lasting connections when theyre enjoyingthemselves

Unleashing Potential (page 6)Strong facilitation will help people to have more rewarding discussions

Keep Calm Prepare for Change (page 8)Find people and organisations that share an interest, and let them sparkoff each other

Leeds Empties (page 10)Use your own networks on social media, and ask questions that drawpeople in

Shout Out Suffolk! (page 12)Social media can help you to capture voices that would otherwise beleftout

Social Entrepreneurs Network (page 14)Create a safe space to share experiences and ask difficult questions

RSA Family of Academies (page 16)Applying your professional skills to social challenges can open new doors

Changing Chelmsford (page 18)Grow slowly and steadily, and dont be afraid to be political

Vertical Allotments (page 20)Finding the right partners is crucial in helping your idea take off

Plan Zheroes (page 22)Have enough structure to make your idea sustainable while keeping thingsfresh

27Acknowledgements

Acknowledgements

Huge thanks to all of the RSA Fellows whose work is featured in this publication, and especially the nine who generously gave their time to speak to me over the spring and summer of 2013:

Lilian Barton Maria Ana Botelho Neves Kevin Donovan Rob Greenland Peter Johnson Malcolm Noble Robert Porrer Bruno Taylor Lynette Warren

Id like to recognise the hard work and enthusiasm of all my colleagues atthe RSA in supporting the initiatives featured here. Id particularly like to thank Jamie Cooke, Joanna Massie, Nathalie Spencer, Sarah Tucker, Alex Watson and Nikki Wilson for their thoughtful and constructive comments on various drafts.

Im grateful to Alexandra Barker, Martina Booth, and Becca Massey-Chase for their careful proof-reading, and Rachel Bray at Soapbox for her design and typography.

Finally, thanks to Michael Ambjorn for his tireless efforts to help RSA Fellows work together over the last three years.

About the authorSam Thomas is the RSAs project engagement manager. He is responsible for helping people engage with our programme of action and research, and as part of this is shaping our approach to working with skilled volunteers. He was previously the RSAs programme manager for London and the east of England, and worked closely withmany of the projects featured in this publication.

You can follow him on Twitter at @iamsamthomas


Join the RSA Fellowship

The RSA Fellowship is a network of people from a wide range of backgrounds, united by a desire to build a better society. If you are inspired by ideas and have a commitment to social progress, you should consider becoming an RSA Fellow.

Why become an RSA Fellow?You will be joining a diverse and influential movement for social change, which will allow you to:

connect with other Fellows access funding and advice to develop your ideas share your skills and expertise to support Fellow-led projects access the facilities at the RSAs House in central London receive our award-winning quarterly Journal

As a Fellow, your annual donation will also support the charitable workof the RSA, including our public events programme, which provides a platform for some of the worlds leading thinkers by holdingover 150 free talks and debates each year.

How to applyFellowship is open to anyone anywhere in the world who shares or demonstrates a commitment to positive social change in their professional, civic or personal life.

To request a joining pack, email [email protected], telephone the Fellowship team on 020 7451 6904, or visit our website:

www.thersa.org/fellowship

The RSA: an enlightenment organisation committed tofindinginnovative practical solutions to todays social challenges. Through its ideas, research and 27,000-strong Fellowship it seeks to understand and enhance human capability so we can close the gap between todays reality andpeoples hopes for a better world.

8 John Adam Street London WC2N 6EZ +44 (0) 20 7930 5115

Registered as a charity in EnglandandWales no.212424

Copyright RSA 2013

www.thersa.org

Cover image by Michael Ambjorn

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Introduction1. Meet with others2. Connect online3. Share your skills4. Grow your ideaConclusion

Key learnings by projectAcknowledgementsJoin the RSA Fellowship

four ways to turn ideas into action

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