More of what works

More of what works

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I have received a few enquiries recently from organisations wishing to talk about how they can replicate projects that have achieved success in one location and offer potential elsewhere. This subject animates many people in the community sector.

Here are some insights from these conversations:

Starting without money

A common question for small community organisations refers to the level of investment they need to make to be able to replicate. The short answer is that it depends on the kind of project they want to scale. A program that is already operating through volunteers and focuses less on meeting the needs of customers than providing some kind of additional community benefit will require investment in identifying new implementers and supporting them. An example might be environmental care programs. On the other hand, a staff-intensive social service such as a food recycling program or a drop-in centre will require an intensity of support and infrastructure to ensure it delivers to its potential in a new location.

Seminar Paricipants

Over 50 organisations participated in a seminar we recently held in Buenos Aires on the subject of social franchising, in conjunction with RACI, the Argentinian Network for International Cooperation

Relationships are good but formal ones are better

It can be easy to embark on a scaling-up plan through identifying like-minded organisations and then coming to an informal understanding about how they will use your experience in their own locality. This is all very well until inevitable questions arise about aspects of the work, especially intellectual property. If one organisation develops a model of practice over many years, provides it to another and finds that the original idea is changed, used in different ways than envisaged or even that the new organisation becomes well-known for its work, tensions can understandably arise. Replication is often more effective if business-like agreements are formalised from the outset and not left to chance.

Levels of control

Associated with intellectual property is the question of control. To what extent should an organisation impose controls on the use of its ideas by another? In wholly-owned or joint ventures, control is exerted through management and ownership. In franchising arrangements, much depends on the scope and nature or what is being scaled. Some organisations find the notion of introducing controls to a social impact project to be uncomfortable. In that case, a better perspective is to think about ways of maintaining quality and positive impact for the ultimate beneficiary individuals, families and communities. These often turn out to require a level of formal control.

The International Centre for Social Franchising (ICSF), represented in Australia by Community Works, uses a spectrum of replication that is a good starting point for discussions with organisations seeking to scale up.

scale

This spectrum is enormously helpful in the early stages of thinking through options for growth and expansion of any organisation, project, program or service.

For more on this subject, the UK Big Lottery Fund has an initiative called Realising Ambition and an associated discussion forum on the subject of ‘what works when replicating’, which can be found here: https://community.biglotteryfund.org.uk/uk-wide/what-works-when-replicating/default.aspx

With Maria Rodrigues, I am working on a paper called ‘More of what works’, which will bring together our current thinking on replication in remote Australia and will be published by Ninti One.

Community initiatives in suicide prevention

Community initiatives in suicide prevention

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The health and welfare of Australia’s Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples

The recent report ‘The health and welfare of Australia’s Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples: 2015’ produced by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare

Through our association with BasicNeeds, Orygen Youth Health, the Young and Well Cooperative Research Centre and the Mental Health Association of Central Australia (MHACA), Community Works has been involved in initiatives relating to suicide prevention for some years now. We recently contributed to a series of publications on suicide prevention and social media (see the publications page of the Community Works website).

People often start their own projects to combat the tragedy of suicide in their own communities. Reducing the taboo around the subject is part of the battle. MHACA’s Suicide Story training resources are a good example of the long-term commitment that some community organisations have made to reduce the high incidence of suicides, in this case in Central Australia although the resources have been used for training programs in other places too. The MHACA website is currently under reconstruction but a summary of the resources can be found through HealthInfoNet.

The recent report ‘The health and welfare of Australia’s Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples: 2015’ produced by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, noted that during the period 2008–2012 the suicide rate for Indigenous Australians was almost twice the rate for non-Indigenous Australians (based on age-standardised rates). For 15–19 year olds, the rate was 5 times as high as the non-Indigenous rate (34 and 7 per 100,000 population). Suicide is the most common external cause of death of Indigenous people, at 4.8% of all deaths (see http://www.aihw.gov.au/publication-detail/?id=60129550168). According to The Age, if compared with sovereign nations, the suicide rate for Indigenous Australians is now the twelfth highest in the world, with Australia as a whole being 64th.

Yugul Voice

Yugul Voice

I was working recently in Ngukurr, a community of around 1,000 people located in the Top End of the Northern Territory, as part of the Stronger Communities for Children program to which Ninti One is contributing with support from the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet. While in Ngukurr I met Ambrose of Yugul Voice, a local band, one of around sixteen bands in the community. Yugul Voice has written a song on suicide prevention called Moving On, which can be found here. This is another example of a local effort to break the silence around this subject.

Speaking on the ABC, Professor Pat McGorry of Orygen Youth Health recently described suicides as similar to the road toll in Australia in that both represent preventable deaths. He argued that greater emphasis on community-based interventions and a preventative model will save both money and lives.

Being enterprising about policy

Being enterprising about policy

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BasicNeeds has coordinated regular meetings with government and other agencies on mental health policy

We recently received a request to develop material on policy entrepreneurship for a professional group working on improved policy frameworks for mining in a country in South America. Within a local policy environment that was effectively paralysed on the subject of mining, the group was seeking to find a way forward. They believed, as they put it, that mining could be a tool for development.

Taking a different approach to conventional NGO advocacy methods, policy entrepreneurship is the process of forging a collective effort to support policy development and change. In writing on the subject in ‘Policy Entrepreneurs and Change Strategies (2010)’, Meijerink and Huitema presented an analysis of case studies from sixteen countries spanning five continents. They offered insights on the ways in which conventional business development methods such as building networks, identifying opportunities and brokering partnerships, can apply to policy.

The extent to which policy entrepreneurship is simply a new way of framing political lobbying is open to debate. Attempts to influence policy to benefit a particular group within society is part and parcel of everyday governance. Negative gearing in the Australian housing market is one example. Disputes over the management and use of water is another. In this context, policy development can be subject to manipulation and exploitation.

Marching for affordable medicines in El Salvador

Marching for affordable medicines in El Salvador

On the other hand, enterprise in policy is surely welcome. For subjects like infrastructure, energy, health and education, where the gains and losses from a particular development in policy fall heavily across society, there is a need for coalitions to be built. New perspectives need to be sought and a productive means of overcoming barriers have to be discovered. The example above of the mining policy group is a good one. If valuable mineral resources are available in a poor region, then the right kind of policy entrepreneurship ought to be one way to explore options. The result could be a transition to a new policy framework in which the benefits and their distribution far outweigh the losses.

Too often, the voices of important groups in society do not feature in collective efforts on policy development. The challenge for policy entrepreneurship is to achieve awareness and participation beyond a narrow set of interest groups.

What an effective program is

What an effective program is

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Our partnership with Ninti One

Our partnership with Ninti One (www.nintione.com.au) is never short of complex and challenging work. Recent discussions have centred on the design and planning of programs. Frameworks for measuring impact, governance training and achieving an effective model for supporting the rollout of programs across a geographically expanded area of remote Australia have been central to the current period of work. It has been interesting to reflect on what makes for an effective program. Drawing on other programs managed by Ninti One and Community Works, six key ingredients come to mind:
  • Productive relationships, especially through investing in building trust and rapport with community organisations
  • A program model that everyone understands, meaning that priorities, ways of working, roles and responsibilities fit together in a manner that might not be perfect but is workable.
  • A strategy that navigates whatever complexities exist around policy, practice, local expectations and needs to achieve the desired results on a cost-effective way.
  • Clear-sighted communication with stakeholders, meaning the range of people with an interest in or affected by the program. It involves making sure people and organisations are kept informed, consulted with and participate in a way that is appropriate to the program.
  • A shared understanding of what success looks like, which is critical in situations where problems may be many and program participants consistently feel they are not achieving what they want.
  • Leadership, especially where decisions need to be made with clarity and confidence.
Yes, it may be true that financial management, accountability and other factors are not included above, but my focus here is on the human aspects of programs, which have to be central to programs and projects with a social focus. Work continues and we look forward to contributing to the determined, long-term economic and social development efforts of Ninti One and many people and organisations in remote Australia.
Ninti One’s Aboriginal Community Researcher network plays a central role in its programs
Learning development practice

Learning development practice

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The current design of the Masters program on Management in Development

The current design of the Masters program on Management in Development is in its third year and is being coordinated by Steve Fisher. The focus of the program is effective development practice and it is offered as five one-day participatory workshops on aspects of the subject:

It is always interesting to observe which elements of the program appear most engaging and relevant to students. Sometimes they can be surprising, such as the preparation of a proposal for an imaginary Men’s Shed project in Carlton. Using the outline below, four groups each wrote a section of the proposal.

We then read the whole document out as a single description of the need, design implementation and intended outputs and outcomes. This was the final part of a day of learning about the subject of communicating on projects, especially to attract resources for them. It was a strangely uplifting experience. I compiled the final version into a two-page concept paper.

Another part of the program that always proves interesting is on innovation, focussing on four aspects of the subject:

  • Conceptual frameworks (new ways to think). Example: Social inclusion
  • Process improvements (new practice). Example: Participatory impact diagrams/outcome mapping
  • Technical change (new technology). Example: Use of mobiles for development purposes
  • Organisational change (new ways to organise). Example: Social enterprise and social franchising.

Following success with a marketplace approach to learning in an event for over 100 participants on water and sanitation in Melbourne last year, we used the same method for this work. An advantage was that it enabled students to move around between subjects across a one-hour period, learning from and contributing to each. The end results were impressive and I will feature them in a future blog on the subject of innovation.

My appreciation to the excellent and dynamic student group of twenty-four people, representing ten countries. Many thanks also to Maria Rodrigues for her research support and to Ingrid Horton for design work on the program.

Mining and community engagement in Chile

Mining and community engagement in Chile

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Development and presention seminar at the Alberto Hurtado University

Community Works was very pleased to work with InnovacionAL (www.innovacional.com) to develop and present a seminar at the Alberto Hurtado University on 5th March 2015. The theme was Mining and Community Engagement. As well as the university, the event was supported by the Ministry of Mining of the Government of Chile and Casa de la Paz, an NGO in Chile with interests in improving the interaction between mining companies, communities and stakeholders.
Yanina Kowszyk, Director of InnovacionAL introducing Steve Fisher from Community Works

For the first hour, I presented materials on the subject drawn from Australian experiences, including case studies from projects in which Community Works has been involved, as well as the Aboriginal Community Research network of Ninti One Ltd (www.nintione.com.au) and others. The IAP2 Framework is a useful tool for discussion of the subject, as is the generational framework developed by Kemp and Boele and adopted as part of the best practice manuals promoted by the Australian Government Department of Industry. I presented both frameworks, together with other methods and approaches.

For the first hour, I presented materials on the subject drawn from Australian experiences, including case studies from projects in which Community Works has been involved, as well as the Aboriginal Community Research network of Ninti One Ltd (www.nintione.com.au) and others. The IAP2 Framework is a useful tool for discussion of the subject, as is the generational framework developed by Kemp and Boele and adopted as part of the best practice manuals promoted by the Australian Government Department of Industry. I presented both frameworks, together with other methods and approaches.

When working with the Queensland University of Technology on training programs for mining professionals, I have always found it useful to separate community engagement into strategic and transactional levels. Strategic refers to the choice of overall frameworks for how to work effectively with communities, such as partnership agreements. Transactional work refers to the day-to-day interactions between community residents or members and outsider professionals from companies, government agencies and NGOs. Facilitation skills are a part of these processes and the seminar discussed them in some detail. Clearly an underlying principle is the need to generate rapport and respect in both directions.

Seminar ‘Mining and Community Engagement’ conducted in Chile in partnership with InnovacionAL

The Chaco Networks; environment and development in South America

The Chaco Networks; environment and development in South America

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The Redes Chaco (pronounced Red-es Cha-co) or Chaco Networks is a group of people and organisations concerned with the sustainable development of the Gran Chaco Region of South America, an extensive low-lying and semi-arid area that is part of the territory of Argentina, Bolivia, Paraguay and Brazil.

Ivan Arnold of Nativa addressing the Redes Chaco Meeting in February 2015

I recently participated in the regional meeting of Redes Chaco held in Embarcación, Argentina, close to the border with Bolivia. I was invited to the meeting by Ivan Arnold of Nativa, a Bolivian organisation that will be the subject of a separate blog post. Afterwards I spent some time visiting Nativa and understanding their programs, with a view to Community Works assisting or working with them in some way.

The home of a Chaqueña family participating in a Nativa project to reduce pressure on forest resources

Taking an Australian perspective on the Chaco, it has much in common with the Kimberley Region of Western Australia. Water quality and availability is a challenge, seasonal climate change (especially the rainy season) can present difficulties for access and infrastructure, while the pattern of sparse settlement leads to complexities around access to services and economic development. Topics of interest to Redes Chaco include water, climate change vulnerability, enterprise development and natural resource management. The presence of many indigenous people and organisations in the region brings a unique social and cultural dynamic to the region.

Redes Chaco has recently launched a fund to support sustainable development projects. Community Works will maintain our interest in the work of the organisation and any opportunities to make positive connections in Australia and elsewhere.

 

Celebrating Christmas in Summer by Vanessa Angulo

Celebrating Christmas in Summer by Vanessa Angulo

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Earlier this year our Community Works Team had its yearly Christmas celebration. It was difficult to put all the calendars together and find a date where we all could be at the same place, at the same time. So, we decided the best time of the year for this was mid January, and gathered on a lovely sunny day in Melbourne for a yearly meeting, followed up by a social gathering including family and kids; ice-cream, a few drinks and pizzas. It was such a great opportunity to catch up with fellow team members, families… and meet new babies!

Community Works exists to help organisations working on community-oriented projects and programs to improve the quality and result of their activities. The company started in 2008; although, our Director, Steve Fisher, had been doing similar work for several years prior to that.

Our team consists of a very talented group of people with different skills, knowledge, experience and backgrounds. We gathered at a meeting room booked at the Abottsford Convent for a change, and discussed about all the different projects we have engaged in this year. 

The impact of the work we do at Community Works is growing through partnerships, new and existing regular clients; as well as, by developing a close relation with other development organisations and NGOs.

This year we hope to develop new partnerships, sign new agreements, keep working with our regular clients and to continue to contribute to great results and programs of high positive impact at local, national and international levels.

A group from RACI visiting the Akeyulerre Healing Centre with ELP in Alice Springs

Always learning something new about community engagement

Always learning something new about community engagement

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We receive regular requests for advice and information on approaches to community engagement. I have also been teaching the subject to masters students at Melbourne University. So I find myself thinking about the subject a lot. Some insights on the topic come from three recent project experiences, described below.

Physical spaces with activities in them:

BasicNeeds is producing a handbook for the Rangoonwala Foundation. Community engagement in the community centres operated by the Foundation is based on practical activities for which there is a local demand, held in a space that women and children are happy to attend.

Building rapport:

I recently visited a remote community of around 12 houses and 50 people, 500km from the nearest town, in a desert location in Australia. I was working for Ninti One. Community engagement here involves an investment of time travelling and sitting down with people to work out ways to tackle local problems. We had most success when using interpreters since people can, of course, best express their views in their own language and trust and rapport are easier to develop.

Parallel processes:

Sometimes communities can feel that decisions are being made in different rooms from the ones they are in. The Young and Well Cooperative Research Centre, with which we are currently working, runs parallel processes. This means that their community of up to 60 young people are part of a ‘Youth Brains Trust’ that considers what the organisation is doing and feeds into its decision-making. The beauty of the approach is that it doesn’t push members of the community into situations where they cannot necessarily be themselves (such as board meetings).

There’s always something new to learn about the policy and practice of organisations when it comes to achieving effective community engagement. We are building up a resource of examples on the subject.