The BD_Collective is beginning its third year. During the second year a learning partnership was established with Ratio. The emphasis was on learning from mistakes to continually adapt and improve the Collective. Ratio puts a lot of stress on listening to members of the Collective and the people in its orbit. We use what we hear to draw out shared themes. Listening carefully doesn’t always translate into hearing correctly. A series of short written pieces and a 20 minute podcast have been prepared to share the learning. In September, in a series of events and one-to-one interviews Ratio will collate the feedback and prepare a revised summary of the learning from Year 2.
Year 1
From what members of the Collective have said the first year could be characterised as agreeing on what the Collective is not without agreeing on what it is. The Collective was a reaction to unhelpful competition between social sector organisations, to the playing of one organisation against another, to a lack of transparency in decision making. The result was a social sector that became less than the sum of its parts, diminished by loss of motivation, ambition and a lack of focus on residents of the Borough.
Ten social sector organisations rejected this state of affairs. It took time to figure out the alternative.