It is clear from the feedback from the 20 people receiving the box cold that success in scaling Give a Day, with each participating place feeling part of and connected to a movement, will require three enhancements to our approach.
First, we need to be much better at comms. We don’t have a plan for sharing the stories from Give a Day. Stories will be the inspiration for most people wanting to get a Give a Day box. Stories will give people a sense of what they can do in their community, town or place. Stories will be the source of our analysis of impact on connection, trust and belonging in communities.
Second, we need to put as much effort into the Avon Lady role as we have the box. We had begun to see the role as the opportunity to tell people about how places like Carlisle and Kendall are dealing with common challenges. The feedback from around the country suggests the primary role of the Avon Lady will be to ask new Give a Day leaders how they would solve common challenges, giving them the confidence to be brave, try things out, and learn.
Third, now is the time to begin to network the places delivering Give a Day, so that they can build connection, trust and belonging to a movement, and at a practical level share their experience.
Fourth, we should accelerate our ideas about governance so that the next round of Give a Day places can see that this is a movement not an organisation, and that every group leading on Give a Day has an equal stake in its future development.
Fifth, implicit in the networking and governance, attention should be given to the potential for Give a Day places to come together to provide a combined response to a crisis.