Scoping our work into a Community Based Approach
Localising humanitarian aid with community-led programs is a hot topic in the media, especially with the rise of movements like Mutual Aid during Covid-19. It’s also a hot topic for the British Red Cross! As we work towards our 2030 Strategy the need to understand scalable and impactful ways of engaging with communities will only become more important. Using our design approach, the Innovation Hub have been asked to explore this, learning, designing and testing with the community, not for the community.
Getting Started
Aaron, Monika and I identified and mapped workstreams, research and learnings from community-led approaches across the British Red Cross and the wider movement (a particular shout out to the French Cross and their work — Third Spaces). To make sure we are aligned with the organisations work going forward, we have also identified 17 projects to learn from in the open and collaborate with. In particular we would like to collaborate with Diaspora Engagement, Community Engagement volunteers, and the Community based working group, of which Aaron is a part of.
At the moment we are finishing scoping our work. The next stage is a discovery where we plan to learn from and engage directly with two high risk, low resource communities in the UK. We have some added challenge of doing this face-to-face due to Covid-19, but nevertheless, virtual one-to-one interviews will be our main source of gathering insights.
What does success look like?
When scoping any piece of work, it is important to understand what success looks like for internal stakeholders — especially with such broad potential for a community-based approach. To achieve this, we designed 17 scenarios of potential outputs that could be delivered in line with our strategy at a community level. It was important to remind people at the beginning of the workshop these were not our goals, they were simply provocations to help us understand their thoughts, assumptions and priorities.
We asked the stakeholders to give each scenario a score and explain their reasoning. Scoring system as follows:
1= Absolutely no way
3= Parts I like
5=Success, great example
25 Senior leaders and internal stakeholders were taken through the scenario workshops and their insights were fascinating. Each session was run on a 1–2–1 basis so we could explore the different priorities and perceptions of teams across the organisation. The benefits of this approach were we got to hear the spectrum of thoughts and also got to work with individuals to get to know us as a team and explain our approach.
Some of the scenarios incorporated more than one potential output for example:
‘The British Red Cross opens free to use community spaces in five economically deprived areas.”
These were especially interesting to see which aspects of the scenarios were prioritised and focused on and why.
Synthesis
We remotely synthesised these insights into 10 indicators of what success could look like:
- Based on community priorities
Volunteers and supporters are the strength of the community, we need to find ways to engage with them effectively at a local level within communities.
2. Balancing frontline presence and partnership
Funding and cash grants are a powerful tool that we are proud to harness, but this cannot replace our position as a frontline service.
3. Financially self sustaining
Community projects need long term investment. This is important for the longevity of the work
4. Standardised embodiment of fundamental principles, locally
Our research highlighted that we don’t have a standardised view of implementing our fundamental principles, clarifying modern interpretations are crucial before entering communities.
5. Centrally guided, locally-led.
Our local teams, volunteers and communities are best suited and most knowledgeable about local need, we need to find a way of empowering these voices in a standardised way using frameworks or other similar approaches.
6. Representative volunteer base
Our volunteer demographic needs to be more diverse, and reflect the communities we work within. Achieving this could also connect us to groups we have not been able to support before.
7. In line with the strategy and tree focus areas of the British Red Cross
Our 2030 strategy is a powerful tool uniting leaders across the organisation, we need to ensure we are championing all aspects of this (e.g. the inclusion of environmental impact) to truly succeed in our vision.
8. Instilling more trust in whole Red Cross Community
We have to not only trust our people, but we also need to amplify their voices across the Red Cross movement.
9. Assets better utilised by communities and partners
Defining exactly how we should use our assets was controversial, but the majority of opinions were focused on a need for the outcome to address the needs of communities more effectively. This is what we are focusing on.
10. Uniting services
There were many discussions around the benefit of uniting our services in the community. This is not just in relation to the British Red Cross, interviews suggested this could be with a wider community network creating wider community impact.
Discovery goal
This leads us to the discovery goal. This goal defines the direction of our research for the next 10 weeks.
‘To engage and understand the strengths and needs of communities in high risk, low resource places.’
There are a few elements to this statement so lets break it down
“Strengths and Needs” — We want to gain a holistic understanding of community dynamics. We want to understand how we could harness and build on their strengths as well as look at how we could better address their needs.
“Communities” — We want to be led by the community, for the community.
“High Risk, Low Resource” — This is a term drawn from our 2030 strategy. For the purpose of this discovery we are focusing on two small-medium towns, one in South Wales, and one in Lancashire (stay tuned for Monika’s blog on the 2 locations we will be working in, and how we identified them).
Next Steps
- We are hiring 2 local members of the team to be our local expert and our connection with the community. If you live in Neath, South Wales or Nelson, Lancashire and you’re interested in this role then get in touch!
- Sending out community activity packs to community members filled with tasks and creative challenges to help us better understand how they view their community, its challenges and strengths.
- Commence the Discovery!
