Weeknotes 66 (23–27 March)

Last week seemed to be characterised by a sense of energy and urgency of action as we put much of our planned work aside to focus on responding to the changing circumstances around us. Though still immensely busy and pressured, for some of the team this week provided slightly more space for reflection. For me, that led to the question: what are we responding to and for how long? Those things still aren’t clear yet, which makes meaningful adaption difficult. That said, we’re working really hard and trying our best.

What we’re doing

• Being responsive to rapidly changing circumstances and evolving context
• Adjusting to environments and new ways of working
• Adapting our work to meet new needs and expectations
• Maintaining what needs to be upheld and continued with

Being responsive

Last week Cassie and I were focused on looking at how The National Lottery Community Fund can best respond to Covid-19 and support communities. To do this, we spoke to 40 stakeholders (existing grantees, partners and vital organisations) over 3 days, drawing out themes and spotting potential areas for intervention. We wrote up what we learnt each day here.

Phoebe worked with grantholders and support partners in responding to the massive changes experienced due to Covid19. This looked like: conversations and sharing links to resources and support with grantholders, working with Rich Dawson from the strategic communications team to write up some of those interviews here, sense-making with support partners around how to best respond to new grantholder needs, and hosting the monthly learning webinar on ‘Leadership in complex, large-scale change’. The recording of the webinar will be shared very soon.

Adjusting

At the end of week two of working from home, and week one under the new restrictions, we are getting into the swing of new working patterns and new ways of communicating and engaging with colleagues, whilst juggling personal lives and new societal contexts, not to mention the challenge of staying focused during unprecedented times.

Adapting

In the short-term, we’re thinking about what of our work needs to be paused or cancelled. In the medium-long term, we’re thinking about what needs to be changed, modified or updated to reflect new circumstances. We’re questioning when will be the right time to iterate, given that the situation is continually evolving, and we’re not clear yet on exactly what needs to change.

One thing that we’ve decided to immediately adapt are the regular digital funding drop-in calls that we host for colleagues. We’ve already seen a demand for these with lots of colleagues reaching out to the Digital Fund team. We’re sensing there will likely be an increase in new applications, requests for grant top-ups and questions about best practice when it comes to digital, data and technology. We’ve decided to host these sessions more frequently than usual over the next few months to support colleagues in dealing with these queries. We won’t have all the answers but we hope this will provide space to talk, share learning and support one another through new challenges.

Our new framing for the Digital Drop-in Sessions we host, due to demand from colleagues.

And in terms of the cohort of grantees, Phoebe said:

With grantholders and support partners, we are thinking about the new needs coming up in the time of Covid-19, and how support partners can best support grantholders through the changes. The Slack channel set up for Digital Fund grantholders has had more activity in the last week than the last 3 months — with collaborative peer support being something discussed in the webinar as an important part of adapting to the next months too.

Maintaining

On Wednesday I hosted the second meetup of the new digital, data and technology community of practice I’ve set up internally, which was a good example of something that we wanted to keep in place as planned. Something we talked a lot about was trying to balance the need to adapt with the recognition that some things will need to carry on as normal. We asked what should continue as business as usual? And wondered whether a sense of ‘normality’ is something that will be valued, and if so when?

Beth led the final call with Stripe Partners at the end of their research into what micro organisations need to thrive, which is another example of something we had to decide whether to adapt or maintain given the circumstances. In some respects their findings feel more useful than ever, but there needs to be some additional context since the last 2 weeks have changed the landscape for these groups. Stripe Partners did some additional follow up calls with research participants which will provide useful learning for the crisis responses and will be published in the next 2 weeks.

And as always, Phoebe reminds us,

We continue to support our grantholders in both strands of funding — Strand 1 to continue navigating large scale organisational change and adapting to the changing environment, and Strand 2 in responsible innovation and scaling up of technology with social impact.

What we’re learning

So much. Every day. About ourselves, about the sector and about society at large. The blogs we wrote on the conversations we had with people across the sector last week are still central to our thinking and worth a read (see Day One, Day Two and Day Three).

From the Leadership event we hosted this week.

I also attended three webinars, which were all organised months ago but still relevant despite the new context in which they took place. The Digital Fund learning event on ‘Leadership in complex, large-scale change’ taught me about the challenges that leaders are facing at this time; ‘Funders Learn Tech: What do Foundations and philanthropy need to understand about law in relation to technology & society?’ taught me about current issues that lawyers are dealing with around algorithmic decision making and reminded me of the importance of funders knowing and playing a role in this; and ‘GDPR and Civil Society: How are public interest organisations being affected?’ gave me useful insight into the current challenges and issues occurring around GDPR and gave me some context for how to talk to colleagues who might have questions about grantholders and data protection.

What we’re celebrating

Wonderful colleagues! There has been lots of fun and games in the UK Portfolio team, thanks to Emma and Zoe for launching daily Taskmaster challenges to keep us entertained at home (I judged the haiku competition and am keenly preparing my entry for the improvised-instrument contest…) Beth rightly referred to this as:

Moments of lightness and connection in very full and heavy workloads.

I’ve particularly enjoyed having the opportunity to have lunch and tea breaks with colleagues across the country who I have never made the time to do that with. This time, though strange and scary, has made way for generosity and vulnerability that has made me bond with people in new ways.