Live fieldnotes — Swansea
During fieldwork exploring the needs of micro-organisations in the UK, we’re sharing snippets from our research. Now that we’ve wrapped up our first week of fieldwork in the Swansea area, you can also read a summary of what we’ve learnt so far.
Day 4
Today we were busy meeting 3 different organisations.
We spent some time with Yvonne from GROW (Growing Real Opportunities for Women) Cymru, a women’s centre that recently opened in the last 6 months. GROW is a drop-in centre for women seeking support, advice and training to help them build up skills and confidence. They also run a school uniform project where parents can buy recycled uniforms at a low cost.
We met Yvonne in the Swansea Civic Centre as GROW’s heating had recently broken so they have had to shut the centre while they try to find the money for a plumber and replacement boiler.
The challenges they’re currently facing:
- As a newly formed organisation, they are currently in the process of registering as a charity because they found that a lot of funding is inaccessible to them without having a registered status. However, one of the barriers to attaining this registered status is that they need to have an income of over £5,000 — something which they currently don’t have. They are in the process of applying for a small Lottery grant (which they can apply for without being a registered charity) to help them start off, but the process can take up to 18 weeks.
“It’s a long time for a such a small organisation to wait, we might have shut in that time.”
- Another issue they are facing is having to prove that there is a need for what they are doing. They are trying to run workshop consultations with women throughout Swansea to prove the need but it’s not an easy task.
“I understand why they want this information, but it’s not an easy task. I know there’s a need because of the women that walk through the door.”
- Once they have gained charity status, they will still face barriers with funding. Many funds don’t want to pay for rent and utilities, but as a small organisation starting up, that’s what GROW needs to function.
“If you can’t pay your rent, heat and light, then you can’t function… I’m happy to give all my time for free, but I can’t do it on the side of the road.”
So, what does the future hold for GROW? In a year’s time, Yvonne would like to have taken on a paid member of staff to not only help run the centre as a full-service training centre but to be able to offer employment to women to help them get a job and the confidence to go back into the world of work.
Since formally constituting in 2017, People Speak Up has grown rapidly. In 3 years, PSU founder Eleanor has run over 40 projects focused on giving people a voice through storytelling and the arts to improve their health and wellbeing. In that time Eleanor has never been able to take a salary and until recently subsidised herself through freelance work. “You always pay the other freelance artists first. I’d pay myself last, if there was any money left”.
Now People Speak Up is on the cusp of a transition with big plans for the next few years.
The main challenges they are facing:
- Being taken seriously as a strategic partner. Eleanor is in the process of registering as a charity as well as applying for a large grant to help with the next 5 years of growth. Right now she feels like People Speak Up is doing the work of the Health and Wellbeing Act for the government but without a seat at the table to influence policy. Her long term hope is for PSU to be in partnership with every local council and health board in Wales.
“It puts us on the map, in the room with the big boys..like Age Cymru, Alzheimers society. We do projects with them here or there but [becoming a charity] would put us on a more equal footing”
“People are messaging me all the time, via Whatsapp, text, Instagram, ringing, Facebook Messenger. It’s constantly juggling through all of the different avenues”
- Finding a work life balance can be difficult. Although PSU is supported by regular freelancers, volunteers and a board, much of the work still rests on Eleanor’s shoulders. She’d like to get an old school Nokia so she can “have a life” and switch off her smartphone in the evening, though she’s unsure how realistic that is. Part of transitioning to become a bigger organisation is the hope that she can pay someone to help out with the admin.
“I’ve realised People Speak Up is far bigger than me. Currently I am the organisation because I am still developing it, but it has to be bigger than me for it go to the places we want to go”
Llanelli Community Heritage was founded in 2004 with the aim of promoting the rich local history of Llanelli. The group has set up over 50 Blue Plaques and several interpretive panels around the town. Among other activities, they organise quarterly guest lectures and historical walking tours.
Led by a committee of 4 people, LCH is a small group with annual running costs of less than £300. Over the years, funding for Blue Plaques and interpretive panels has come from private individuals, the local council and Communities First, a Welsh government programme that ended in 2018. LCH considered applying for Lottery Heritage funding in the past but was put off by the length of the application form. In hindsight, they’re glad they never received a large grant. Heritage organisations that did had to rush to install many Plaques at once, whereas they’ve been able to work at a slow and steady pace over the years.
“A lot of these grants, they’ll give you the money to start something, but not the money to maintain.”
They looked into becoming a registered charity but decided that it wasn’t worth the red tape.
“Once you’re involved in a charity, there’s an awful lot of dotting the i’s and crossing the t’s. We don’t have time for that and we don’t need that. We just want to do what we’re doing — the history stuff, not the admin stuff.”
LCH is content with its current membership base of 50 people. They hold events in local pubs and hotels for free — if they grew too big this would no longer be possible. LCH relies on its members for a range of skills and resources. One member, a retired architect, helps them navigate the planning permission process to install Plaques, while another carries out the installation work. Another member built and maintains their website, and another still creates all the artwork for Plaques and panels. However, it’s a challenge to find people interested in taking an active role in the group’s governance, or in their core work of historical research.
“If Lyn becomes ill we’d be in trouble. It would be nice to have more members, ones that want to actually do work. We’d like to see more people volunteer to be on committee.”
Day 3
Today, one of our visits took us to Pontarddulais, a large village with approximately 6,500 inhabitants, to meet Canolfan Y Bont (Pontarddulais Partnership).
Canolfan Y Bont is a community centre managed by Cath, who is the only full-time employee. She is supported by volunteers who help run the cafe, the shop, the food bank, social clubs, educational activities and provide informal support and advice to people who come in. Many of the volunteers have learning difficulties and volunteering at the centre gives them a chance to gain confidence and learn skills. Unlike many community centres in the area, the centre is open 9–5 every weekday. Cath’s hope is for the centre to become self-sustaining and an integral part of the social fabric of the village.
Their main challenge is covering core costs to keep the centre running. Grants have dried up in recent years and the funding that is available is often directed towards innovation. One funding application was rejected because their food bank wasn’t seen as innovative enough. Funders also often expect to see community value in numbers, for example through community consultations, but a lot of what matters is the individual stories of people the centre helps.
“It’s really hard to demonstrate the difference our service makes to one person on a form online.”
Another challenge they face is getting younger people engaged in the centre. Many volunteers are older or retired. Cath feels that while volunteering used to be a part of people’s lives, it’s not something many people do any more. People’s lives are busier, there are few local jobs and many of the pubs and social clubs have closed or reduced their hours. Younger people don’t participate in their community as much as the older generation.
“If we don’t start investing in our young people, Bont has no future.”
4 years ago, the ground floor of the Old Library in the heart of Kidwelly was lying unused. A group of local people got together and rented the space with the aim of creating a platform to build and support community, and in doing so spark regeneration in the town. They chose not to be prescriptive about what this would look like, wanting it to grow organically with input from local people.
“You’re not telling people what they need. You’re encouraging ownership.”
Today, Kidwelly Hub is a busy centre open 10:30–14:30, five days a week. As well as hosting a range of activities, the Hub has sparked other local initiatives, such as a craft shop, monthly market and energy co-operative, and brought footfall to the town centre.
The Hub has also become a channel for larger charities to access people in the surrounding rural area. The Wallich, a Welsh homeless charity, comes to the Hub two days a week. As well as making it easier to see existing clients in the area, they’ve managed to reach people who otherwise wouldn’t have been on their radar. This collaboration has been transformative, and The Wallich is looking to replicate the model in other rural towns. Lisa is keen to work with more charities in this way in the near future.
“I’d like this to be a huge one-stop shop”
Sustainable funding is a challenge. Lisa’s salary is currently sponsored by Burns in the Community, a charitable arm of the pet food company Burns Pet Nutrition, owned by Kidwelly local John Burns. Her role is vital — “beyond volunteers, you need someone to run it, an anchor point”. However, little funding is available for salaries or running costs. They recently received a Co-op grant to replace three computers, only after calling it ‘The Computer Project”.
“Stipulations of use are the biggest issue. You have to call it a project if you want funding for it. But sometimes you don’t need a project!”
Most of the Hub’s general running costs are covered by self-funding, through events, space hire and small donations for books, tea and computer use. Volunteers provide other vital skills and resources — for example, one built their old computers out of spare parts, one refit their bathroom, and another publicises their activities on a local notice board Facebook page with 3000 followers.
Day 2
Today we visited two charities, Bethel Trust in Port Talbot and Glantawe Outdoor Education Academy in Pontardawe.
A busy afternoon was spent at Bethel Community Church in Port Talbot where the Bethel Trust and Jubilee Drop-in Centre are based. Run by Liz, Anthony, Sally and a team of 30 volunteers, the Jubilee Drop-in Centre is open 3 days a week for people in need to come and collect free food through their Foodshare scheme, access laptops for job searching, receive addiction recovery support and visit the community shop where clothes, shoes and other supplies are just £1.
Their biggest challenges:
- Volunteer management can be difficult when you are working with so many different people from varied backgrounds. “People come with a big heart to help but they don’t always have the experience of working in a team and so conflict management is a constant challenge.” Liz would love to be able to access training on teamwork and conflict management for her and her volunteers.
- Because they are so reliant on volunteers and the goodwill of others, it’s hard to get all the skills that they need (e.g. accounting) and have a stable team from week to week.
What does the future hold?
- They are working towards setting up a residential rehabilitation house to help those recovering from addiction. Their dream would then be to ‘copy and paste’ their current operating model — which they know works effectively — and combine it with the rehab house to build a larger support structure and centre for the community.
- They have recently purchased a van that Sally (who heads up their outreach programme) wants to use to take the Jubilee Drop-in Centre ‘on-the-road’. This way she can reach more vulnerable people further afield where it’s harder for them to access help.
Glantawe Outdoor Education Academy is a community park and outdoor education centre. The park is a popular public space, receiving an annual footfall of 10–15,000 people.
While the centre runs a range of activities, the core focus of founder and Operations Director Rob’s work is using outdoor education to improve children’s wellbeing and future opportunities. Currently, six local primary schools are taking part in a year-long programme, where pupils spend one day a week at the park instead of in the classroom. Taken outside of their normal environment, children are encouraged to engage in new ways, take risks, and in doing so gain a sense of responsibility and confidence.
As well as providing services, the charity also has a bigger mission. Rob is using the success of their programmes to advocate for changes in the education system to include outdoor education as standard — “the baton has to be passed”.
We learnt:
- A key priority at the moment is strengthening the charity’s committee and independent governance. For the past 15 years, Rob has largely been the sole decision-maker. Now that the park and programmes are running well, the focus is shifting towards sustainability.
“Community groups are generally one person who says this needs doing and does it… If I die tomorrow it’s got to keep going. Currently, it can’t exist without me and that’s fundamentally wrong.”
- Applying for grant funding is extremely time-consuming; it’s not just filling in forms, but the time required to research, think and structure activities in such a way to be attractive to funders. The better application experiences are those that feel collaborative — for example, working iteratively on a document to produce a final version that meets both parties’ needs.
“Getting funding feels like a lottery. It can be adversarial — it should be a partnership.”
- It can be challenging to convince funders (governmental and non-governmental) to invest in preventative programmes, where the full value of the work won’t be seen for years to come.
Day 1
Our first visit took us to Ystradgynlais, a former mining and industrial town in the Swansea Valley.
We spent the day with Ystradgynlais Community Car (YCC) Scheme, a charity that provides low-cost, accessible transport to people who need it, via a membership scheme. YCC is run by Brian and Denver together with a team of volunteer drivers and admin staff. Without YCC’s services, many of the elderly people in the local community would struggle to leave their homes, due to accessibility issues and limited bus routes.
“We’re not just a car scheme, we’re a social service.”
Things we learnt:
- The biggest challenge at the moment is finding funding for salaries. Searching and applying for this specific type of funding takes up a lot of time and energy that they would rather spend on other things, like growing the service to help more users.
- “Measuring impact” often seems like a box-ticking exercise. The fact that they are in high demand and relied upon by many people feels like proof enough of their value to the community.
“We just know we’re doing good because we speak to people and the demand says it all — if you asked anyone in the community about us then they would rave about us. We’re essential and a lifeline.”
- Location plays a big part in what resources are available. While YCC is happy to serve and transport its members across Wales, local funding is often strictly bounded by county or district.
“We’ll go wherever we are needed, but from a funding perspective it might as well be the Berlin Wall, it’s so hard to go across the borders.”
- Even resources allocated locally can be hard to access in Ystradgynlais, as the town sits within the largest district in Wales. The YCC team were recently invited to attend a training programme but the location was too far away.
- Charities are sometimes under pressure from funders to show that they are innovating. Not only can this feel like a chicken and egg situation (funding requires innovation while innovation requires money), but YCC’s service is working well as it is. They would rather focus on sustaining the existing model and serving more people than on rolling out something new.
“How do you innovate when you’re an established working charity?”
- When it comes to digital tools, simple is best. A few years ago, YCC was given a new booking system that was meant to help them schedule trips more efficiently. However, the system was designed for taxis and couldn’t account for the personalised service provided to YCC’s members. It wasn’t long before they returned to their tried and tested approach.
“The system doesn’t know that Janet takes an extra 5 minutes to get into the car and that we wait for her to complete her shopping before taking her home.”
