Changing the starting point: reflections on how we can involve people as participants in shaping our cultural heritage
Over the last 5 months we’ve been working together with 6 cultural heritage organisations, ranging from Museums and Archives to Cathedrals and Abbeys, to ask:
How can we involve people as participants in shaping our cultural heritage?
Together we’re exploring the why, how and what of working with people, not as consumers of, but participants in cultural heritage; with 3 ideas as our starting point:
#1. Participation is powerful for organisations and individuals — organisations can achieve more with the insights, ideas and energy of more people than just those inside your organisation. For individuals, genuine and purposeful participation can be a source of agency, community and wellbeing.
#2. Purposeful participation, not participation for participation’s sake, is the key — to shift participation from the sidelines, we need a new starting point. One where working with people is no longer thought of as a nice-to-do, or one strand of activity but integral to how we can achieve the impact we aspire to in the world:
#3. Participation isn’t a one-size fits all — there’s no one way of involving people and where organisations can draw upon a greater range of participation there are opportunities to involve more people in ways that further purpose and impact. Holding these ideas, we started the process with each organisation asking what they were ultimately trying to achieve, what’s their purpose and the corresponding impact that all their activity should add up to?
This blog shares some of our findings and reflections so far — we’d love to hear whether they strike a chord or sound the wrong note with you?
Starting from purpose — findings so far:
#1. Balancing the big picture on purpose with our specific role and impact — when it comes to purpose we often talk from and stay at the broad role of cultural heritage in and across our societies, rather than the specific role and intended impact of our organisations. Starting from that big picture can be powerful (the Arts Council’s Case for Art and Culture is a great example of the impact of arts and culture at a national level) but if organisations don’t articulate their part in that, the impact that they’re driving at given their unique context and history, it can also be paralysing and not enough of a compass or rallying cry to guide the actions they take.
What we’ve found during this process is that when we explicitly hold the big picture, alongside a specific idea of your role within achieving that — it can be a powerful source of clarity and inspiration. Take the Wellcome Collection: this museum and library form part of the Wellcome Trust whose impact is to improve health for everyone by helping great ideas to thrive. The Collection isn’t looking to improve health for everyone as their direct impact — something nigh on impossible to achieve and measure through people’s interaction with their exhibitions and activities. Instead their part of achieving that ultimate impact is to ‘Challenge the way we all think and feel about health’ — to help great ideas to thrive through the bringing together of different disciplines and ideas in order to spark new thoughts and ways forward.
Holding that ultimate impact — something you are part of but unable to achieve on your own, alongside your direct role — the role you’re playing in achieving that ultimate impact can not only help to provide focus to the work we do, it can help us to see our role within a bigger ecosystem prompting new ideas and partnerships.
#2. Working back from the ends, rather than starting from the means can open up new ways forward — throughout the process we’ve been working with a light touch theory of change that starts from impact rather than actions; using the beer company, Brewdog, as a source of inspiration from outside the sector.
In the competitive FMCG world of food and drink, there aren’t many companies that hold themselves to account for more than selling their products but here Brewdog breaks the mould by explicitly holding their purpose and impact as ‘making everyone as passionate about craft beer as we are’. An impact that comes from their explicitly expressed desire to disrupt the monopolies of the drink industry giants.
With that impact as the starting point, the outcomes they’re looking for and actions they take are radically more diverse, inventive and participatory than if sales alone were the goal: they are the inventors of crowd equity — giving everyone the chance to become an ‘equity punk’ with tens of thousands investing and raising millions in the process, punks shape the future of Brewdog suggesting new products and attending the AGM ‘Annual General Mayhem’ in their thousands, Brewdog champion and partner with other craft breweries all with the aim of growing the passion for craft beer. All these activities are achieving the impact of making more people passionate about craft beer while making Brewdog the fastest growing food and drinks company in the UK.
Working back from impact, can prompt new questions and a new starting place for participation. Tredegar House, has a history inextricably linked to the welfare and prosperity of Newport and the ultimate impact they contribute to is a thriving Newport. By focusing on their direct impact, they’ve explicitly articulated their role in achieving a thriving Newport as a catalyst — inspiring others to take positive action as much as taking action themselves. Working back from that direct impact is opening up new ways of thinking about: how they can inspire and enable the many people that come to the house and gardens to play a role in shaping Tredegar and Newport, how their existing partnerships inspire a thriving Newport and where new ones can be formed.
#3. Whatever you’re setting out to achieve, it starts and ends with people — having identified the impact you’re working towards, the next thing is to break down the steps to getting there. To identify and articulate the outcomes that add up to an overall impact.
We’re working from the basis that whatever your purpose and impact in the world it will be better achieved with people alongside you, asking: in order to achieve your impact, what do you need people to know (facts), to think (beliefs), to feel (emotions) and to do (actions)?
By approaching outcomes in this way, we’ve gone beyond the ideas and measures we often feel most comfortable with: visitor numbers, website hits, income; acknowledging that while these things are important, essential to the continuing survival of our organisations, they’re not tantamount to impact.
It allows us to think more broadly about what success looks like in the relationships we build with people and partners. The way people perceive and relate to our organisations remains part of the puzzle but not the whole of it, instead the way people relate to what we stand for, our underlying purpose, becomes much more important. And it allows new thinking on the role that we play in working with others, how that may evolve or flex from predominantly leading or doing ourselves, to enabling others to take action to better achieve a shared impact.
None of these findings are new or revolutionary but we’re learning that they do make a difference. It’s rare that we give ourselves the time to reflect on the specific role and impact we’re building towards, to break that down and understand where it fits in the bigger picture, but when we do it can provide the perspective and impetus to work with people in more purposeful, diverse and impactful ways.
Thoughts?
This is some reflections from the process so far and together with Brighton Museums, Fountains Abbey, The National Archives, Tredegar House, York Minster and Wellcome Collection we’ll be continuing to work with these ideas this, and starting to get into what purposeful participation looks like in practice.
If these questions and ideas are of interest to you, whether in or out of the cultural heritage sector, then do get in touch — we’d love to hear from you….
New Citizenship Project are an innovation consultancy company, working to increase greater participation in society by changing the way we think about people. If you’d like to find out more about our current project in the cultural heritage sector, or our work more broadly, you can get in touch with us at info@newcitizenship.org.uk.
