Change in the in-between
Our new focus for social change
We’ve been reflecting on our successes and failures over the last 10+ years and have written about our learnings and unlearnings. We’re now drawing a line and setting out how and where we plan to work in the coming years with (old and new) partners working towards social change.
In this blog, we talk about how we approach social change, some shifts we’re proud of, and an open call for fellow collaborators.
Social change in the in-between
We know that society isn’t working for many people. Despite the best efforts of those working to create social impact, inequality is widening, and people’s day-to-day experiences and opportunities are worsening.
This worsening inequality is focusing more resources towards the short term. While people work tirelessly to keep services running for the people who need them, we know that things aren’t going to get better through incremental change alone. That means that the tools we and others have used to create social impact are no longer fit for purpose — a slightly better website or a single new service can only, at best, stop things from getting worse. We need to facilitate a new space where people have the bandwidth and belief that they can fix our broken system.
At the same time, the urgency of the challenges we face also limits our ability to imagine a system that works. That’s why we’re excited to see momentum building in ‘collective imagination’ — the practice of imagining a system that breaks free from worsening inequality and is socially, environmentally and economically sustainable — not a utopia, just a world that works. While we need to imagine a different world to get there, we also know that the leap from the world we have to the world we need is big, and without the right support, we can struggle to connect imagination with action.
At Shift, we’ve always focused on turning bold ideas into reality. That’s why our social change efforts are now on the step changes — or shifts (pun intended) — between the world we have and the world we need. From our experience of launching our own ventures, funds, programmes and services, we know that the pull of the current system or ‘status quo’ is strong, which means that many of our projects struggle to make a dent or reach their full potential. But from our many mistakes, we’ve learnt the art of guiding lasting and meaningful change through the small Shifts between where we’re at and where we need to be.
That’s why we’ll be focusing on practical demonstrators that address the challenges of today and step us towards a system that works for more people.
People-led social change
At the heart of our approach to systems change is the belief that people are the experts in their own lives and that meaningful change can only happen when people are empowered to take the lead. That’s why we work to facilitate and hold space for people to come together, share their experiences, define the challenge, develop their own solutions and make decisions on the issues they face.
Involving people impacted by social issues in decision-making and design is no longer a radical approach (in fact, it’s pretty old!), but we’re still figuring out the best role for us, our partners and the communities we work with to play. Experts and decision-makers can struggle to let go of decision-making power. People participating can struggle to engage, or not want to if all the heavy lifting and burden is on them. There is no single model of participation that works for every issue and every community — we’ve learnt the hard way. That’s why we’re working to build a new alliance where neither experts nor communities are making change alone. One that can work through the complexity of our world because the people who experience it, and the people who manage it are all in the room working towards common goals.
We’re working to shape a new partnership with people in the lead, where both those who experience social issues and professional or academic experts can contribute and be valued equally.
Shifts we’re proud of
So what does it mean to take a people-led approach to demonstrating social change? We’re bringing this to life with some of the shifts we’ve been working on with our brilliant partners…
- Shifting towards fairer funding. Funding is at the heart of where power lies. We believe that for meaningful social change to take place, we need to diversify who can access funding and how it is awarded. We’ve been working with UnLtd and Big Issue Invest to shape the Growth Impact Fund — designed to provide underrepresented founders with access to grants and investment for social purpose organisations. Alongside this, we’re reimagining how funding decision-making and governance works through community-led grant funding with Impact on Urban Health, and community-led investment committees with Trust for London and Connect Fund.
- Shifting towards people-led services, ventures and change. We believe that to make stuff that works, we need the right people around the table. We’ve been working with Eastlight to support 20 Essex-based residents create their own social ventures that respond to local issues as a part of the All In programme. We’re also changing how we design services with the Centre for Ageing Better. Working as one integrated team with people who have experienced redundancy over the age of 50 we created a new scheme to support people back into meaningful work.
- Shifting towards lasting change. If we see a problem or gap in the system, we’ll try to find the right way to address it and make positive change stick. That’s why we back bold ideas all the way, from launching a venture in BFB Labs (the team transforming mental health support), to shaping a new practice through the Relationships Project (the team building a relationship-centred movement). We’ve also learnt when we’re not the right organisation to tackle an issue and how to pave the way for others to come in, as we shared in our five-year journey trying to shift food systems.
Nothing about our approach is new. And not for the first time, we’re reminded how important it is to recognise how our work has evolved from others. You can read more about this in our blog Shifts that have been inspiring us. Overall, we will constantly question and challenge our own legitimacy to do this work.
Open call: looking for system shifters!
We don’t believe there will be one model or solution for the scale of change required. Instead, we think the many new organisations, services and interventions needed to shape a system that works will be developed in collaboration — and everyone has a role to play. We like to think of ourselves as members of the growing rebel alliance (thanks Donna Hall!) — those that are both doing the hard work of developing new ways of doing things, but then sticking around to make sure it’s done so that we have both the new things and the new ways of being embedded into local systems.
So, as we launch our new way of working into the world, we’re looking to find new partners, fellow shifters, and community builders to collaborate, share and learn. We bring our shared learning and unlearning over more than 15 years of designing and making real change, alongside our wonderful partners with deep knowledge of mental health, financial wellbeing, food equity, and many more. We believe we all have a role to play in making our system work, whether you are a funder, service designer, facilitator, or decision-maker.
We’re calling on all our partners, past and future, to join the alliance, and shift power to those who are disproportionately impacted by today’s broken system. If this feels like you, reach out to us via hello@shiftdesign.org, or…
Book a slot with Louise to talk about building services and ventures.
Book a slot with Oli to talk about people-led approaches.
Book a slot with Duncan to talk about fairer funding.
