Creating a structure, holding it lightly
Over the past few months there’s been so much thought given to our governance model and structure at Catalyst, in essence how we organise ourselves. Given that we aspire to work in a more radical and non — hierarchical way, we have intentionally begun testing a model which we hope will enable those within our community to make collective decisions about where funding and resources are directed, and which initiatives are supported according to the impact they can potentially create.
We regularly experience blockers, many of which are caused by deeply ingrained conditioning from being used to working in a more traditional and hierarchical way in the past. As bell hooks explains, we’re all products of a ‘imperialist, white supremicist, capitalist patriarchy.’ That’s a lot of systemic layers to try and unpack. It impacts on our behaviour without us even consciously recognising it.
Unlearning
People often tend to want to be directed. They want someone to tell them ‘yes’ or ‘no’ and not to have to live with ambiguity. They crave the frameworks and systems which for so long have held them prisoners. It’s easier to work this way because we already know how. I have had to question my own motivations so many times since starting this role as a Producer (and even before, as a Director of a small and feminist social enterprise). Things regularly come up which are a consequence of my own conditioning. As Rumi said; ‘Recognise that unlearning is the highest form of learning.’ Unlearning is not easy. It requires energy, and willingness.
Freedom, fear and inclusion
Nina Simone once said; ‘freedom to me, is no fear.’ It can be liberating to break free from the structures which have for so long limited us, but the freedom to make decisions often induces some anxiety and fear. This fear, we’ve realised, can be derived from an uncertainty about who is actually accountable or responsible for the outcome. Take away the policies, frameworks and hierarchy and it becomes very unclear.
What we've learned is that a light structure, a set of processes and some clearly defined accountability can put people back into their comfort zone and help us all move forward, without fear. Fear-based thinking is definitely counter productive to our collective aims. Added to this, for those who are neurodivergent, developing a light structure can be essential for enabling them to participate fully and it therefore helps us to be more inclusive.
We came up with a visual depiction on how the different parts of our network interrelate and can support one another (graphic below). We’ve also started to define roles within this, including our own. We’ve had to get really clear on how our producer team can support and underpin the collective decision making and clarify who is accountable. It seems to have helped bring some clarity, and therefore some confidence in moving forward, together. It highlighted that we needed a layer of accountability outside of the core Producer team, too.
Our current organisational structure
We’re currently incubated by CAST, a charity with a more traditional structure and a board. Ultimately it is the board whom are currently accountable and responsible for our outputs. Yet on a day to day basis we have had very limited connections with this group of people. It feels distant to us.
It became clear that we needed an advisory body, to emulate the functions of a board in terms of governance checks and to hold us accountable for our actions, but also to support us as a small team of three as we grapple with some heavy existential questions pertaining to Catalyst. We’d like to feel held through the process of our strategic review as it unfolds.
If we want to work in a non-hierarchial way, why even create this structural layer?
Given that we also have an aspiration to establish ourselves as a separate legal entity and organisation in our own right, it made sense to get a head start on putting in place a mechanism to govern this. The idea that Catalyst should become independent was first raised by our steward group in a report (an impartial and external group of individuals) back in 2019. This was put on hold during the pandemic years of 2020 and 2021 due to the network collectively mobilising to provide a crisis response to the social sector. Once this immediate crisis was over, the steward group disbanded in 2021, and since that time there has been a need to curate a group to replace them. You can read more about the background to that change here.
Whilst we do have operations and financial management support services currently provided by CAST, there is a missing layer of support around strategy and governance which is what we’re seeking to address.
We are not perceiving this as a hierarchy, or a body which we’ll ‘report to’. There have been many conversations about how this group will relate to the CAST board, and how much ‘delegated authority’ it will have from the board. This is a work in progress and is all emergent. For now, we have agreed that the group has the remit to make recommendations to the board and we are exploring which dimensions it may have the authority to make decisions on (for instance governance, legal).
What will the steering group do?
The focus for the next 6 months (up to March 2023) is on the transition process and strategic considerations. This means that the group will be focussing on the question of whether Catalyst should become a separate legal entity and the strategic, governance and logistical elements which need to be taken into consideration. The outputs for the group are to produce a short term transition plan, a risk matrix and a business case for consideration by the CAST board next March. Some of the inputs that they will be considering include sector research, network engagement data, and our current strategy.
What did the recruitment process involve?
In line with our inclusive principles and value of equity, we created a simple form at stage one containing three questions, and a 30 minute interview at stage two— with questions and a task shared in advance. We hoped this would encourage as many diverse people to apply as possible. We linked all of the questions into our core values and asked them to consider a value and talk about why it mattered to them. We witnessed some really beautiful, open and vulnerable responses. We were blown away by the quality of the responses and the people we had the delight of meeting. It reenergised us in a way we didn’t predict, and gave us hope for the future. Thank you to everyone who gave their time up to participate. In line with our value of reciprocity, we compensated everyone we interviewed for their time.
You can view our recruitment materials on notion here. Feel free to reuse!
What didn’t work so well?
We learned that trying to bill the interview as a ‘informal chat’ didn’t work well, especially because we were asking them to prepare something and the nature of it being on Zoom.
Initially we struggled to attract the range of diversity in terms of lived and learned experience we’d love to see. We addressed this by proactively reaching out to folk and organisations in our network to broaden our reach, and considering the channels we were using carefully. There will be a separate blog piece reflecting on this soon, as we learned a lot from this process.
Who is on the group?
We are very proud to present our new steering group, who represent a broad range of backgrounds, identities, lived and learned experiences and are quite simply a phenomenal bunch of humans!
There is a short biography for each steering group member on our website here.
We also have an incredible steering group facilitator in place— Lauren Coulman. Lauren Founded Noisy Cricket, a social impact consultancy, whose mission is to proliferate reciprocally nurturing systems, through co-creating people-powered movements (a great fit!) We are honoured to be working with her as our lead on this, she is also supporting us with strategic consultancy as we progress through the transition.
What’s next?
The group are meeting bi-weekly currently to move through forming as a team and onboarding. The onboarding process will focus on exploring how we work in line with systemic, sociocratic and participatory practises, as well as the Catalyst values, and the culture of the steering group and their ‘unlearning’ will also be essential to inform more networked and radical models, governance structures and legal tools.
Meanwhile, we’ve been busy organising roundtable events to gain the input of our wider community on some of our unanswered questions, which will inform our strategy. We’ve also been commissioning more sector research via the team at AnthroNation, and these insights will also be synthesised and presented to the steering group, to help us to determine what our new strategy should be in direct response to what the sector needs right now.
My intention is to blog bi-weekly to document some of our learnings as the steering group evolves, and as we move through this important phase of our transition. Stay tuned.
