'Charity is the art of social inspiration'
From a speech to mark the launch of InspireChilli on my last day as a Director at the Foyer Federation.
This morning my Ambassador in
London handed a final note stating that, unless we heard by 5 o'clock that
our government and establishment was prepared at once to withdraw policies
of austerity and disadvantaged thinking, a state of creative war would exist
between us.
I have to tell you now that no such undertaking has
been received, and that consequently we are at war.
Let me explain to you what this creative war means.
The charity sector, we are
told, faces a 4.6bn financial black hole by 2018, with significant reductions
in services. It faces a crisis in trust from the unscrupulous actions of those
who continue to reduce the work of charity to the raising of alms instead of
the giving of love. We’re a sector with the same turnover of Tesco, but in
which 78% of the income is owned by a cartel of brands, and in which more
salaries pay for fundraisers than innovators creating solutions to the issues
we fundraise for. We call for a Government to redistribute wealth, but have no
system ourselves for the redistribution of either wealth or ideas that could
create ‘super charities’ fit for the task of alleviating social injustice.
This is a creative war
symbolised by the painting of the forth bridge.
Before December 2011, the painting of the forth bridge was an act that
required constant annual maintenance. Until, in 2001, a paint was invented that
took a decade to coat the bridge in, but gave it, for the first time, a clean
bill of health for at least the next 25 years.
In our sector, we talk big campaigns, we talk big programmes, we’ve
talked Big Society. They turn to big
disappointments. Why? Because this
sector is not set up to invent the paint that will transform the rusting bridge
of hope for young people into a thriving passage to the future. Our modern model of charity requires
urgent reinvention; to reclaim its purpose as an open-sourced force for good, with
the independent power to free up lives, communities and ideas. A necessary
obsession with economic survival in the face of black holes has shifted the
centre of charity out of its natural place as a home for inspiration.
What should we do about it? We need a
creative war to explode us back to where the purpose of charity came from. A war that I will call a ‘mindfare’ for the
passionate soul of charity; for the resilience, capability and authenticity we
have to be ourselves. A mindfare to ensure our future generation has the
finesse as well as the finance to access the inspirational capital to build a
world that is truly fairer for all. Mindfare
is a warfare to see simply. To think simply. To act and do simply. To be simply unrelenting
in our pursuit of the future possible. To
be ‘thinkery’ organisations reclaiming a common spirit of social inspiration
that has got lost in our brand blindness.
And so, as an advocate for mindfare and thinkery,
what can I offer to you that might call you to arms for this creative war? That
might give us confidence towards its outcome?
I offer not a dream, not an ideal. I offer a feeling. A feeling that came to me
when I visited the Alexander McQueen exhibition in London this summer, and
asked: what have we created in our sector that is comparable to the artistry
and influence of his catwalks? A feeling
that charity has a greater meaning to the ones we have grown accustomed to. A feeling that the fact charity hides within
it the word ‘art’ is a symbolic reminder of its special purpose. The Open Talent
and Advantaged Thinking programmes I began at Foyer Federation were sometimes
misunderstood as another set of strengths-based aspirational approaches, when
in fact there urgency lies in going beyond aspiration to somewhere else.
Let me now explain where that
else exists. Aspiration is understood as
the driver for social and personal progress.
It’s also associated with the limitations of personal over social gain;
with selfish greed; with the growing gap between rich and poor in our
society. People aspire to things that
neither they or we need. Aspiration
brings with it a tension that can be seen in our sector’s obsession with the replication
of brand over mission; with corrosive fundraising practices and exploitative
publicity in the name of good; with self-serving approaches to programme
development and colonial-like
expansions into other people’s communities and expertise. Aspiration has become a 21st
century quack, offering the medicine of positivity while turning us into
addicts to behaviours and beliefs that are far from charitable. Our young
people don’t want the discredited politics and charity of aspiration, thanks
very much; they want something far greater – the politics and charity of social
inspiration.
In this creative war, we must
aspire to nothing; but we must inspire for everything. ‘During
periods of adversity’, notes Ashok Kamal, ‘the
most valuable currency we can access is the inspiration capital that energises
our purpose and confidence’ (‘What’s your
inspiration capital’, in Triplepundit, Thursday, Oct 18th, 2012). Inspiration
is about things that touch our minds, hearts and spirits. It’s what ancient
society used in cave paintings; it’s what contemporary society looks for in sports
and the arts. It is when lives lack
inspiration that society is most impoverished and unjust. Yet, beyond cultural or sports activities, and
those programmes that seek an inspirational outcome, we make little effort to
apply the theories of inspiration in the way we work with people.
Alexander McQueen
was born, like me, in March 1969. As I
look back on my time in Foyer Federation, I realise that, while I have little
sartorial elegance, we shared a common agenda. At its best, both my role here and the Federation itself, functioned as
an inspiratory to influence change. We
created programmes that inspired people in our network and beyond to develop better
approaches. We created the capacity and stimulation for others to be inspired to sustain
their own energy and belief. We offered
a visionary fabric that attracted people and gave individuals confidence in their
root values and purpose. Perhaps I and the Foyer Federation never appreciated
that enough to measure how the ripples of our work flowed out to shape so many
beautiful things that we could never have envisaged. Like everyone in our
sector, we sometimes got lost in the delivery and the business required to
sustain charity; we felt
hurt when others ran off with our ideas without acknowledgement. But, we were at our very best when we were
the ‘foyer inspiration’, helping others to be inspirational on their own terms;
and foyers and their young people and staff were the inspiration back to
inspire our world.
If this
was the latent, implicit reality of our work, I now intend with InspireChilli to
make it manifestly explicit, with inspiration at the foreground of every
operation. What I felt, looking into the eyes of Alexander McQueen, was that,
just like fashion, charity and social enterprise are meant to be lead as an art
form – meant to inspire us to great things.
Inspiration, in the dictionary,
is associated with actions to urge, create, animate, rise. These are the values for a new vision for
charity, whose purpose, like the artist of the age, is to remind us of our
human potential to do amazing things. To ensure we really do, ‘give a shit’. Indeed, in the work of
the artist, it’s the ability to give a shit for the things that matter to us
most, and at the same time not to give a shit for all the things that get in
the way of our intent, which is at the essence of social value. To be artists of a better world, we
must give a shit and not give a shit too.
Above all, we must relearn the significance of the lost art of
inspiration.
Inspiration is what unleashes and
sustain talent and potential. It’s the source of Advantaged Thinking.
It’s the famous one percent without which 99% of our perspiration has little
effect. So, what would happen if we
shaped everything we do in charity and enterprise from an inspiration-first approach? From how organisations are run, to what
they do, to how they measure the impact of their work?
In 1919, the Bauhaus movement introduced a new guild that
broke down the barriers between artists and craftsmen to create a radical community
of artistic experimentation. I think charity and social enterprise ought to be
a little more Bauhaus. We need to break
down the divisions that exist between sector and community, commissioner/funder
and service, beneficiary and provider.
Our version of Bauhaus would create a new community of experimentation made
up of people who share the inspirational principles and practices of the
artist. An ‘inspirationshaus’ for thinking and action, connecting the different
social arts and crafts of charity and enterprise.
Here, I am not interested in art as a subject for
programmes, however important those are in the wider offer. I care for artistic experiment as a method of
innovation and organisational being - an
approach to charity and enterprise that occupies the same thinking and doing
space of the artist. What I am
describing is a charity of social inspirations, led not by another centralising
brand, but by a dispersed band of ‘social extraordinaires’ working beyond
profit.
Think about it. The artist is
someone who provokes, questions, answers, looks ahead; who imagines and
reimagines; who dreams and concretes; who stirs our passions and thoughts. Most
of all, they make things that inspire us. And they are prepared to practice in
mixed economies of value to do so – balancing their passion to create with
whatever is required to subsidise the free space to create within. They don’t just
give up their passion because the money is elsewhere. The true artist sustains
their focus because the art is part of them: they can only be themselves.
It is this character, this essence, this energy, this relationship,
which for me marks the future for what charity and social enterprise must be.
Charity as the art of inspiration: creating communities that create community;
inspiring lives that inspire lives. Charity as the creative source for acts of
good that move us to the core of our existence. For what could be more moving
than the artistry of giving, of transition and transformation?
Writing in the Guardian on 9th Sept 2015, Clare Heal explored how chillis make the body work better and make us
feel good. Through InspireChilli, I want to offer an inspirational approach to
make the mind and heart of organisations work better, to make lives better for
people they work with. I will pioneer a new set of relationships that
can reconfigure the way charity and enterprise works through social acts of inspiration. A charity that looks and
feels more like Alexander McQueen; that brings magic to life, and transforms
itself in the process.
The core of my InspireChilli approach offers one simple
idea: to take the ‘inspiration’ based practice and behaviours of the artist,
along with contemporary research on the psychological impact of inspiration, and
to apply this to the following: how ‘doing good’ is funded, how ‘doing good’ works
with young people, how the impact of ‘doing good’ can be assessed, and how ‘doing
good’ is influenced and seeks to influence. At a practice level, the
inspirations vision will introduce fresh perspectives to develop 1-1 work,
youth involvement, wellbeing and service outcomes; while at a systemic level exploring
alternative working methods and cultures that will increase our capacity to
inspire social change. It is what I will call the theory of social inspiration,
with a framework of 5 principles by which the artistic identity of charity and
social enterprise can be shaped.
Principle one of this framework is ‘Inspirational
Patronage’.
I believe the relationship of funder to organisation, programme
and young person, can be recast as a form of a creative patronage that invests
in someone’s potential to create inspirational work and life by giving them the
‘benefit’ to do so with. I want to draw
a connection between how artists get funded and how charity is funded, and to
pioneer a patron approach that can apply to those able to demonstrate the
social inspiration of an artist in the way they work with people and influence
others. I wish to create an alternative source of ‘mindfare’ that offers
inspirational credits to credit the ability of individuals to inspire social
gains. This builds on programmes proven
through Foyer Federation – such as talent bonds – but with a more distinct and
progressive psychological methodology to pioneer an inspiration-focused
approach to 1-1 work. The new IP here is
not intellectual property; it’s the freedom that inspirational patronage bestows
to create infinite returns on its investment through the ripple effect of
inspiration.
Principle two of the framework is 'A Guild for Social Inspiration'.
I believe there is a vital role within the sector for
individuals of inspiration to operate outside of a fixed organisation, which
can be tested through the notion of an ‘artist in residence’ role (or rather an
‘inspirator in flux’ like myself) who is not affiliated to any one organisation
or self-serving consultancy, but has a broader social remit to spread new ideas
and influence. This function can be compared
with the role of craftsmen from the medieval Guilds. Thus, principal two will establish a formal
guild of social inspiration, made up of those individuals (consultants,
secondments, sabbaticals and internships) who are freed for a set time to
create and act on inspiration. Research
demonstrates that inspiration is stimulated by the absences of pressures on
competition and objective worth, and thus inspiration is constrained within the
current limitations of a charity sector that is increasingly led through
competition for funding and narrow outcome measures. Being freed from a single organisation enables
the shaping of a virtual and symbolic work space for individuals sponsored
across a group of organisations who intrinsically value the potential to be
inspired and to act on inspiration to inspire others. The Guild will use its freedom to create a
process for collaboration that tests out a relational facilitation framework,
modelling how to stimulate inspirational ‘social fusion’ between different
individuals and organisations to release ideas that are freed from the normal constraints
of organisational IP.
Principle three of the framework is 'A Curriculum for
Social Inspirators'.
By applying existing psychological and relational
research, InspireChilli will develop an inspiration-based curriculum that builds
co-mutual relationships of inspiration in frontline practice. The framework
will establish a flow of inspiration (or
‘inspiration loops’) between young people in services and their support
workers, support workers and their managers, the service and its local
community, funders and wider peers. The
flow will be rooted in new tools that generate inspiration-focused
conversations, goal setting, and reflective treasuring, in which each level of
relationship is connected back to the inspiration provided by young people and
the inspirations offered to them in return.
The flow is built around an ‘inspire me to inspire you to inspire
others’ inquiry that breaks out of the limits of our existing
aspiration-focused dialogue. The flow
will also look at how we can apply the behaviours of the artist to how young
people take control of their lives: how they shape original ideas; develop
making skills; communicate through what they do; take risks; collaborate and
influence; observe and reflect; maximise their cultural and economic value;
have global awareness. Young people will be given formal roles and recognition
as ‘social inspirators’ for the activities they engage in to spread and support
this flow of inspiration in the environment and ecosystem around them. The identification, setting and assessment of
young people’s support goals will be redefined, using research on the impact of
an inspiration-focus to develop young people’s psychological resources and
enable them to transform their conception of who they are and what is possible
for them. This
inspiratory-approach will be connected with access to inspiration credits that
invest in young people’s potential as social inspirators. In turn, organisations working with these young
people will be able to develop their own internal resources and external
identity as social inspirators for community benefit. More simply, the
curriculum of social inspiration will free up people to be their own flow, to
do themselves, to create their own impact and not just follow the aspirations
handed down to them. As evidence from
programmes such as Healthy Conversations shows, it’s when there is a personal
connect between an individual’s passion and their goal that magic happens.
Principle four of the framework is 'Treasuring Inspiration'.
I am sure I am not the only person who finds what passes
for evaluation and impact work these days to be like doublespeak from
1984. We deserve a simple impact tool by
which young people and others can properly value and share the inspirational
nature of their services, based on ‘treasuring’ the experiences, environments
and relationships that stimulate outcomes in their lives. The tool I am going
to create will help give services – and their evaluators - greater
accountability to young people in the extent to which their practice is truly inspirational.
Principle five of the framework is 'Inspiration First'.
For me, charity and enterprise should be an ideas-first /
funding second sector. It should nourish
the inspirational shoots to shape a better future that attracts the right
sources of investment, rather than act reactively stuck in a funder-focused
diametric. InspireChilli wants to promote young people as social inspirators to
inspire the sector’s collective thinking and action to invest in them. I propose to do this by developing a ‘catwalk
for ideas’, providing a public showcase for social inspirators to explore our
understanding of youth challenges and stimulate our collective potential to
find solutions. Inspiration First is
about creating the InspireChilli effect of what my friend Carl Miller and I call the ‘good
ripple’. A good ripple is achieved when an inspirational source ripples outwards in new forms and
ideas through different people. These ripples are not just echoes of the
original splash of inspiration. The
ripples are their own stones, always fresh and new, because Inspiration First won’t
simply teach people to inspire - it will make people to be inspirational. You can’t fake inspiration; you can’t
reproduce it; you can only be it.
To put this theory of social inspiration into
action, I want to draw on the revolutionary spirit of the enlightenment. In particular, that famous battle cry of ‘liberty, fraternity, and equality’ which I feel can help us create the
type of positive future charity envisaged by those such as 'Call to Action for the Common Good'.
For Liberty: we must make charity open sourced; replace intellectual
property with inspiring patronage; rebuild the foundations of what charity was
meant to be as an act of love; invent the transformational paint that frees the
future.
For Fraternity: we must focus social good on the principles of
collaboration and co-operation; foster new systems of trust between the public
and our sector; rationalise resources and expertise in ways that maximise the
aspirations our inspiration ignites; inspire communities not just with social
need but also the potential for social solutions.
For Equality: we must equalise the relationship between funder, provider
and beneficiary, with a loop of inspiration connecting each in joint
responsibility and recognition; and finally, we must measure and understand how
inspiration breaks the inequality deadlock in the politics of aspiration.
In his article on why
inspiration matters in Psychology Today (5 oct 2011), Scott Barry Kaufman wrote: ‘The best you can
personally do is set up the maximal circumstances for inspiration. The best we
can do as a society is assist in setting up these important circumstances for
everyone’. To make free; to make social;
to make equal. This is the cause for which I am fighting a creative war for doing
good better.
So, say goodbye to me if you must. Or say hello, and work with me to develop the
art of charity as social inspiration.
C.
Falconer, 25th September, 2015.
(With thanks to all the staff and trustees of Foyer Federation for their support)
