Lots of people are posting stuff that makes it seem like they are all super successful home-workers. Most of what they are telling you to do is either a) obvious/common sense or b) really pointless. I’ve worked from home for ten years. Here are two things you need to stop Read more…
Almost everyone I know is working remotely from home. Some more successfully than others. It made me think: ten years ago, when I started out as a consultant, I started working from home. Then it struck me: I’ve been working remotely for ten years! So what can I tell you Read more…
About four years ago I wrote about the negative press that civil society organisations were getting in the UK press and what this meant for the sector. Recently I saw a headline that read something like “Charities are on their way out.” It reminded me again that we take the future Read more…
In May last year I wrote about how commissioners could improve their commissioning of external evaluations for social impact. It struck me that the advice I gave was quite technical (well it was for the UK Evaluation Society’s journal) and there were a few things not included that most of Read more…
Social Impact organisations have a lot to think about and keep on top of – not only whether or not they are reaching their target beneficiaries and making a difference in their lives, but also: paying the bills and generating enough income. It can be tempting to constantly look for Read more…
A couple of weeks ago I was part of a learning event held by one of my clients. I had recently led a two-person team to deliver an organisational evaluation of their performance and results over the past three years. We delivered a five minute summary of our results together Read more…
Supply chains might seem like an odd topic for social impact organisations to be concerned about, especially when most people think of supply chains as being something that manufacturers and retailers need to be aware of. Well, maybe not. You see increasingly social impact organisations, especially social enterprises, are making Read more…
Following on from my last blog, the title of this one seems pretty self-explanatory. Indeed we have known for over a decade that increasingly supporters and donors are more motivated by causes rather than organisations and that working together can tap into significant social and social media campaigning. Except that Read more…
It is easy and tempting to put everything into a nice little box with a label on it. Makes it seem manageable, do-able. At least until we try to assess whether we’ve actually made any improvements. Most of time the changes that we thought would happen somehow don’t seem to Read more…
The most demoralising thing is to see all your hard work come to naught, isn’t it? That is often how social impact specialists can feel when there isn’t sufficient sustainability baked into their interventions. Too many times I’ve had conversations where individuals confide in me their frustrations at not being Read more…