The top down funding model for social value is seriously broken IMHO. How can we introduce a new model to get the money to communities that will deliver SV outcomes and have better chances than the top-down bureaucratic model? And please don’t say “more local government commissioning”. Local gov seems to be going bancrupt increasingly these days #birmingham
I’ve been sparked into thinking about a Theory of Change for this. The following picture needs explaining but essentially power is removed from both central and local agencies. Instead funds are placed directly with the power of “projects” (projects have a start, middle and end as well as socially valuable outcomes). We call them “pods”. Pods receive tranistion funding within an overal theme of “demand reduction” playing to mutualised themes set nationally.
So we align community needs with the pressing issues of Government sustainability and affordability. We use money sensible rather than VRU/HS2/Birmingham CRM - and many more money wasting schemes. We create a digital commons (a data trust and collaboration platform) owned by all citizens and divert a chunk of gov funding to transition to new sustainable social value models that do not rely on gov funding.
We route around all the steps in between and fund the projects at the heart of social value / change.
We’ve drawn much inspiration over revent years on many examples that are person-centric. Examples include youth work, volunteering, social entrepreneurship, mission focus, peer-to-peer, blockchain, open data and open source. This happens already all over the place currently. But not government!
I’ve worked with too many top down UK Gov schemes over the years such as InnovateUK, the DWP’s Kirkstart programme and the Home Offices VRU funding and most of it just pours huge amounts of money taxpayer money down the bureaucratic drain.
