Stories rarely remain unchanged, the context in which they’re told matters just as much as the context referred to by the story. I wrote this sequence of 21 stories about 15 months ago. You may have read some or all of them in their earlier form. Reading it now, we perhaps see something different, especially as we consider the role of finance after the lockdown.
As I republish these stories, I revise and polish them. Some need little change, for others the changes are extensive. At the end of each story, I add reflections based on where my thinking has moved onto, especially in the context of the Lockdown.
Finance and Power
I remember when I drove Rose to some meeting, a half days journey away. There were four of us in my car. Rose sat in the back with a giant glass ashtray on her knee and gently(!) encouraged me to stay in the fast lane and overtake vehicles.
Rose was one of my closest working relationships, she was leader of a community association, LDV Forum in Attercliffe, Sheffield in the 90s. I was seconded to the Forum by my employers.
For the first 5 years or so we achieved a great deal together and mutual respect grew between us. We were very different. I was quiet, introverted and thought things through. Rose was a loud working class woman, very extrovert and she got things done!
Typically Rose called me to her desk and told me about some problem. It was often about Sheffield Development Corporation, a force to be reckoned with in the LDV. They supported the Forum financially and frequently moved the goalposts. The Forum needed to respond. I would list possible actions and Rose had her hand on the phone as soon as she heard the right answer.
Community Business
Our joint task was to develop community businesses in the area covered by the Forum. We did well. I helped Rose start a community café and then a community pub. She supported the development of a JobLink project and we worked towards a Development Trust to carry the work forward.
We had a brilliant fundraiser but perhaps he was too brilliant. He obtained European Funding for the JobLink and we employed two staff. This was fine until we discovered the strings attached. The money came in three tranches and the final tranche proved to be extremely difficult. The British Government was in some sort of dispute with the EU. Once we’d jumped through all the hoops, the money was inexplicably delayed. We had to pay the staff and as the staff were employed by the Forum, the simple solution was to pay them from general funds. We knew the money was on its way. Rose panicked and in fury insulted one of our private sector supporters. He pulled out and told me we would get nowhere so long as Rose was in charge.
I can see Rose’s point and his. If anyone was to blame, it was our errant fundraiser whose approach was to promise first and tell us what he had promised if he was successful. He came up trumps with a few hundred thousand to set up the development trust. This would purchase and refurbish new premises that would belong to the Trust and employ new staff. All we had to do was dissolve the Forum and transfer its assets to the Trust.
Rose went ballistic and so battle was on. Our dream team fell apart and everyone took sides. The upshot was 60 people turned up to the AGM and voted for the transfer. Rose and her supporters walked out, took the community pub with them and set up the Forum there as a rival to the Trust.
Reflection – the Role of Finance
I was a nervous wreck. I developed high blood pressure, with me to this day. Most council officers sided with Rose because they saw her as genuine community, even though the Trust had support from other community groups in the area. A few years later the same officers told us we were the best run community organisation in the area!
Looking back I learned a great deal about the importance of relationships in local regeneration. I made a number of mistakes. Today, I have a lot of sympathy for Rose’s position. Even though I still believe she was wrong to hang onto the Forum, I can see why she did. I regret we never had a chance to say goodbye properly.
Rose worked with council officers to buy the community pub premises from the brewery. I heard this story a few years after I moved on but something went wrong and Rose lost control. I understand the pub was sold and some advisors, not council officers, pocketed the proceeds. Whatever happened, that finance never really benefitted local people, it was lost.
The Trust fared better and lasted into the next decade. But eventually the grants ran out and I have no idea what happened to the premises.
This was my first experience of community enterprise not working. During that period there were several similar trusts around the city and many no longer exist. Building assets is hard work. All of them did well while they had grants, they delivered but could not sustain.
Neither I nor Rose nor the fundraiser nor anyone else had skin in the game. In the end we all walked away and left the mess or the assets for someone else to pick up. I’m sure there’s a place for community business but not without a backbone of income generated through trade. Grants work for immediate benefits. They are poor at building a sustainable future and in my experience generate conflict. Since then I’ve seen similar damage done by grants in other places, once you see it, you notice it.
LOCKDOWN POSTSCRIPT
We are entering a recession, at least according to the Chancellor of the Exchequer. What does this mean? Possibly more austerity. In any event, the chances are grants will be harder to come by.
That’s a sweeping statement. There’s always money in circulation and there are already funds available for community and voluntary organisations that have lost their income.
Finance may be available for businesses as the economy revives but there’s no guarantee all businesses will be able to access them, especially self-employed and small businesses.
Vision
Most self-employed have a vision. Maybe it’s a vision of personal freedom but most frequently it’s an idea. They need the time to develop their idea but find they are under pressure to finance their work.
The usual approach is to say this is a business and so you need to put your marketing and sales in place, learn the methods, set time aside to run your business. But what happens if the business is not your work?
If you are successful, pressures mount because you must build and maintain capacity. More time dedicated to the business means less for the work.
Your work is innovation and cannot fail. Your business can fail but your life work continues, at least in principle. The dilemma is one of finance. How do you keep the important work going and at the same time finance it?
My Needs and the World’s
There’s another sense in which your work cannot fail. Post-lockdown, we’re going to be desperate for new ideas. Some old approaches will still work but in a very different financial environment, we’ll need new approaches. The snag is when you embark on building a body of work, you cannot predict what will be financially viable. How many times must your businesses fail before one becomes a success? Success may lie on the far side of several failures and those hard to reach successes may be what the country or even the world needs.
I mention in the story many community businesses and enterprises in the 90s are no longer with us. Some are of course but many groups that were successful 20+ years ago have gone. Maybe the ones that survive learned lessons from their own and others’ failures.
The issue beneath the surface is dependency. The ones that fail are dependent on grants. Dependency is damaging for reasons that may not be obvious. All grants are temporary and that is something all funders make clear. The majority look for new projects and don’t fund more than 1 or 2 rounds. This is a challenge for community businesses in neighbourhoods that lack economic infrastructure, they lack capacity to develop as businesses.
Grant dependency means they do not develop capacity to adapt to change. I’m not denying it’s difficult but the reality is they must adapt or close. It may be possible to bank experience for future projects but mostly individuals take that knowledge away as a part of their own body of work.
The challenge is to access that experience and develop it. In doing so, we don’t know what experiences we need or who has capacity to develop them. The economy is where we work these things out but financial dependency is always in the way.
This is story 6/21. Last Story: Mutuality: The Secret of Victoria Road, Kilnhurst Next Story: Muddling Through!