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Immersion VisitDate: 22nd June 11:30 to 13:00Contact person on the day: Kimberley Dawe, Operations Director Mob: +44 (0) 7764 969 79115 minutesAbout me, Trevor Barton, Systems & SupportAbout OCVA (1933, contracted lead: development, contracts, communications, volunteer centre, business: training, products inc. research)“How can you increase civic engagement in your city?”With more people than ever before residing in cities, our urban areas are under pressure when it comes to issues such as the environment, food security, community cohesion, housing and security. With over 75% of the world’s population expected to be living in cities by 2050, governments, whether at local or national level, can’t solve these issues singlehandedly. Your own lit: Environment, food security, cohesion, housing, security. Pinch points.Oxford is a small city by UK standards. It’s never been very industrial and probably never will be, with the exception of the Mini car factory. It’s also one of the wealthiest cities. Yet because so much land is owned by University colleges or the Crown Estate, or because target sites for growth are disputed between arms of local government, or the cost of land is so high and the need for affordable housing so extreme, Oxford has stayed relatively static in size whilst other cities have doubled in size in terms of retail space, housing, or both in the last 20 years. Oxford is a city of wide contrasts:1 in 5 Oxford children live in povertyOver 50% of neighbourhoods are in the worst 30% for access to services15 neighbourhoods are in the 20% most deprived in EnglandOxford is the least affordable place to live in England with rental costs double the average, and 7,000 live in unsuitable housing and 600 are homeless So the pinch points, especially in terms of housing and social cohesion are very real in our city.Civic engagement is a problem. Nobody really knows why, but through our work we cite the following as some reasons – and these are probably universals in western culture:People of working age, especially young families, are too busy. It’s not a new thing that both adults in a household will be working.Since the 2008 global recession ‘zero hours contracts’, a growth in ‘sole traders’, apprenticeships, education for reskilling, and more have created a “precariat” – people precariously employed which hides the real shift in income and belies the unemployment figures. The precariat and younger professionals fully employed do not have as much capacity to think outwardly to the needs of wider society: this is in stark contrast to the 1950’s when the social norm was for one adult per household to be workingOur elderly are often caring for children or other dependents whilst other family members work; so they are also busyThe millennial generation have a completely different way of looking at community, social interaction, and self-organisation because we’re going through an industrial revolution (will come back to this)For example there’s a complete disconnect between, say, people in their 50’s wanting to engage young volunteers to help out at community halls and how those young adults might want to engage: a fundamental lack of understanding because the world has changed so much since those 50 year olds were in their late teens. 50 year olds might be thinking ‘all hands on deck with cups of tea’ whilst 20 year olds (tell me if I’m wrong) might be thinking ‘do some crowdfunding’ or even ‘why bother? I’ll never use that building’ or ‘this building won’t give me job security or a pension or an affordable home like you might have as a 50 year old’Minor point: English people no-longer coalesce through social time together at the local church or pub. When they do it’s seen more as tradition than a natural part of the weekBook recommendation: Utopia for Realists: The case for a universal basic income, open borders, and a 15-hour workweek. By Rutger Bregman"We're saddled with a welfare state from a bygone era when the breadwinners were still mostly men and people spent their whole lives working at the same company. The pension system and employment protection rules are still keyed to those fortunate enough to have a steady job, public assistance is rooted in the misconception that we can rely on the economy to generate enough jobs, and welfare benefits are often not a trampoline, but a trap. Never before has the time been so ripe for the introduction of a universal, unconditional basic income.""Mental illness, obesity, pollution, crime - in terms of the GDP, the more the better. That's also why the country with the planet's highest per capita GDP, the United States, also leads in social problems. "By the standard of the GDP, " says the writer Jonathan Rowe, "the worst families in America are those that actually function as families - that cook their own meals, take walks after dinner and talk together instead of just farming the kids out to the commercial culture"""...a British think tank calculated that for every pound earned by advertising executives, they destroy an equivalent of ?7 in the form of stress, overconsumption, pollution, and debt; conversely, each pound paid to a trash collector creates an equivalent of ?12 in terms of health and sustainability. Whereas public sector services often bring a plethora of hidden benefits, the private sector is riddled with hidden costs"Bregman argues that a universal basic income would resolve the problems we have with civic participation, as well as many other pinch points, and could be paid for through redistribution of welfare spendingSo it is hard to engage anyone in civic issues who isn’t already engaged, and some of Oxford’s biggest civic issues are as big and real here as they might be in a poorer European country. But personally I think the existing social issues will pale in significance to deeper ones within the next 50 years.Even the Syrian crisis was in part due to failing crops and famine. It was linked in part to climate change. I was lucky enough to work with Oxford City Council and a panel of charity sector representatives on a local response to the refugee resettlement programme. We all wanted to get our new systems right, because we all knew that this first response was “practicing” something we will all have to get better at in future. The refugee issue will get bigger as climate migration becomes larger. Even this one social effect of climate change is enough to see that any existing challenges – be they housing, deprivation, community cohesion, food security or something else will all be dragged down as more pressure is put on the system. This isn’t an argument for preventing against refugees coming to the UK. It’s one illustration of how big shifts are taking place, we are starting to see them, and why (in my humble view) just looking at the challenges as they are today is not enough.It takes years for charities or local government initiatives to take effect. By the time we have responded to today’s crises, we will find that our efforts have not even enabled us to “stand still” but step further backwards.I think we are too afraid to look at this problem, because it tells us that not only do we have to fix things which seem impossible today, but we have to re-think our responses entirely. And that’s too hard, because charities and public bodies don’t have enough funds to tackle today’s issues let alone plan ahead.Why are today’s social changes bigger than those of any previous generation in modern times? Climate changeThe start of a third industrial revolution or a second machine ageThe end of the fossil fuel ageOCVA is a case in point. We have 8 staff. If you total our hours, 4.5 FTE. What can we possibly do as “thought leaders”, as leaders of our local charity sector?Has anyone seen Simon Sinek’s talk on TED? The one called ‘How great leaders inspire action’? golden circle. Everyone knows what they do – 100%, and some know how they do it, but few know why. Not profit, profit is a result. Why is purpose: why does our organisation exist. Why should anyone care? Why is at the core. It’s the first step. People don’t buy what you do, they buy into why you do it. Why? Biology. Because the core of our brain is emotional. Rationality and language, the more evolved part of our brain, deals with the ‘what’, but does not deal with motivation. Sinek says you have to put “why” at the core of your organisation in order for it to thrive. Our mission and values are under revision. They no longer make much sense. We’re still perfecting our message!I want to look at just one work area in relation to what OCVA’s response might be to these existing challenges, how they will get harder very quickly in the near future, and how to approach civic responses. It’s one of my own work areas, and it’s called data for good. Data for Good is a concept for a web app. It’s extremely ambitious. The stated aims are as follows. See website.Our existing data has problemsWe have a breadth issue. 85% sector coverage. Profile records held about organisations. Built over 10 years of electronic record keeping, and 75 years of paper record keeping before that – including details of groups when they become disbanded. How do we reach the 25% of groups who don’t know about us? We have no marketing budget.Our existing data has a depth issue:Most of the records we hold are only 10 to 20% complete. There’s no legal requirement for voluntary, community or charity groups to register their details with us, or keep them up to date, and so even when we ask or phone, the details are not forthcoming.Our existing data has a permission issue:Because of data protection law in Europe, and because we want to adhere to it, we don’t have the right to share as many parts of our database with the world as we would like. A lot of smaller community groups are run from people’s homes, and you can’t publish information without permission where an individual is identifiable from that data.So even if we do have a web app which combines our data with other open data sets from UK government about needs in different areas, or from 360Giving – the initiative for philanthropists to publish open data about where funds have been allocated in the past, our layer of data has holes. How can groups have a clear picture about existing provision in a given part of the city if someone may well be providing something, but just haven’t told us?How can groups have a clear picture when other groups haven’t updated their details with us for 10 years?How can funders really see what’s going on when the data is incomplete?How can we incentivise people to share more information about what they are working on, when they don’t know what open data is or how powerful it can be, or when they can’t see direct benefit to themselves?How can we get people to trust an initiative that is partly local government funded, and which will feed in to local government strategy?I was lucky enough to discuss these points with Greg Bloom from Code for America, and a few others including someone from NCVO – our national council for voluntary organisations.Greg said he didn’t know the answer, but wondered if it had something to do with “making everyone a publisher”People use the tool, and correct things on it as they goBut he also said that so far he has not succeeded in building an application which encourages high levels of take-up for this to work.Finally, does “better data” answer Simon Sinek’s “why” question, and result in better civic engagement, or better public and charity sector responses? Better philanthropy? With an ageing workforce, how will OCVA engage more young people in its own work in the future?Q and A.3839845137795Trevor BartonSystems & Support ManagerOCVAThe Old CourthouseFloyds’ RowOxfordOX1 1SS, United KingdomE: trevor.barton@.ukSkype: zeneverything0Trevor BartonSystems & Support ManagerOCVAThe Old CourthouseFloyds’ RowOxfordOX1 1SS, United KingdomE: trevor.barton@.ukSkype: zeneverything67945248920Anisha PadheeProject Director Common Purpose1st Floor No. 9 Hayes RoadRichmond TownBangalore 560025 M: +91 9900806587E: anisha.padhee@Skype: cpin-anishapTwitter: @anishapadhee, @cpstudent0Anisha PadheeProject Director Common Purpose1st Floor No. 9 Hayes RoadRichmond TownBangalore 560025 M: +91 9900806587E: anisha.padhee@Skype: cpin-anishapTwitter: @anishapadhee, @cpstudent ................
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