Published inAn Archive of my work whilst at The National Lottery Community Fund·PinnedThe Cover Story for this archiveI’ve just finished three years at The National Lottery Community Fund where I worked from November 2018 until November 2021. …Home5 min readHome5 min read
Jan 30Answering some questions about Imagination Infrastructures.Earlier this week I did a session on Imagination Infrastructures for a few different communities that came together for one event: the Wasan Network, Transition Innovation Group and the Social Innovation Exchange — all of which are global networks. The Wasan Network organises monthly calls to learn with and from…Imagination8 min readImagination8 min read
Jan 7Imagination Infrastructures at Anticipation ConferenceLast November I was one of the speakers at the Anticipation conference — thank you to Keri Facer. If you don’t know it, I’d really recommend it. “A unique, radically interdisciplinary conference for exploring how ideas of the future inform action in the present.” I was doing a talk in…Imagination4 min readImagination4 min read
Jan 6More of and less of in 2023Given I’ve done some mammoth blog posts the last few days, I thought it might be good practice to do a really short one! I was also inspired by all the More of /Less of posts I’ve seen. So here are mine… This is the video that I refer to about Sharleen Spiteri, which just makes me smile whenever I listen to it!20231 min read20231 min read
Jan 4Becoming 2023 – some of the things I’ll be doing this year.My previous blog, where I reflected back on my work in 2022 was so long it became a good reminder of why I should begin writing more regularly again, rather than a huge download at the end of the year. It felt helpful to do that splurge for me, but…Philanthropy17 min readPhilanthropy17 min read
Jan 2My 2022 and what this means for my 2023.Throughout the year people have asked me “How’s JRF going?” or “How’s Power to Change going?” — I’m not sure people have realised the way I’ve been spread out this year. What I’ve loved is being able to work on the same set of things all year, even though they…Philanthropy17 min readPhilanthropy17 min read
Dec 20, 2022Help us to design our new Visionaries programme and fund.A few weeks back we (Jospeh Rowntree Foundation) shared an update about the work we’re continuing to grow and invest in, in relation to collective imagination — creating the capacity in communities of practice, draw on, and shape futures with their collective imaginations. Much of this work is happening on…Philanthropy4 min readPhilanthropy4 min read
Nov 11, 2022Building Power in Communities.The Elephant in the Room. It feels like it’s been quiet in UK funder land in relation to tech. It may just be that I am out of the loop and that there are funding programmes focussed on tech. …Community4 min readCommunity4 min read
Nov 3, 2022Help us continue to grow the field of social and collective imagination“The lack of plural, functional, compelling and active vision(s) in the United Kingdom (actually England, where I currently live) is palpable” wrote Anab Jain in her most recent essay. Even though we’ve been quiet on the ‘imagination’ front, behind the scenes we’ve been plotting a programme of work for exactly…Collective Imagination6 min readCollective Imagination6 min read
Oct 30, 2022What if philanthropy could seed new economic possibilities?This blog is part of the Reimagining Economics Possibilities series. This series accompanies the Neighbourhood Doughnut portfolio of work in which CIVIC SQUARE, along with many neighbours, researchers, partners and visionaries have since 2019 been exploring large and small scale ways to reimagine economic possibilities. The series brings together 15…Philanthropy8 min readPhilanthropy8 min read