Excitingly, Innovation Exchange’s Green Next Practice Programme was also mentioned at the event! The Office of the Third Sector mentioned the programme as one of its strands of work to support the third sector on climate change and sustainable development.

The Green Next Practice programme will specifically focus on third sector innovations with the potential to green public services by reducing carbon emissions. These projects might:

a) Seek to deliver public services;
b) Work for public services; or
c) Influence public service strategies to harness the potential of their innovations to reduce carbon emissions

We really want to hear from third sector projects who are working to achieve at least one of the above objectives. So, if this is you, then email Raj Cheema and let her know how your work fits into the above. We will then get in touch with details on how to apply to be a part of the programme later on – bear with us

Your hero might be someone leading on the green agenda in the public eye, someone who has done amazing work in this area (especially in the third sector), a business leader who is transforming the way their well-known business deals with green matters, or a celebrity. These are just examples – let us know who your hero is below!

We had a great response to our Call for Ideas and fourteen projects were invited to the event. We are delighted that some of the projects who attended applied for the Innovation Fund and were successful.

There were in excess of 30 submissions to the Innovation Fund and  nine projects were selected. Out of the nine selected, three of the projects had attended our Personalisation and Providers: A Festival of Ideas in Sunderland. We would like to congratulate the following projects:

• Shoot your mouth off
• LifethruFriends
• Citizen Support Exchange

 We would also like to congratulate these projects and thank all the participants who attended the day. We were happy to hear that so many other useful connections and partnerships were made. Please keep us informed about your progress.

Here are my slides from the event:

In her opening, Julia Unwin reflected that the word ‘innovation’ means different things to different people. While in the public sector it has become buzz-word, for charitable foundations, it is somewhat passe. One of the things foundations face is criticism from the sector that they only fund innovation. As a result, we had what felt like a really enjoyable but also a really important conversation about what really matters in innovation and where we can find common greound in helping the very best innovation projects to change the world.

We were delighted with the quality fo the attendees – some of the most respected and significant foundations in the UK – and the quality of their insights and engagements. It leaves us still convinced that brokerage can make significant practical contributions to helping foundaions to search out, select and support innovation projects.  But we are now much clearer about what we need to do to develop this work, as well as very excited about the prospect of building on the new relationships we are developng with foundations.

Last night I attended the launch of Freshwell at the House of Commons. Freshwell is the name that East London Food Access, one of our Next Practice Projects, is using to take its knowledge of food co-operatives across the UK, helping communities to build them for themselves. We are excited about this project and it was great to be at the launch.

As I said last night, I think that the timing is perfect for Freshwell. There is much political excitement about the role of co-operatives and more generally about the potential of ‘citizen power’ and ‘mass localism‘. And food co-ops seem to speak to every element of the Government’s food strategy. But at the same time, helping ideas like this to take root in new communities is a big challenge – so if you can help, or you would like more information, don’t hesitate to get in touch.

Dance United are based in Bradford, an area with the country’s highest re-offending rates for young people. It runs a 12-week intensive dance programme for young offenders and young people at risk of offending. A study by Manchester University found that half of the students who engaged with the programme didn’t re-offend, and of those who did re-offend, the frequency and severity of their offending was reduced. Dance United’s approach has been so successful that it is opening an east London academy later this year. Check out the report to find out more about their work.

Dance United participated in the Exchange’s Next Practice Programme and received a significant amount of funding specifically to monitor it’s fantastic work with young offenders. It’s great to see the results now being showcased in this report. Huge congrats to the Dance United team – this recognition is well deserved – keep it going.

They are are keen to crowdsource ideas of best practice from around the world for a session in mid-March with leaders from the UK, Australia, Canada, USA and New Zealand. The session will look at how the web is being used to transform public services. Key themes include personalisation, co-production and efficiencies. Let them know your top three best practices taking place now and practices that could be the future of public service delivery here.

For more information, check out this blog.

The Bakery brings together local decision-makers, community leaders and creatives with international experts in social innovation to ‘bake’ ideas for improving cities. The model was tested recently in Kaunas, Lithuania, and is due to be run again in Pecs, Hungary, in early March. In between sessions, the Bakery team assembled in London for a lock-down at The Innovation Centre in Central St Martins with a bunch of people keen to help them strengthen their approach.

I was delighted to meet the bakers and catch up with Ted Matthews – one of the programme’s leaders - who first described the Bakery to me whilst pounding the streets of Lisbon following Social Innovation Exchange last year. As he walked me through each step of his ideation process and I shared ours (a lengthy description of Festivals of Ideas from intelligence gathering to follow-up support), we confirmed our status as prize geeks. We also circled the castle 5 times and attended church, all without interrupting the patient recitation of our methodologies.

Some of the questions facing the Urban Bakers remind me of deliberations at Innovation Exchange as we refined our Festivals of Ideas format – how open is too open when it comes to open space? How do you create a structure that opens possibilities and encourages creativity and freedom, but also supports people to come together around an idea, choose priorities and agree action?

The bakers are learning how to do this well in the very particular context of Eastern European urban centres, where the very act of bringing different groups together to solve problems is radical. It was great to hear that participants in Kaunas felt the Bakery had helped them to create an agenda – where there was previously not one – for social innovation.  We wish them the best of luck in Pecs and beyond.