How to change your business to survive

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How to change your business to survive

• Tricia Hartley, Joint Chief Executive
• Suzi Jones, Family Learning Development Officer
• Campaign for Learning

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Rearrange these words into a well-known phrase
or saying

• Grandmother
• Eggs
• Teaching

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What is the Campaign for Learning?

• National charity in England
• Set up 1996 by Royal Society of Arts to promote
  Lifelong Learning in response
• to Kennedy Report
• Charitable Objects The advancement of education
  by encouraging the active participation of
  individuals in all sections of society in the
  process of lifelong learning, and
  thereby facilitating the
  sustainable success and
  social cohesion of the United Kingdom

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(No Transcript)
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Main areas of work
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Main activities

• National Awareness Campaigns
• Support for practitioners
• Projects
• Research
• Publications
• Policy work

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Issues to address

• Two years ago
• Second successive 50 cut in funding from major
  funding body end of substantial EU project
  funding crisis!
• Top-heavy management structure
• Low profile of organisation externally
• Poor financial management information
• Patchy quality assurance systems

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1 Funding action plan

• Clear focus on meeting LSC needs
  relationship-building, including identifying new
  contacts in other parts of LSC
• Diversification of funding LSC funding from 50
  to 30 of budget over 2 years
• Enhanced awareness of opportunities everybodys
  business to spot them!
• Greatly increased bidding rate for
  external funding pots
• Increasing earned income

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1 Funding issues implications

• Change in emphasis from campaigns to projects
  implications for staff skills, tracking,
  financial systems, quality procedures
• Enforcing good enough approaches awareness of
  time/ funding equation
• Being proactive seeing whats needed
• Danger of just pursuing money!
• NB effects of reorganisation, delays etc
  implications for cashflow

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2 Staffing structure action plan

• 1 Honesty with staff, caution externally
• 2 Reduce senior team costs develop extended
  second-tier management team
• 3 Core staffing base specialist associates
• 4 Business-focused teams
• 5 Enhanced ideas skills sharing
• 6 Succession planning

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2 Staffing structure issues implications

• Strong contributions from staff
• Developing people being a learning
  organisation
• Patterns of staff morale
• Skills gaps how to fill
• Extra people mouths to feed or income
  generators?
• Cutting the mustard with too few people - danger
  of long hours culture overload

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3 Low external profile action plan

• Being there meetings, conferences,
  presentations, events, articles
• Partnerships, relationships, influence joint
  approaches, shared resources, projects, campaigns
  honest feedback
• Building relationships building on strengths
  but avoiding exclusivity
• Working outside comfort zone, taking
  risks

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3 Low external profile issues implications

• Hours in the day!
• Exerting influence in non-traditional ways
• Charging policies
• Reduced regional contacts
• Branding intellectual property issues
• Keeping things going smoothly back at base

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4 Internal systems action plan

• Clearer, more frequent financial reporting
• Simpler, shorter, focused Business Plan format
  with contributions from all teams
• New, more positive appraisal system with skill
  sharing information
• New PT member of staff with cross-cutting quality
  remit to drive agenda
• Volunteers taking responsibility
• - eg for IiP, Health Safety

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4 Internal systems issues implications

• Prioritising keeping the plates
  spinning
• Ensuring systems fit for purpose for
  organisation now
• Developing more consistent approaches across
  teams, offices, business areas, projects
• Greater staff involvement accountability at all
  levels

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What makes partnership work?

Managing for performance
Learning
Trust
Leadership
Based on a model by the Local Government National
Training Organisation LGNTO
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Partnership network chain
National partnership
National Family Learning Network 8000 members
Family Fusion Project Building local voluntary
community networks
European Family Learning Network 15 partner
countries
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Family Fusion
  
Let me introduce you to Family
Fusion Funded through the Esmee Fairbairn
Foundation Background Mapping exercise of local
and regional family learning networks LSC
commissioned project, 2004 Consultation with
Family Learning practitioners
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The Family Fusion aims

• Working directly with VCS organisations
• Supporting the development, design and delivery
  of innovative and responsive family learning
  opportunities for people living in disadvantaged
  areas.
• Developing further VCS family learning provision
  across all of the 47 regional family learning
  networks.
• Increasing and develop further VCS involvement
  in the National Family Learning Network and
  National Family Learning Week.

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The Family Fusion partners
10 organisations from Brouhaha International,
Rural Needs Initiative, Birmingham Womens Aid to
Berwick Borough Family Centre and Body Action
Campaign
5 Regions North West, North East, West Midlands,
South West and London
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The Impact

• The Families
• Over 2000 families have engaged in new family
  learning programmes
• New steps into learning
• The organisations
• Successful funding applications - increasing
  the capacity to deliver sustainable programme
• Increase in organisational confidence to deliver
  family learning programme
• Strong sustainable partnerships

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Family Fusion Support

• Support includes
• Regular Family Fusion e updates
• Family Fusion support pack
• Online Funding Cookbook
• Quarterly NFLN e newsletter
• Family Fusion advocacy programme
• Family Fusion online! www.familylearningnetwork.c
  om
• Latest information about national and regional
  CfL and NFLN conference

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The Impact A case study

Rural Needs Initiative - Wiltshire
All About Me project

• The outcomes include
• More positive relationships between parent and
  child
• Raising awareness of the environment and caring
  for it
• Improved early literacy and language development

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Our Networks
Free to join with a wealth of benefits!

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Tenth anniversary year - challenges

• Funding - as ever
• Balancing service provision income generation
• Ensuring systems are fit for purpose
• Profile continuing to punch above our weight
• Joining up agendas
• Partnership work
• Practising what we preach!

People who stop learning stop living. The same
is also true of organisations. Charles Handy
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Keep in touch with us

• www.campaignforlearning.org.uk
• www.familylearningnetwork.com
• www.workplacelearningnetwork.com