November 15, 2008 by Voicebox
We want to make sure that what is achieved is continued and (if possible) grown. At least in the places touched by the demonstrators we need to make sure that the skills and enthusiasm for communicating using digital media remains. We will build sustainability in from the beginning.
8 Responses to “Introducing Sustainability”
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Voicebox is the online presence of a bid spear-headed by UK online centres, and others to tender for the Digital Mentor project from Communities and Local Government.
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iT4Communities can assist the organisations working with clients/communities by providing IT professionals as volunteers. These volunteers can help with the technical budgetting, planning, infrastructure and support. During our nearly 6 years of running this UK wide programme we have developed a huge network of partners and volunteers - 5,500+ volunteers work with us and over 2,000 receive our help. We know that having independent, professional and free advice/support can be invaluable to organisations having to ensure a good IT provision for service users and a technically sustainable project.
Anne - thanks for this. Having the right support in place is undoubtably vital for the network of Digital Mentors to be sustainable. Would you like to write a bit more about this subject for the blog? It would be great if so - just email admin@voice-box.org.uk if you fancy it!
EoI Sustainability Text
I have revisited the EoI and extracted the text relating to Sustainability which I have reproduced below. I have split it into 3 component parts, as this might help focus discussion on specific issues.
I will be posting some thoughts on each of these later.
Sustainability: Sustainability should be considered in terms of leaving behind a legacy of skills that can be rolled out to other people (i.e. the creation of new mentors), continuing access to technologies and support and demonstrable national roll-out potential by virtue of a national network.
All demonstrator projects should consider ways of sustaining funding beyond the initial cash-injection and an exit strategy for this contract.
Establishing partnerships with organisations/ people who can mainstream this work is considered very important – for example: local authority adult education departments, housing/ sheltered housing associations, local FE colleges, extended schools, youth services, third sector partners, local strategic partnerships, community associations etc.
I think you would be better considering sustainability in relation to the model of learning, support and inspiration you create, and also the legacy of any online tools and resources that can be used by others seeking to adapt that model.
I suggested a model in previous discussions (unfortunately can’t remember where) that would work towards supporting initial beneficiaries to potentially progress to a point where they become or are able to become professional ‘mentors’. This could be developed towards a potential future business plan providing consultancy by people that have gone through the process themselves.
I don’t think suggesting forever scaling and insisting that partnerships will have responsibility for ensuring future fundraising is very convincing in terms of sustainability. Not to suggest this still shouldn’t be done, just that there are different approaches to what sustainability actually is - in my opinion it would be the creation of a model that is proven to support those who are digitally excluded to embrace technology, and that that model can be adapted and used in ways other than the particular approach to be used in this initial programme.
Mike
Just to be clear - the text above is extracted from the EoI, its not my analysis/plan.
I agree with your comments about relying on other bodies to continue funding government initiatives after the pump-priming funding dries up. This is something that I have been involved in over a long period and feel that some success is possible, but it is always very patchy and localised. In fact some of the organisations mentioned in paragraph 3 have a track record of short-term opportunism in terms of government funded initiatives, only to withdraw from their newly-formed tactical partnerships when the cash dries up.
However we will have to explore that avenue in order to identify the most likely prospective partners for any future sustainability partnerships.
Again I agree with you about sustainability in terms of legacy skills, understanding and knowledge. I have made some suggestions in The Bigger Picture thread, including the idea that we should try to fund individuals not organisations and manage their time and payment through a Digital Mentors TimeBank. This would probably reduce overheads, mean that skills were not lost if an individual left an organisation during the project, provide a mechanism for organic growth, as well as a central entity that might attract sponsorship.
Again I agree with you that a focus on the sustainability of skills, understanding and knowledge that can be adopted & more importantly adapated to emerging situations and opportunities is more important that the sustainability of any particular project. I believe that this kind of approach is almost certain to happen due to the natural selection of meaningful ideas and behaviour as society moves forward. However, there is a good case for helping to record and sustain in the short-term the most useful outcomes from this project to maximise its impact over the longer-term future.
The development of multiple media and push technology should be utilised from day one of the project to share good practice and explore ideas & thoughts about new opportunities that this initiative might provide.
Strategic sustainability activities should commence on day one of the project not near the end of a project. Unfortunately in many national projects that I have worked on the day to day tactical operational work consumes most people’s energy and attention and strategic work is often neglected.
Hi Bruce - that all sounds like good stuff. I really agree with looking towards the use of individuals rather than relying on a few organisations - this would also have the advantage of developing more of a team approach rather than the various politics and wrestling against existing structures and methods that inevitably happens when trying to deliver through other organisations. I used a similar model in running a national youth programme and a very big strength of that was the loyalty that individuals involved had towards the programme - even though in their day to day lives they were all employed/volunteering or involved with other organisations.
In programmes with young people theres now considerable emphasis on the involvement/participation of young people - although actually there was similar emphasis within adult programmes we developed too. Unfortunately the implementation of this was usually a very low consideration and at best tokenistic - if you can get it properly considered from the outset though I think the programme will genuinely be much more sustainable, especially if those newly skilled and motivated people continue to have access to the tools and methods developed.
Hmmm…the golden work package! Whatever happens after the seed funding, it will require cash.
Just some thoughts on a possible strategy:-
>Set-up a high profile “board”
>Develop a “membership” programme
>Construct a nationwide “user panel” for product vendors to test their technologies
>Consider click-through (referral) revenues
>Conferences
In thinking about sustainability we would need to be sure about what kind of a Digital Mentor network we set out to create. A digtial mentor needs to be more than simply a person with the technical skill to use ICT, web2 and multimedia. For all that clever ICT stuff to have meaning to others it needs local and community relevance, and it is linking these two aspects together that I believe makes a digital mentor, someone who can inspire people to want continue to grow thier skills.
By understanding local issues and developments and having an empathy towards them, such mentors can react to local situations as the arrive and use thier skills to show others in a community how emeging ICT technologies can begin to address them. We have had some experience of this as a local community have began to use Second Life technology to put together a large funding bid to redevelop a local landmark. This can be seen here http://jettylaunch.wikispaces.com/