“If we all sit down and plan the long term future, I am worried that we will just kill it”

Conversations amongst our partners and us during the COVID19 pandemic. 28th April 2020

This week we talked about the future. We noticed that a range of people are putting forward ideas of what the future needs to look like and we are being asked to be part of conversations about it. We reflected on the tensions, opportunities and problems with the current conversations about the future. These are some of the things we identified.

• We have seen so much creativity from people and communities and now we are seeing some evidence of people with positional power wanting to bring things back into order.
• Everyone wants to be part of the group that is planning the future. The problem is that we might plan the thing we know already.
• Who is part of these conversations about the future? It’s the usual suspects, who run the system as it is. They are now coming back together to work out how to work and run the system in the future. I get asked to be involved because I have been around for a long time, I am male and I am white. My colleague who has been at the forefront of responding to the crisis is not getting asked to be in these conversations. She is young, female and foreign.
• The thing that has been exciting for the last few weeks has been people just getting stuff done, without needing a plan, without needing anyone to be in charge , without anyone to control it. People have just got themselves organised, either as individuals in their streets or organisations across sectors. People have linked up in interesting ways. If we all sit down and plan the long term future, I am worried that we will just kill it all.
• Unless we take active steps, the existing power structures will reassert themselves. The response to the crisis will depend to an extent on the ideas that happen to be lying around. How can we make the most of this?
• How can I be a constructive player in the long term planning so we don’t lose the creative stuff? On the other hand I don’t want to be part of a process that is unintentionally going to ruin it.
• We are seeing and hearing a lot about the “what we should do”. Yet there is less attention on the questions of how it should be done and by whom.
• I know I am the person who is able to galvanise others locally but I am trying desperately not to do this because I know it can kill it. Instead I want to facilitate opportunities for people to come together and see what is possible. People have not been in the same space at all. Being the convenor, how can I make sure that I don’t restrict it and that I give something a chance to grow?
• The old systems will come back again, we have the opportunity to make sure they almost can’t or don’t in the same way. What is the disruption at the moment, that can actually change things for the future? It’s not the what, it is how. How do we connect and collaborate? How do you get people together to collaborate rather than to do x?
• A lot of people are missing in the conversations because they are just dealing with the emergency response. They haven’t got the headspace or capacity. There are around 1000 homeless people in hotels in this city. Who is speaking to them? We need their perspective. How can we use our position to bring in their perspectives?
• There is a big gap between the grassroots and the established voluntary sector and statutory bodies.
• Once we go back to “normal”, I am worried that we go back to lack of trust of communities. How do we make sure that the grassroots voices are part of the conversations? If we trust communities to know what’s right during the biggest crisis we could possibly have, surely we can trust them in other ways moving forward.
• Some of us are not feeling useful. Whether we are focused on keeping our organisations afloat or working for a foundation, when you listen to the on the ground experiences, you can feel a long way from the frontline.
• In our area, we see that big charities and small community groups are doing fine; it’s the medium sized charities that are struggling.

These questions led us to notice these emerging themes

We have been excited to see the power of community life and perhaps now is the opportunity to start the conversation about the future. Not to just focus on the ‘what’, but to really focus on the questions of ‘how?’ and ‘by whom?’

People have shown us that they are capable of so much more than we allow them to do. We see that people make good decisions. Funders have trusted organisations to know how to use the money, frontline staff have autonomy to make decisions and communities have done the right thing. We should expect more from people and stop trying to control it.

Let’s find ways to show how people with lived experience are capable of doing things. For example, John Harris’s Guardian blog shows what people are doing and capable of doing, rather than going for a deficit based approach. It demonstrates great stuff people are doing, not just for themselves but how they are benefiting others and the wider community.

We have seen how Gypsy and Traveller communities are supporting the NHS. We have seen people who have nothing to give, willing to share what they have. We need powerful stories like that. Storytelling is an opportunity to capture what has happened — the good and the challenges.

We need to formulate and get ready to share some key messages about what we have learned and the future that is here right now. The forces against the kind of work we are doing are organising and will be ready to share their key messages when the window of opportunity opens up. We need to do the same. Some strong powerful voices will want to go back to the way things were. We have seen glimpses of the future. How can we grab the opportunities without controlling it?

Some people are feeling the tension between being in the position to galvanise something and trying not to galvanise it because that can kill it. And also knowing that if you rush towards something that you feel is desperately needed, it might squash what is emerging.