Mass localism

Mass localism or Community led innovation is a distinctive approach

• Communities operate at an intermediate scale between the individual and corporate organisations

• Community led innovation provides for locally tailored and owned initiatives

• Communities can spot opportunities to tackle issues that big and distant corporate organisations cannot

• Community led innovation can engage at a very personal level in a way that big corporations cannot – word of mouth and personal networks rather than formal or direct marketing

Word of mouth

Sense of ownership

Personal networks

Behaviour change

A mass localism approach is pivotal to creating an ‘early action state’

Enabling services

EARLY ACTION

Those who experience a problem are best placed to find a solution

community – led innovation

LATE ACTION

Reactive: expensive state intervention – police, social services, health services

CHEAPER

Costlier

£

Emerging issues and problems are often spotted much more quickly by friends, neighbours and frontline staff

Problem/ issue / personal need remains

unaddressed and is allowed to grow until it reaches a critical point

requiring state intervention

Cliff edge

Timeline of Emerging issue / problem

COMMUNITY LED INNOVATION – NESTA’S BIG GREEN CHALLENGE

Approach taken by NESTA involves four stages

Click image to see their report

Based on NESTA’s Big Green Challenge

Communities find out about and are empowered to participate in the

prize process

Competitors put forward their initial ideas

Successful competitors prepare and submit

detailed plans

Finalist projects delivered

Stage 0: create a ‘buzz’

Stage 1: Ideas stage

Stage 2: from ideas to detailed plans

Stage 3: Delivering projects and measuring outcomes

Early engagement: create a campaign, a brand and a ‘buzz’ within the communities you want to engage, to encourage as many as possible to compete

NESTA’s Big Green Challenge

Competitors put forward their initial ideas

Successful competitors prepare and submit

detailed plans

Finalist projects delivered

Stage 0: create a ‘buzz’

Stage 1: Ideas stage

Stage 2: from ideas to detailed plans

Stage 3: Delivering projects and measuring outcomes

Communities find out about and are empowered to participate in the

prize process

Show genuine interest in good, innovative ideas with potential from a wide-range of groups, not fully-fledged plans or projects. Keep barriers to entry low, with only very limited eligibility criteria. Ensure process for submitting ideas is simple and accessible.

NESTA’s Big Green Challenge

Successful competitors prepare and submit

detailed plans

Finalist projects delivered

Stage 0: create a ‘buzz’

Stage 1: Ideas stage

Stage 2: from ideas to detailed plans

Stage 3: Delivering projects and measuring outcomes

Communities find out about and are empowered to participate in the

prize process

Competitors put forward their initial ideas

Ensure focus on developing projects that will achieve the measurable outcome. Provide support and advice through workshops and 1:1 advice. Allow sufficient time for competitors to take up the support and submit their plans

NESTA’s Big Green Challenge

Finalist projects delivered

Stage 0: create a ‘buzz’

Stage 1: Ideas stage

Stage 2: from ideas to detailed plans

Stage 3: Delivering projects and measuring outcomes

Communities find out about and are empowered to participate in the

prize process

Competitors put forward their initial ideas

Successful competitors prepare and submit

detailed plans. Face to face pitch to Judges

Provide finalists with ongoing support (1:1 advice /coaching) plus a grant to deliver their projects). Get projects up and running, and keep them focused on outcomes through monitoring, visits, and regular reporting. Use evidence from Stage 3 to form a detailed final report, also covering what finalists would do if they won the money, and use this as the basis of winner selection.

A presentation by Gavin Barker, Compass Training used as part of a prototype Crowdsource map

Click image to see crowdsource website

See my website

Compass Training