cross-posted on WAO blog
Last year, We Are Open Co-op worked directly with 10 charities funded through the Catalyst Discovery program. We’re pleased to announce that we have been accepted to guide another cohort of charities in the Catalyst Definition Programme!
Part of the reason we’re keen to continue this kind of work is because the Catalyst and The National Lottery Community Fund COVID-19 Digital Response fund is run on open principles.
• Read a case study from one of the charities in our last cohort
• See this post on how to make a discovery process more participatory
We are eager to support organisations that work with those communities
that have been disproportionately impacted by COVID-19. We’re excited to assist with the knowledge, skills, and understanding that can make their project a success. We’re also looking forward to giving them the energy and motivation they’ll need to sustain them through any dips in their self-belief.
Key questions
The key questions in this Definition phase are:
• What is the actual problem we are trying to solve?
• Who is really affected by it?
• What are the different ways of solving the problem?
Our work will include prototyping and testing, but also prioritisation, challenging risky assumptions, and iterating towards a solution.
As well as technical support, We Are Open will provide mentoring to help build skills and capability within the cohort. A key challenge here is helping each charity through a user-centred design process to think through their problems and confidently iterating towards a workable solution.
Challenges
This is a particularly challenging time to be carrying out this kind of work and, at the same time, it is more important than ever. As we found with previous Catalyst projects, many charities are much more used to face-to-face interaction with their clients, and so digital skills can be a problem.
We Are Open will support the charities to prioritise their user needs, and prototype and test solutions using, where possible, existing technologies and platforms.
Leadership
Finally, helping cohort members level-up their individual leadership qualities, and helping them understand and reflect on what it means to work using open principles is, again, an individual endeavour. Each person is at a different point in their journey. In order to give each person the best support, we will need a balance between individual support and community support and development.
We’re pleased to get started on this project, as the Catalyst work has been extremely rewarding for We Are Open. We love working for a common good with all sorts of charities and organizations large and small.
Do you have a digital transformation, techie or culture project you need some experts on? Get in touch!