BD Collective strengthens Barking and Dagenham’s VCFSE sector so it’s better connected, better resourced and better able to help local people and organisations thrive.
This is the mission statement on our website, and we’ve developed a strategy to make it happen. It’s built around three principles: Connect, Collaborate, and Change. This blog explains why we’ve chosen this approach, and what our mission statement really means.
The most important part of our strategy is that everything has come from members. We’ve been speaking to people who work in Barking & Dagenham’s VCFSE sector, asking them what challenges they face and what they feel would help them. Our sector is small compared to other Northeast London boroughs, but that isn’t the whole picture. Most VCFSE organisations here were started by residents who saw a problem faced by their community and wanted to do something about it. That means that our sector is largely led by residents, working within their community to solve a mutual problem. This is a strength.
This is what we’ve built our strategy around – listening to what the people who work closely within their communities tell us. There’s an increasing recognition that communities know better than anyone what’s best for them, and that it doesn’t just take a village to raise a child – that same village catches the more vulnerable members when they fall, provides the social connections that help us get through the tough times together, and collectively overcomes challenges.
A connected sector is a stronger sector
Barking & Dagenham is, in many ways, a collection of villages – close communities who look out for each other, support their neighbours, and help their friends. With the Connect principle, we want to find ways to work as one village. This won’t come from passively waiting to be told what’s going to happen. It’ll come from strengthening our collective voice. That’s the best way to be heard. As a sector, we serve the community. We can act like a community for each other – supporting our more vulnerable members, sharing what we know for the benefit of everyone, modeling the transparency and empathy we’d like to see in the world around us. A connected sector is a stronger sector.
Collaboration for impact
The purpose of building and strengthening our connections is to make it easier for us to Collaborate. We can share skills, resources, and knowledge, raising everyone up. One of the challenges we face is that our sector is seen as scattered, divided, and fractured. We don’t think this accurately reflects us, and we want to challenge this misconception. The best way to do that is by working together to achieve a greater collective impact. We’re more attractive to funders, and we’ll have more capacity by sharing our collective load. We’ll be ready and able to turn around large consortium bids and tenders, because we’ll have built the connections we need. We’ll shout about those successes, loud enough that we can be heard across and outside the borough. A culture of collaboration means that we can make a bigger difference together.
United for real change
Then, we want to Change things for the better. This means looking at the relationships we have with funders, with the Council, and with each other. If we’re standing shoulder to shoulder, we’ll have the collective power to say what these relationships should be and challenge where we need to. We’ll be able to make sure that when we’re included, it’s so that we can have a real impact on decisions that affect us all. We won’t show up in rooms where we’re there as an afterthought, or as a box-ticking exercise. We’ll have the collective strength and resources to help struggling organisations, working together to make sure that we don’t just survive, but thrive. We’ll be ready for future challenges as a connected, collaborative sector that models the change we want to see in the world around us. If we’re united as a sector, we can make a real change.
Our strategy is a living thing that will evolve and adapt, as the world around us changes and our needs develop. It’s designed to reflect what the VCFSE community’s challenges are, and to respond to those challenges through the strong bonds we build through our shared values, facing problems collectively. Nothing is written in stone. We want to hear what people have to say about our strategy, and we’ll listen. We’ll be holding a members event very soon to give everyone that opportunity.
Ultimately, our shared vision is what matters – a vision that’s built from the organisations and people that live and work in our community.
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