Multiplying the good of nothing
It all started as an experiment just over three years ago. In the last 18 months the movement has begun to accelerate with the community now over 3,000 strong. Our ‘gigs’ – events which put social entrepreneurs with a business challenge together with a teams of commercial, creative professionals – have helped over 50 innovators in 20 cities across the UK and beyond.
For example, a recent pub gig in London helped Wormwood Scrubs Community Chaplain Mentoring Scheme, a charity struggling to find a new name for itself rebrand in just an evening – the result: Inside Out. Another weekend gig gave social enterprise Do Nation new web applications, digital products, communications assets and a brand make-over – in just 48 hours. It also helped them secure their first commercial customers as a result of connections made during the gig.
However, in order to grow, we know we can’t do everything ourselves – and we don’t want to. To multiply the impact, our goal is to pass on our learning and experience to others. For us, the way we do things is just as important as what we do.
Good for Nothing operates through a network of ‘chapter leaders’ – teams of 2-3 people who want to make it happen where they live. So far 15 Good for Nothing chapters have been set up in the UK with small amounts of UnLtd Spark Try It funding. Our learning from setting these up will be fed back to help them develop the social enterprise support projects of the future. With help from innovation charity NESTA, we’ve also developed the web platform, toolkits and put on Camp Nothing which trained 50 would-be chapter leaders, getting them to experience first hand how to get results.
Our approach is hard to define – people often only get it when they see it working. We’re not prescriptive in how a particular person’s challenge is tackled or how groups help each other – but that’s not to say we have an ‘anything goes’ approach. We have a proven set of practises based on self-organisation, collaboration and experimentation– a way of working that gets the most out of people gathered for the event. So what goes in the mix?
Firstly, we’ve learnt that to tackle a challenge everyone needs to know – very clearly – what that challenge is. This means that we work with the entrepreneur to nail down a brief that lays out what they need and the scale of the task in hand. This helps everyone who’s assembled to really understand what they’re all there to do.
We’ve also learnt that a demanding common task builds community. Central to this is making the challenge time-bound – normally over an evening, day or weekend. People will pull out the stops if they’re set against the clock. Achieving a lot in a small space of time gives people the confidence and motivation to continue – they often reflect afterwards that if they can do so much, so quickly – then the sky’s the limit.
Importantly, everyone who takes part in of our gigs comes willing to get stuck in. Good for Nothing gigs aren’t for nay-sayers or egos. Most folks who turn up come with a ‘can-do’ attitude – often motivated by one of the causes. It’s amazing to see what happens when a group of strangers who all want the same thing come together and drive forward in the same direction.
Next, we have a pretty intense focus on doing – not just talking. We encourage people to create very tangible outputs through rapid prototyping. This helps everyone focus on delivering a specific outcome for the entrepreneur and directs energy into creating things they really need.
Lastly, when we say ‘go with the flow’ – we really mean it. We all have good days and bad days. Our way of creating the spirit of true genuine collaboration and experimentation is to provide an enabling environment where people feel they want to contribute new ideas. If people are new to things, then that’s fine – the learning comes from doing.
It’s been genuinely inspiring to see what non-obvious solutions to problems come about once you create the conditions for creative collaboration – unlocking energy and setting people free to explore and develop new solutions in a supportive, encouraging space.
Head to www.goodfornothing.com to get involved!
Good for Nothing and Unltd
UnLtd’s Spark Awards run in conjunction with Santander has so far enabled 15 Good for Nothing chapters to be set up with £500 each of ‘Try It’ funding. The Awards scheme also offers a ‘Do It’ Award of £5k to help experienced social entrepreneurs develop their support model ideas. More information about UnLtd’s Spark scheme can be found here, www.unltd.org.uk/spark