We worked with an organisation that supports tenants in social housing that started to work in a different way without discussion with partners. It became more involved in work experience and training activity due to chasing funding. Sometimes this change in dientify is difficult to deal with as partners as one could consider it a ‘mission drift’ that can cause counterproductive competition with partners. This erodes trust and understanding, the consumerisation of the social arena and the commodification of services of the voluntary sector can be disadvantageous to the most vulnerable people we have to support.

Compaid has been around for 30 years, and in all this time has stayed true its founding vision, that disabled people deserve the same life chances and opportunities as non-disabled people, and that technology can help disabled people to overcome the barriers in their way.

When the charity was founded, it was small and focused on the needs of around 100 individuals. That focus did not broaden much for the first 20 years, until a number of external pressures threatened the future survival of the charity's services. When I joined Compaid eight years ago, I brought a broader, external focus, looking at how the skills and experience of our staff and volunteers could be brought to bear to support more vulnerable people in Kent. 

This change has required the charity to become more collaborative and agile, continually exploring improved ways of working so that outcomes can be maximised for those who use our services.

I used to work for an inner city charity which began as a reaction to rising number of homeless people and was set-up and managed by a collaboration between local churches. Through the years, the churches influence became less so, as the charity found identity in it's own right. This was reflected in developing new branding - the charity name, words used to describe, board changes - and therefore fed into the change of practice. Whilst the church was always part of the foundations, the organisation reflected greater the community it served through its new, fresh, responsive programs, that perhaps wouldn't have been an option had it not developed beyond its original identity. This identity also attracted new sources of funding and new sponsors, as some funders are cautious about funding faith-specific groups, and again, this fed the change and helped it grow.

I have worked with an organisation that started out life as part of the Extended Schools programme which involved schools and outside organisations pooling resources to give a comprehensive service to parents and children from pre-school to age 11.

It operated as a hub delivering pre school and nursery classes both in and out of term time, organised trips and events aimed at school children.  Hired rooms to child related groups, educational psychologists and mentors.

Its account were run through a local primary school (a nightmare) and there were close links and influence from the City Council.

The closure of the Extended Schools initiative and associated issues caused the HUb to rethink its position.  It had through its work gained a good reputation and a number of outside support from organisations.

It set its self up as a CIC, removed its financial accounts from the School and widened its brief.  It is now a very successful Community Hub albeit it has to work hard for its funding.  It now permanently houses, a job club, youth group, a carers and runs a fully accredited mentoring scheme for primary children and parents which has been taken up by 17 schools in the area. 65% of its income comes from the buy - in to the mentoring scheme and from external attendees at its course which are accredited for CPD and NVQ qualifications.   It has a wide range of organisations which regularly hire its rooms and provide a service to the local community.  It is a fully functioning Community Hub.

The change has had a huge impact on its relations with organisations throughout the local area, it is now involved in every thread of community life and manages first class relationships with groups and organisation from schools, amateur sport, local scouts groups, local BID, churches and fundraisers.

Such is its reputation that organisations are prepared both to discuss requirements and pay for the service provided. 

The Red Cross has been around for hundreds of years and has obviously changed dramatically over the time to suit the needs of the society in which it exists.  Services have developed and changed as have the organisations that the charity has worked with.  For example the first aid relief in the WWs involved a lot of work alongside the army and the government. However, after the wars, this collaboration wasn't needed so the charity looked to help in other areas of the society.

Week 6 – Activity 8 Changes in identity

Our organisation has developed, expanded and matured over its life.

It now has nine geographical information stations, some of which are resource centres. There is also a residential home for the visually impaired.

Our own centre moved to a town centre location very close to the bus station. This helps to make it more convenient. And this new premises means that people step from the pavement directly into a space that offers expertise, time and willingness.

The range of equipment now on display is really diverse. We can demonstrate how a Perkins Brailler works, which is a mechanical Braille typewriter. Then we can contrast that with a wireless tablet with built-in speech output and magnification software. Each piece of equipment has its place, but the benefits of assistive technology are transformational by orders of magnitude.

We have developed much stronger collaborations with our local and regional community. From working with other charity organisations, to hospitals, as well as the borough council. It is a necessity. Shifting patterns in social mobility, services and welfare, and a growing inter-dependency between those partner agencies, all create changes in identity.

Hi 

I just realised I missed this post as I was going through the course but it's quite opportune as my organisation is going through a restructure due to financial constraints and the number of staff will be reduced so we will need to review our strategy and priorities. It's a good time for reflection on our changing identitiy and its impact on our collaboration with other organisations.

As a merger of 5 infrastructure organisations since 2002, we have grown as an organisation but still maintain the locality approach with offices retained in each of thr main loclaities across the county.  The local authority has rceently completd an external evaluation of  our services and it's interesting to see some of the perceptions.

Recent service expansions have been in the area of young people and social prescribing. A young people's infrastructure organisation mereged with us - as they were no longer viable on their own and we took over a Big Lottery funded programme Talent Match when the lead body went into adminstration.

I think there has been some envy that we have been thriving and some fear that we are repeating a national pattern of some organisations getting larger and smaller ones struggling. We have had criticism from our members that we are competing against them for funding particularly in the area of social prescribing.  We have invested some time into the redesign of our website, social media and promotional material and sometimes the increased image of professionalism can create a preceived barrier for some of the organisations we serve.   As the statutory sector become more aware that they need the VCS with their diminshing resources they are asking us to attend more and more meetings as VCS representatives. There is a line that needs to be drawn between collaborative advantage and the tick boxing of collaboration and the importance of continuing to collaborate and being independent and campaigning on the issues of concern to the sector.  We are so busy being responsive that we have stopped looking at being proactive