Rebecca White

So where next for Your Own Place? 2019-2020 is our year of consolidation. We’ll be six next birthday and whilst the terrible toddler years are over, we’re not grown up yet either.

Being a start-up got us to about five years old. Everyone gets terribly excited and then like good wallpaper, you’re just background and you don’t need any help…

Like any small enterprise we could be gone next week. There would be a small article in the local press and we’d be forgotten. We talk of prevention, but I see little real commitment.

The funding landscape is deeply flawed. There are tiny amounts of short term cash for new ideas, large cash for scaling and long term social investment for the big boys. That leaves very little for us who are meant to be sustainable by now, right?

Wrong. We’re still tiny, committed to quality above all else and know that quick growth would probably kill us off. Short-term cash for crazy outputs and new ideas doesn’t help us to become sustainable. It just distracts us from what we should be doing.

And that’s measuring what we do well, understanding our impact, financial modelling and bringing about real systemic change. I don’t work this hard to nibble round the edges and ‘do what we’ve always done’.

And so, whilst growth and the ‘new’ excites me, there will be one final step before this happens. And that’s why this year is our consolidation year. We’ll be getting under the skin of our impact, ensuring fidelity of the model and outcomes and getting the right people on the bus in the right seats.

Who’s in?

This week a breather from mentoring. Mostly because I need to reflect on its ups and downs.

We recently welcomed Hannah to our team. Hannah’s role is an invaluable one. She our shiny new administrator. Just two days a week and I can feel the difference already. In a tiny organisation you can’t afford a full-time CEO let alone a range of vital back-office functions.

I have fought shy of taking these steps for financial as well as control reasons. Over the years I’ve endeavoured to systematise and batch tasks as far as possible. But ultimately, just as having the right team is vital, so is having the right people doing the right jobs.

The right people on the bus and in the right seats makes us all more productive. I knew this in the abstract and am now starting to feel it too!

And she’s another talented artist!

#AddedValue

Sam’s progress and determination astonishes me. How can someone released after 26 unspeakable years in prison to a town he doesn’t know, with very few prospects, possibly be as resilient and determined as he is? I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t be.

Since speaking to him a week ago he’s been for housing advice, he has a housing assessment lined up (please cross your fingers for him) and is pretty certain he’ll be on Skype this next time next week.

Unsurprisingly he’s finding housing pretty hard to navigate and doesn’t understand why the local council doesn’t manage its own housing. And why it’s all online. And why a local connection matters. And why, most importantly for him right now, he can’t go through all this in a part of the country that he actually wants to put down roots in.

It all comes back to housing. Whilst he’s exploring setting up his own business, he needs a permanent address to feel settled. And yet he can’t get one anywhere near where he actually wants without a real income.

I know he’s committed a serious offence. And I know we have systems and processes that are supposed to manage resources fairly, but we also can’t expect to rehabilitate people without the proper support.

In the coming week I’ll be posting some requests from Sam about things he’d like to find out about in relation to starting his removals business and relocating.