We never present ourselves as experts. We have a particular set of knowledge and experiences which can be useful in certain contexts. So does everyone we work with. We believe that we all learn best when we learn together. 

We get involved in work which focuses on the well-being of individuals and local communities, particularly those most disadvantaged. Wherever possible, we work in a participatory way to support people in communities to respond to their own contexts. We seek to support leaders in communities through specific initiatives and ongoing mentoring.

We use a whole host of tools and methods to do this, drawing on our rich collective knowledge and experience. This includes ‘open source’ facilitation methods known as the Art of Hosting,  which seek to maximise participation and share ownership in decision and sense making processes.

Where necessary, we are very comfortable being experimental and exploratory in our work. This means often we do not know the outcome before the end, in fact, what we think it will be is likely to change along the way! Working in this way leaves us open to new possibilities and allows us to be directed by the context, rather than being rigid and prescriptive.

That said, we recognise that sometimes work does have a set timescale and expected output, such as community research or evaluation of a project. In which case, we are equally adept at working within constraints to deliver a well-planned and executed piece of work, that meets the specific needs within an organisation.

There are four core ways that we commit to pieces of work: 

  • generating our own projects
  • bidding for work out to tender
  • responding to approaches from other organisations
  • partnering with other organisations to jointly deliver work

Visit our case studies for an example of each of these.