Organisational Raids in London

What Was the Stimulus?

Many examples of good practice exist among voluntary and community groups all across London, but too often they are unknown to each other.

Reading about good practice is never the same as seeing it in action.

The London Regeneration Network (LRN) has arranged 'Organisational Raids' as part of its 'Sharing Good Practice' programme. These raids are intended to provide opportunities for member organisations to learn from one another.

The Raids were funded by the Single Regeneration Budget through the Pan-London Community Regeneration Consortium, the Peabody Community Fund and the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation. Most of the organisations who hosted the raids also gave their time for free. The purpose of the LRN is to provide a forum for community and voluntary bodies involved in regeneration, carry out research and influence policy.

How Was The Need Tackled?

The word 'raids' highlights the active nature of the approach, helping people work out how they can improve by finding out directly about relevant good practice in other, more experienced organisations. The method combines action learning and benchmarking techniques to create an experience which is intended to be very practical, intensive and fun.

LRN brings together six to eight people from organisations who want to find out more about a particular area of good practice. A pre-meeting allows all participants to meet someone from the host organisation and plan the agenda for the Raid. Raiders are encouraged to think about what they want to learn, and how they will transfer the learning to their own workplace. For the Raid itself, raiders spend the day with the host organisation, learning about the good practice in question. The agenda is as agreed at the pre-meeting, while the last hour or so involves practical planning for how the raiders can make best use of what they have learned. A follow-up telephone evaluation three months later is used to assess what raiders have learned and how well they have been able to incorporate it into their organisation's practices. Topics for Raids have included regenerating community space and community farms.

One example involved 15 LRN members to the St. Peter's North Community Project in Tower Hamlets to learn the methods that are being used to regenerate the area from the bottom up with support from Peabody Trust, City Parochial Foundation and the LB Tower Hamlets.

Participants have been self-selecting, replying to adverts for the raids through LRN mailings to its 450 members.

What Were the Outcomes?

LRN believe that organisational raids are a more effective means of disseminating and replicating good practice than traditional methods (such as publications and seminars which can be costly and remote). They are confident that the raids have helped inspire new and different thinking, and build confidence amongst participants. "Organisational raids" as a title seems a good marketing device, having greater immediacy and a better ring to it than "study visits".

An evaluation of four of the raids was carried out. This found that participants:

• benefited from meeting other people from similar organisations and in similar situations, and sharing their experiences. Three said that the raid gave them confidence that they were already working towards good practice themselves
  
  
• were able to make changes in their organisational practice based on their experience of the raid.

All the participants found the 'active' learning nature of the event was useful and they found their experience enjoyable and productive.

LRN also used the interviews to ask participants which other organisational development activities would be useful for them in future. The most common responses to this question were the following: one-to-one coaching, organisational mentoring and twinning, contacts to provide telephone advice and action learning sets. LRN intends to run more raids and to develop these ideas - notably mentoring - with the help of further grant funding.

What Was Learnt?

The raids have worked well when:

• participants have similar or related objectives for the meeting
  
  
• two to three months notice is given for the date
  
  
• the event has been well-publicised, highlighting features likely to be of interest
  
  
• the venue is 'attractive' (in the sense that people actively want to visit there) and accessible (One raid was at a venue that was quite difficult to reach without a car and this may have limited attendance).
  
  
• the meeting is facilitated so that discussion can be focused on the agreed objectives

LRN have been disappointed by the level of attendance at some of the pre-meetings. It seems that a good number of participants have been unable or unwilling to spare the time for such preparation. In future, LRN feel it necessary to engage people in discussing what they would want out of a raid when they phone up to enquire. This places a premium of the telephone skills of the person taking the bookings: they need to be able to provide relevant detail about the subject of the raid, explore what the caller is interested in, and establish what specifically they might hope to gain from the visit. This information can then be used to shape further the objectives and programme for the raid.

Contact

Michelle Curtis
London Regeneration Network
356 Holloway Road
London N7 6PA

tel: 020 7700 8119
fax: 020 7700 8108
e-mail: lrn@lvsc.org.uk
www.lvsc.org.uk/lrf/index.htm

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