Global Gathering 2019 - Day 5 - Global impact fundraising and theory of change

What is the purpose of this session?

  • sharing on first data gathered
  • validation of complete dashboard and agreement on a process to fill it every quarter / year (link to discussion on integration with BI tool) + on lead to follow the process + link with global hangout (recurring item every quarter to review global performance ?)
  • form to send to users every year with both “improvements” and questions about them to measure our promised impact ? (with which tool ? google form ? Survey monkey ? …) When to send it ? (ex: New year)
  • first draft of the global narrative / global fundraising document, how we explain our vision, the problems we identify, the solution we build, the impact we expect, etc.
  • first list of Foundations

Link to Trello card

What outcomes/deliverables do we want?

Who is facilitating? Lynne

Who is scribing? Gen

Summary of decisions:

  • Develop fundraising strategy

Actions:

  • Nick to set up zoom to review and action the list below at ‘2. Brainstorming session on tools for funding applications’

Detailed notes:

Lynne’s proposed agenda:

  1. Begin with Theory of Change format
  2. Brainstorming session on tools for funding applications - decks, stats, etc.
  3. To do list on this basis

1. Begin with Theory of Change format

Starting from the bottom - problem, inputs, activities
Then vision/aims
Finally mechanisms of change - how to get there

  • Vision/aims:
    • Mycelium - decentralized, networked distribution (disagreement on whether this is purely a mechanism of realizing the vision, or part of the vision itself)
    • Food sovereignty and tech sorereignty - common ownership, a rich commons
    • Community empowerment - people empowered to create food systems they believe in
    • Viable farming systems - farmers who can do good for the world and not be in poverty
    • Nobody manipulated by the system - access to the truth about food
    • A healthy planet
    • Vibrant local economies
    • Autonomy and freedom in work, self-determination
    • A world where it’s easy for people to change the system
      ------accountability line-------
  • Mechanisms of change:
    • Empowered community food enterprise
    • Pollination - dissemination of these models
    • A living example of an alternative way of organizing and working
    • Harvesting/gathering knowledge and practice - sharing and making this accessible
    • Narrative+evidence+inspiration building - being able to share the vision
    • Connecting across sectors, organizations
    • Curating information for education
    • Enabling efficient uptake of diverse models through software
    • Co-construction and co-funding of tools and knowledge
    • Connecting food sovereignty to technology sovereignty - demonstrating that technology is political
    • Building interoperable tools
    • Ego journey, personal growth - channeling collective spirit
    • Continuous improvement around learning how to learn - connecting across silos
    • Building a commons
    • Process of software development - applying agile software development to everything we do
  • Activities:
    • Software development
    • Product development
    • Community development - collective communication, ongoing process development
    • Training
    • Consultancy - problem-solving
    • Research - sector research, R&D, student links
    • Networking - connecting people
    • Facilitating learning community, learning exchange - online and offline
    • Developing and experimenting with social economy business models
    • Fundraising
  • Input:
    • Time, energy, passion, love
    • Rails 3 platform
    • Knowledge and experience, stories
    • Network of food systems, activists, developers
    • Community
    • Collective intelligence - engaging ourselves and others as a whole person - methodologies, skills
    • The internet - “we’re going to get it back!”
    • Expertise
      • in software
      • in food systems, policy, research, agricultural economics
      • in building community
      • in a new way of working
    • Skills - listening, mentoring, resilience design
    • Funding
    • Bad-ass dev ops and sys admin
    • Connection to our communities
    • Values - open source, non-profit, etc.
    • Brand
    • Reputation/recognition (not always good!)
    • “A successful implementation of biomimicry” - mycelium
    • A first functional implementation of a platform coop
    • Spirit
  • Problem:
    • Concentration / centralization of power - lack of agency to change the system - it’s hard
    • Lack of cooperation to drive change - disconnection between activists - ego
    • Food system decisionmaking directed by profit - leading to waste, other negative externalities
    • Climate change / eco-apocalypse
    • Lack of transparency
    • Disconnection between producers/eaters/people
    • Low quality food - obesity, disease
    • Low access to quality food
    • Lack of food education

Gen asks if there’s a tension between tackling both centralization of power and disconnection of activists
Consensus that these are different things: we want increased coordination of activists and decreased centralization of power

2. Brainstorming session on tools for funding applications

What do we need:

  • A list of funders
  • A clear process*
  • A global (elevator) pitch
  • Suggest instance-level pitches that draw on the global level - unify and utilize
  • A global narrative - text chunks that can be reused across applications (global/instance)
  • Time/energy/resources to focus on global fundraising
  • A global entity to receive funds? Or maybe wait until we have the funding - no need for organizational overheads in the meantime
  • Automated repository of up-to-date data
    • Outcomes
    • Social return-on-investment
    • Ecological value
    • Impact measurements
  • Pitchdeck
  • Communications design
    • Photos
    • Videos
    • Inforgraphics - standard style
      • Graphic charter
      • Shared and editable

*Process:

  • Information flow
  • Community of practice - upskilling of instances

Strategy:

  • Be strategic about use of time/effort
    • Engage consultants for big/institutional funds
    • And networking for smaller/private funds
  • Be strategic about where the money is (e.g. Kirsten and Serenity maybe focus on writing applications for funding outside of Aus)
  • Partnership with a research institution (e.g. Katuma)
  • Partnership with (big) users

3. To do list on this basis

  • Pitchdeck
  • Text for global site
  • Prioritize establishing the automated repository of up-to-date data - metabase
  • Find someone who can do graphics - open designers?

Here is the draft theory of change. Please add your changes. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1qrhTMi7TDp2Uyq7aviOVq8n1y6S0yKaW-HKA2y-uzxA/edit?usp=sharing

Here is the draft agenda for our planning meeting on 4th July - please add as necessary https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/14TJgSejLlq_f4qe9bbsalTHevwuBRsNGX5SHJEdN21U/edit#gid=321834868&range=A1:C1