🔬 🚧 Learning From Organisational Closures In The Children And Youth Sector: A Chatham House Event for Funders and Strategic Stakeholders on 1st October 🔬 🚧 The children and youth sector (much like civil society more broadly) has seen a number of significant organisational closures over the past year - some planned, others unexpected. Amidst mounting financial, social, and political pressures, this critical part of the nonprofit lifecycle is often overlooked. On 1st October The Decelerator will be hosting a Chatham House to provide funding organisations and other strategic sector stakeholders with an opportunity for candid and compassionate reflection and learning on two recent organisational closures. These are organisations which had different missions, and they closed in very different ways in very different circumstances. But considered together, we believe they reveal useful insights on these questions: ❓ What does these closures reveal about the state of children / youth organisations and their infrastructure groups and the significant pressures at this time? ❓ What do these closures show about what patterns are emerging in charity closures? ❓ What can funders do or consider in order to mitigate the impact of the patterns these closures point to? ❓ What is the role of funders when organisations reach the point of potential closure? This event will not seek to attribute blame. Nor will it surface easy or simple answers to these very complicated questions. And it will be important to remember that there will be many experiences and perspectives who won't be represented in the room. It's simply a space for curiosity, reflectiveness, compassion and learning. Together we will explore the lessons that might be learnt from these closures and consider how to ensure these insights inform the future. Date: Tuesday, October 1, 2024 Time: 1:30 PM - 4:30 PM Location: In person, central London Attendees: If you are a funder that funds the children and youth sectors, or a strategic stakeholder (eg. regulator, infrastructure body etc)* What to bring: an open, curious mind. How to sign up - link in comments! *We have limited availability and will allocate places based on 'first come first served' and to ensure a diverse range of organisations are represented in the room. (The Decelerator is exploring ways this sort of event might be organised / held for wider audiences, sign up to our substack newsletter to keep in the loop on our work and events - link in comments).
The Decelerator
Information Services
The Decelerator is a support service for civil society organisations offering information and tools for better endings.
About us
The Decelerator is a support service for civil society organisations. We offer information, tools and hands-on support for better endings. We support organisations and individuals to anticipate and design closures, mergers, CEO transitions, programming ends, and all sorts of endings as just part of the everyday life of organisations and inevitable cycles of change in civil society. It is our ambition to be around for 10 years. During this time we hope to shift mindsets and money so that individuals, organisations, sectors and movements consider possible endings as regularly and readily as growth in their ambitious, courageous pursuit of impact for the people and communities they serve. We exist because endings are inevitable, but bad endings don’t have to be.
- Website
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https://decelerator.org.uk
External link for The Decelerator
- Industry
- Information Services
- Company size
- 2-10 employees
- Type
- Nonprofit
- Founded
- 2023
Employees at The Decelerator
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Louise Armstrong
#livingchange, changemaker, facilitator, systems change designer, process doula. Interested in endings and shifting funding practices
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Iona Lawrence
Co-Founder at The Decelerator
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Josephine Knowles
Human ❤ charity coach (ACC) and trainer 🎯 enabling your deepest work 🎖 for change the world needs 🌍
Updates
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☎️ Reminder: The Decelerator Hotline offers free help with organisational endings ☎️ The Decelerator Hotline offers a free, confidential and non-judgemental space with a trained Deceleration Navigator - including Iona Lawrence, Josephine Knowles & Linda Craig. With your Navigator’s support, you will have an opportunity to step back and consider an ending you might be considering, planning or in the midst of - closures, mergers, succession plan, project wind downs and all sorts of endings. 📞 You might want support to think through some of the complicated processes involved in endings that many people feel tell us they have not been trained in or experienced before. 📞 You might want some space to process some mixed emotions you have which are very common with endings including uncertainty, anticipation, loneliness, relief, worry and hope. 📞 You might want to say something out loud for the first time or the 100th time. Most people finish a call feeling confident about their options, and equipped with some next steps. ✨ And we now have more capacity than ever before! Thanks to some brilliant service design work from Lily Piachaud, Josephine Knowles and The Decelerator team, we’re ready to support more organisations to navigate endings equipped with solid plans, strategic legacy ideas and plenty of care and compassion. Don’t hesitate to reach out or pass on our details to your networks. We’re here to help you, whatever stage you’re at. https://lnkd.in/e7PhEMrk
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We are 9 months into The Decelerator's pilot and have had over 100+ hours of conversation via the Decelerator Hotline. So we’ve got a new process which will hopefully help us meet growing demand for this support. If you, or anyone you know, is anticipating, planning or reflecting on an organisational ending - closure, merger, succession planning etc - The Decelerator Hotline offers a free, confidential and non-judgemental conversation with one of our supported Deceleration Navigators: Josephine Knowles, Linda Craig and Iona Lawrence. The Decelerator Hotline is your invitation to step back and explore an ending you might be considering, planning or in the midst of. Most people finish a call feeling clearer headed and with some practical next steps. If this sounds useful to you or anyone of you know now or in the month’s ahead, all you need to do is…: 1. Visit our website (scroll down to find the link in comments!) 2. Fill out a quick form so we can connect you to the best navigator for you 3. Select a time that works for you Behind the scenes these developments will enable us to increase our capacity to meet rising demand for our support, and capture the information we need to learn as fast as the context in which we’re operating is changing around us all. We believe that endings are an inevitable part of organisational life cyles, but bad endings don't have to be. So the Hotline is here to support you to consider what better endings could achieve the work you do and the communities you serve. And don't leave it all up to us! If you are keen to help people around you have better conversations about endings, you might find our latest substack helpful. Link below. (As you can probably imagine, we are a small team working with limited resources so during busy times we will be grateful for people’s patience.)
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Week after week we’re receiving enquiries to the Decelerator hotline from organisations referred to us by funders. We’re also finding funders are seeking guidance and insight on this sensitive topic to guide their own practice and approach. The Decelerator’s intention is to grow the capacity in civil society for this work over the next 5 - 10 years - to reframe endings as a necessary and impactful part of organisational life cycles, to celebrate leadership where it shows up in endings, and to ensure the funding and policy is in place for better endings. Funders have a critical part to play in this. So The Decelerator and our three current funders - Paul Hamlyn Foundation , Esmée Fairbairn Foundation and Pears Foundation - are coming together to share what we’re learning from our pilot so far with other funding organisations. We’ll also be sharing what we believe (at this stage) needs to change in civil society for endings to be given the attention and have the impact needed now and in the years ahead. So we’re hosting a funder only event on the 24th June to explore this further. -Are you someone in a funding organisation wanting to support this work or trying to find ways into this topic? -Do you know someone you think should be there? If you do, get in touch and we can share the details
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In recent years there have been a proliferation of blogs and books about how to be a good friend to people who have lost a loved one. This is a blog from me and Zoe Stanton about how to have better conversations with people who are facing, navigating or processing the end of an organisation’s life, and in doing so how you might be helping to build a thriving and more regenerative civil society. The Decelerator, like many in civil society, is grappling with how to navigate this period of immense change and loss, reframing endings not as mere temporary setbacks but as symptoms of larger structural shifts. It falls upon all of us to react with empathy, understanding, and a determination to glean insights from our losses. (With input and ideas from The Decelerator's crew and friends including: Camille Emefa Acey, Louise Armstrong, Lily Piachaud, Josephine Knowles, Linda Craig, Max St John and Cassie Robinson. And was inspired by the many insights and experiences of the leaders we have the privilege of standing alongside through The Decelerator’s support work) https://lnkd.in/eGUZE2w5
Treading on eggshells or a bull in a china shop?
deceleratoruk.substack.com
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We are properly excited (not just linkedin excited) to be working with Max St John. As our supervisor, he will help us take care of ourselves, each other and, in turn, everyone we work with. A crucial part of what it will take to genuinely move work on endings out of the shadows, and into the mainstream. Read more about his interests and hopes for the work ⬇️
"We are living through times that call us to face up to what is being lost that can’t be rehoused, distributed or passed on. Community assets, physical spaces, networks, service capacity, learnt wisdom, lived wisdom and much more." I've just started working with The Decelerator - providing supervision for their team. They are a *very* interesting organisation. Through their Hotline they offer support, advice and a listening ear to people within civil society organisations that are going through - or may be headed for - closure. I was properly excited (not just LinkedIn excited) about working with them because: a) They are inspiring people to talk to - I knew from the off that whatever they were doing, it would be fun and interesting to do it with them. b) I have navigated, and helped others navigate, organisational endings - I understand how important they are, how they can be done well and the consequences of doing them badly. BUT - what I'm already finding is that the issues they are uncovering are about a lot more than just the ending of individual organisations. What this piece - findings from their work so far - highlights is a possible, much wider trend within the civil society sector. A whole strata of public infrastructure, previously bridging the gap between government and corporations might be falling apart. Because we don't talk about endings, people (generally) don't know how to do them well. So, not only do we lose the organisations themselves, but the physical and intellectual assets they have built up are also at risk of disappearing. And this has a huge, real-life impact on the lives of millions of people. #civilsociety #leadership #supervision
Glimpses of Civil Society's Evolution: Insights from the dark and shadowy place of civil society’s closures and other endings
deceleratoruk.substack.com
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6 months into The Decelerator's pilot, Linda Craig, Louise Armstrong and I have been reflecting on how our journey into the all-too-often dark and shadowy realm of civil society's endings offers a window into some profound micro and macro shifts. We’ve returned time and again to three patterns of closure - "ending hotspots" - that offer valuable insights into the complexities of organisational sustainability and impact. These hotspots also reveal the pressing need to build the confidence and capacity of leaders, trustees, funders and all stakeholders to know when to let go and steward a good ending to unlock legacy, maximise learning and reckon with what is being lost or left behind.
Glimpses of Civil Society's Evolution: Insights from the dark and shadowy place of civil society’s closures and other endings
deceleratoruk.substack.com
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This was the highlight of my otherwise slow and sickly week!
Co-working is the new networking….we spent yesterday day with a bunch of ‘endings’ geeks as part of our Decelerator co-working day experiments. We all got a bit of work done alongside lots of rich free flowing conversations about a range of things related to better endings. From how organisational structures and governance can enable and disabled good endings, to what the leadership shifts we notice are working to promote good endings and to how the need for better endings shows up in all our worlds from the international development sector to the higher education field and many more. Thanks to all those who came Rachel Roxburgh Jasmine Castledine Linda Craig Iona Lawrence Lucy Morris David Burland Giverny McAndry Joe Kallarackal Amy Foster-Taylor Louise Armstrong for the rich connections and conversations and to Bridget Kohner and the Pears Foundation for hosting us Future dates to follow...
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Co-working is the new networking….we spent yesterday day with a bunch of ‘endings’ geeks as part of our Decelerator co-working day experiments. We all got a bit of work done alongside lots of rich free flowing conversations about a range of things related to better endings. From how organisational structures and governance can enable and disabled good endings, to what the leadership shifts we notice are working to promote good endings and to how the need for better endings shows up in all our worlds from the international development sector to the higher education field and many more. Thanks to all those who came Rachel Roxburgh Jasmine Castledine Linda Craig Iona Lawrence Lucy Morris David Burland Giverny McAndry Joe Kallarackal Amy Foster-Taylor Louise Armstrong for the rich connections and conversations and to Bridget Kohner and the Pears Foundation for hosting us Future dates to follow...
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Are you working on supporting endings in nonprofits or charities in the UK - from closures to mergers to other transitions and endings throughout the lifecycles of organisations? Are you interested in meeting like-minded people to find solidarity and build collaboration in this growing area of need? At The Decelerator (a new support service for better endings in civil society organisations www.decelerator.org.uk), we know that this kind of work is contextual and different places and sectors need different things and approaches. So good relationships between all those doing this sort of work are essential! So we are trialling ‘Decelerator Days’ where freelancers come together for a day of co-working in places across the country to get to know each other and start sharing practice. The first 2 will be: Glasgow on 30th January 2024. Sign up here: https://lnkd.in/e7-gQWdZ London on 7th February 2024. Sign up here: https://lnkd.in/ebp6FiFm What to expect… We will find somewhere suitable to gather for a day of co-working. It won’t be anything too snazzy - a cafe or public space with good wifi and nice vibes. We’ll start the day with some introductions before doing a day of work. (If your participation would be enabled by a contribution to your travel costs, please get in touch. We can’t promise to be able to help, but we’d love to if we can.) And in case you missed it - this is our latest blog sharing what we're learning as we build our support for all kinds of better endings in and for organisations https://lnkd.in/d6Q2HNk4
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