Transition Network’s new strategy
By Ed Mitchell 2nd July 2014
We’re delighted to be able to publish the final version of Transition Network’s new three year strategy. It’s been a fascinating process working together as a team, TN staff and trustees, to develop this document in consultation with people in the wider Transition movement.
We are now making it publicly available so everyone can see what we plan to focus on over the next three years and why. We’ll be reviewing how we’ve done and whether everything is still relevant each year and, as always, your feedback and ideas will be very welcome.
Introduction
Thank you to every one of the 736 people in 48 countries who viewed this document in draft and especially to the 71 people who provided comments in writing. We asked a headline question about your satisfaction with the draft survey and got this response…
| Overall, I think the draft strategy… | |
| Set’s a clear, useful direction for Transition Network | 61% |
| Is broadly helpful, but needs some further work | 34% |
| Needs to be changed completely | 5% |
It was great to receive written comments on the draft strategy from the National Hubs in Belgium, Brazil, France, Hungary, Israel, Italy, Portugal, Romania and Spain. They responded very positively to the document – mostly they endorsed the planned outputs and activities and started to discuss how we all might take this work forward together. There were also a few useful comments about aspects of the document which came over as UK-centric.
Some general comments from the National Hubs:
This strategy is fantastic, very inspiring for our hub, great job!! I often wanted to write “this part is very important too”…
We very much appreciate this document. In our national feedback round, the response was that this work is very inspiring as an example for our national organisation. It gives us motivation to work on a concrete proposal for the formalisation of our national hub.
I would like to express our satisfaction about the quality of the document and thank you all for the job you are doing.
It makes a lot of sense, and is built as a macro scale of a TI (with National Hubs and projects as working groups).
Here’s our analysis of all the written comments received and information about our response…
Style/language/length of document
What we heard:
Some people found the document too corporate, others said it contained transition jargon and needed to be shorter and sharper. However, many more people responded positively than were critical, saying they found the document clear and helpful.
What we will do:
We’re going to accept that we’ll never please everyone and are not going to amend the style of the document at this stage or play around too much with the format or length. We’re going to take what we’ve learned from this process, including all your comments, into the work TN is now doing to review how we tell the Transition story.
Supporting people ‘doing’ Transition
What we heard:
People liked the focus on streamlining, clarifying and improving the support TN offers and on nurturing peer-to-peer support (whether between individuals, Initiatives or National Hubs). Some of the National Hubs reminded us that there is very little support or information offered in languages other than English and that the National Hubs themselves don’t currently have the capacity or resources to translate much Transition-related material.
What we will do:
It’s great (and a little bit overwhelming) to hear about the appetite for improved support and resources. We’ve just consulted on the next stage in the development of the TN support framework and people seem pleased that we’re heading in the right direction. Our aim is to make it much easier to identify which are the key pieces of information that would benefit from being translated into other languages, but we’re conscious that this is much better done by people who understand the particular context in which Transition is operating within their country. We have secured some funding to help develop the capacity of National Hubs and, if they see it as a priority, to enable them to pay for translation. We’re also seeing National Hubs starting to group around some of the main global languages and co-operating to produce materials that can be used in more than one country – we’ll be alert to anything TN can do to support this very positive development.
Social justice/diversity
What we heard:
There was strong support for the references to social justice throughout the document (although a couple of people felt this was taking us into difficult territory politically). A number of people commented that the Transition movement is still relatively narrow in its appeal and suggested TN should be doing more to ensure that the ideas and benefits of Transition reach all sections of society.
What we will do:
We’re currently seeking funding to enable us to identify and share the best UK examples of TIs and other similar groups working inclusively and/or addressing social inequality. We think there is a lot of learning to be exchanged across the National Hubs network on this, since the focus of Transition activity varies considerably around the world. And an important objective behind the work we’re doing to update the Transition story is to make sure TN speaks consistently and powerfully about the importance of social justice, transmitting messages that reach and make sense to as wide a range of people as possible.
TN’s role as UK National Hub
What we heard:
A number of people questioned whether TN is playing this role effectively and, indeed, whether it is an appropriate role for TN to undertake. Some people expressed a desire for a stand-alone UK Hub, designed by and accountable to UK Transition Initiatives. A couple of people also talked about the more direct, practical support that a UK National Hub might be able to offer to UK Transition initiatives.
What we will do:
We would very much like to explore this idea further with UK Transitioners. We certainly want to share and seek feedback on TN’s plans for UK-focused work and we are keen to support UK Transition Initiatives to develop stronger connections between each other and with TN. We’re also making an effort to be more explicit about which aspects of TN’s work and resources are internationally-focused and which are UK-specific. We’re not sure at this stage whether there’s a need for the UK National Hub to be a completely separate organisation from TN – there would be advantages and disadvantages to this – but we would love to see much clearer representation from the UK within the National Hubs Group network. We’re also very conscious that Transition Scotland and Transition Ireland already exist and there are strong networks developing in Wales. So we’re certainly not assuming that a UK-wide structure is the right one to go for.
The UK roadshow events that we are planning for the autumn of 2014 and the spring of 2015 will give us an opportunity to take this conversation forward with Transitioners generally, but it would be great to hear before then from any individuals in the UK who are willing and able to put time into exploring the issue (we’ve already had a couple of volunteers). If a small group of people come forward, TN would be delighted to support them to meet and start to develop their own vision of what a National Hub might look like and what it might do. If you’re interested and/or would like to talk more about this proposal, please contact sarahmcadam@transitionnetwork.org.
Partnering with other organisations and networks
What we heard:
A number of people commented on the need and potential for TN to work more closely with organisations and networks with similar aims and values – to avoid duplication and together achieve a greater impact. The examples given were many and various, drawn from across the environmental and social justice movements and beyond.
What we will do:
Developing effective partnerships is a priority for TN over the next three years. We know we have a better chance of delivering each of our desired strategic outcomes if we work with other organisations and networks so, rather than constantly repeating our intention to build partnerships, we stated it as a general intention in the section labelled How we will work (see paragraph F headed Collaborating and looking for synergies). The challenge – and we know it’s the same for National Hubs and Transition Initiatives – is to work out which potential partnerships to prioritise from amongst all the great organisations and networks that are out there and to find ways to collaborate which are light-touch, don’t require us to set up cumbersome structures and which support rather than burden people in the wider Transition movement. We’re experimenting with a couple of interesting alliances at the moment – all at a very early stage, but we will share what we learn from these experiments and you should see evidence of us being increasingly connected to others who are working to support change.
Working to influence policy
What we heard:
A number of people asked whether there was more TN could do to influence politicians and argue for policy changes that would make it easier for Transition to have an impact at a local level.
What we will do:
We’re not sure! We are still a very small organisation compared to the many bodies that are set up to lobby policy-makers and we think it’s important that our primary focus is on inspiring, encouraging, connecting, supporting and training people to take action locally. We are also trying to work internationally wherever possible, so it wouldn’t be possible or appropriate for us to devote lots of time and resources to influencing a single national Government. But we know that relatively minor changes in policy can sometimes open up new possibilities for many individual Transition initiatives and we want to respond positively to the increasing interest we’re finding in community level action at both an international and a national level. So we’re going to explore this further, in discussion with National Hubs Group and have mentioned this in the strategy.
Keeping open to new ideas
What we heard:
Don’t get set in your ways and ideas, stay open and flexible with the em-phasis on experimentation and responding to feedback, keep your strategy, and indeed the very existence of TN in its current form, under review.
What we will do:
This feels very important to us. As we get slightly bigger as an organisation and as the Transition movement grows in scale and impact, we’re trying to find ways to be more structured about what we’re doing without losing our nimbleness and creativity. We’ve designed this strategy to cover a three year period – anything longer feels much too difficult to predict – and we’ve committed to reviewing how we’re delivering against it every year. Feedback from the wider Transition movement will help keep us on our toes. We know we won’t be able to do everything you’d like us to do and we’ll certainly make mistakes, but please keep letting us know what’s working well and what you’d like us to change.