Across the UK, millions of young people choose to take action on causes they care about - to create a positive social change as well as develop the skills and character they need to thrive in life.

of young people aged 10 – 20 reported taking part in social action in the past year at least once a month or for longer than one day. i

Of those young people who take part felt that their actions had “a lot” of benefit to themselves or others...

There is increasing evidence that young people benefit from taking part in social action:

However...

It is not currently possible to compare how well different programmes benefit young people or achieve social change. This is limiting the scale and impact our sector could achieve in the UK.

Generation Change has brought together 18 of the UK's leading providers of

programmes that support young people to take part in social action.

Together our programmes support over young people to drive social

change in over communities in every part of the UK.

We have created a shared action plan to increase the quality and recognition of

programmes in the UK. Generation Change will help support this initiative in three ways:

600,000 20,000

We provide a continuous link between providers and offer backbone support for collaboration.

We implement common standards to evidence the highest impact programmes and inform best practice.

We focus on building recognition to drive the demand and retention of young people in social action.

Common Agenda

Shared Measurement

Mutually reinforcing activities

Continuous communication

Backbone support

All participants share a vision for change that includes a common understanding of the problem and a joint approach to solving it through agreed-upon actions.

All participating organisations agree on the way success will be measured and reported, with common indicators identified and used for learning and delivery.

A diverse set of stakeholders coordinate a set of differentiated activities through a mutually reinforcing plan of action.

All partners engage in frequent and structured open communication to build trust, assure mutual objectives, and create common motivation.

An independent, funded staff team dedicated to the initiative provides ongoing support by guiding the initiative’s vision and strategy, supporting aligned activities, establishing shared measurement practices, building public will, advancing policy, and mobilising resources.

Generation Change is a partnership of organisations with shared goals. As a sector, we have recognised that, whilst the government has an important role to play in creating the right conditions for a social action-rich society, we must also act together to achieve this vision. Our role is to embed an active partnership into the work of our member organisations. This will deliver collective impact.

We have based our model on: Large-Scale Change through Collective Impact; Five Key Conditions for Success –The Stanford Social Innovation Review 2012

 

Through this process, Generation Change developed a detailed problem analysis and theory of change to create a national action plan for the youth social action sector. Many of these initiatives have since been taken forward by the Cabinet Office or by Step Up To Serve’s national strategy.

Generation Change first articulated the concept of double benefit as a definition of social action. The model has been adopted by Cabinet Office, the voluntary sector and a range of business and education stakeholders supporting Step Up To Serve.

Generation Change formed as a group of likeminded CEOs who met to create a shared vision for youth social action defined by double benefit when the Prime Minister announced a review into the field in 2012. The team asked to undertake this review, led by Dame Julia Cleverdon and Amanda Jordan OBE, asked this group to commission a set of common outcomes and quality principles for the field. They wrote the brief, selected a shortlist of agencies, and led input from youth social action organisations when the work was subsequently taken in-house by the Cabinet Office.

7  

Increased funding goes to high quality, well-designed social action programmes

More young people are involved in youth social action

Improvements in the quality and design of

social action programmes

Quality We build a set of metrics

within our own organisations to measure and demonstrate quality

and outcomes.

Funders know what good quality social

action looks like

No one stop shop for government and

funders to approach for expertise

Extensive market of high quality social action opportunities easily accessed by young people

Being involved in social action is normal for most young people

Action We facilitate the setting up of a

simple rewards and points scheme and encourage its use and recognition across sectors

.

Business and universities prioritise young people

who do social action

Young people have more incentive to

continue doing social action

Insight Build a knowledge hub for youth social action that is accessible to

funders, with the aim of setting up a funding pot for high quality

programmes

Funders find it hard to identify good quality social action – lack of

metrics

Universities and businesses unclear

about what is worth recognising

No connecting mechanism to bring

together different social action opportunities

Attention We create awareness about the youth social

action sector in the media, and amongst

policy makers

Government, schools and parents do not understand

the double benefit outcomes

We increase the demand for social

action from schools and parents

Our membership has grown from initially 7 members to 19 of the UK’s leading social action providers, demonstrating the momentum of our initiative. We have developed strong integration and relationships between our members through the National Forum, a monthly newsletter, shared support for each other’s communications and events, and collaborative bids. We have recently added 15 Partner organisations who have signed our quality charter and want to contribute to our work.

We facilitated 6 working groups that together have engaged 102 individual members

of staff in counterpart roles at our member organisations to develop new initiatives from our theory of change. This has enabled us for the first time to bring expertise and knowledge from across the sector to bear on policy objectives from Cabinet Office, and the cross party #iwill campaign.

Our members have come together to agree 5 shared manifesto points that

articulate our vision as a sector for the new government in 2015. These will be taken to major stakeholders in the run up to the election to create a clear picture for how government can support Step Up To Serve’s goal to double participation in social action.

We facilitate a regular working group bringing together a lead communications staff member for each organisation. Through this group we have received pro-bono support from Blue Rubicon, a leading PR firm, and built recognition for our coalition’s aims from within the sector, as well as a strong social media presence. We estimate that our website has received over 36,000 visitors since we launched, or an average of 100 a day.

Before 2013: - First to articulate the “double benefit” model of social action for the Decade of Social Action review. - Wrote the research tender and selected participants for quality principles work at the Cabinet Office.  

January – May: -  Worked with The Social

Innovation Partnership to scope an evidence hub for social action

June – August: -  Developed funding

proposals for a programme of work to deliver the evidence hub

December - January: -  Commissioned by the Cabinet

Office to develop a common metric for their £11 million youth social action trials.

-  Engaged over 40 stakeholders and our report was supported by IVR and the Young Foundation.

February – May: -  Integrated common outcomes

objectives into the campaign strategy.

June – August:  -  Facilitated a quality working group.

January – May: -  Constructed a problem analysis and

theory of change highlighting need for common quality standards.

-  Led sector consultation into the quality principles through forum meetings.

June – November: -  Launched, with 13 members signing our

quality charter. - Expanded membership to 19 December – January: -  Presented implementation plan for the

quality framework to Step Up To Serve. February– May: -  Leading quality for Step Up To Serve. -  Held roundtable with research agencies

to develop community outcomes principles. Presented findings.

June – August: -  Issued call for information to collect

examples of practices. -  Fed the community outcomes findings

into the evaluation tender of the £10 million uniformed social action fund.  

Now: -  Producing guidance on the quality principles for business and

education stakeholders.

-  Working closely with Step Up To Serve and the Cabinet Office to implement quality framework in member programmes.

Service years coalition

London Property hub

Alumni networks

Passport and Awards

Mobilised a coalition of 4 members around an ambitious vision of a British model for full time volunteering opportunities. Held two “Service Year Summits” to engage young people and developed proposals with the Boston Consulting Group.

Held a roundtable with 6 members to identify common needs and goals for property and offices in London, with pro-bono support from Cluttons and the Ethical Property Foundation to develop the specification.

Referred 8 members to a workshop with The Social Change Agency to develop strategy for retention of volunteers through alumni networks. Member relationships have led to increased referrals

2 members are collaborating on a digital passport and awards scheme that would have otherwise been separate initiatives.

Birmingham network Held a “joining up the dots” roundtable with 7 members operating in Birmingham and The Birmingham Leadership Foundation and supported their mapping exercise to identify leadership pathway opportunities for young people in Birmingham.

Our light touch support model is creating new

collaborations that would not have happened before.

We have built the first interactive map of engagement in social action amongst 11-25 year olds. Thus far we have mapped over 20,000 social action projects in which 600,000 young people took part last year.

Following the launch of our prototype, a further 36 youth organisations have approached us seeking to add their own data to the map.

This resource has informed the delivery strategy of our own members by identifying hotspots, areas for collaboration, and gaps in provision

We will develop digital mapping and support our members and partners to use data to inform delivery and funding in youth social action.

“Generation Change has brought together a dynamic coalition of high quality youth social action programmes with a powerful vision.  Their thinking has helped the Step up to Serve campaign strategy develop from the beginning.  We are delighted to be working closely with Generation Change to develop the quality of youth social action opportunities and to map data on the provision of opportunities for young people across the UK. ”

Charlotte Hill – CEO, Step Up To Serve

Generation Change will continue to support Step Up To Serve to achieve their quality objective and provide a voice of the youth social action sector.  

•  We embedded the 6 quality principles in our membership through a Charter.

•  Our members are looking at implementing common reporting through a pilot group.

•  We created a prototype digital mapping resource which we will develop in partnership with the campaign.

•  We are leading an evidence hub proposal to formalise the quality outcomes framework.

Our community outcomes roundtable with OPM, IVR, NatCen and CFE and subsequent write up informed the invitation to tender for the evaluation of this fund.

Generation Change first articulated ‘double benefit’ as a definition of social action. We wrote the research tender for the quality principles by which programmes were selected to receive funding – leading subsequent sector input, and were then commissioned to develop a common metric for the trials. This report was endorsed by IVR and the Young Foundation, and we are now shaping the metric based on data collected through the trials.

Generation Change’s map data and quality insights formed part of three separate consortia bids involving our member organisations submitted to deliver this fund from the Big Lottery.

The Spirit of 2012 Trust met with Generation Change to discuss its outcomes framework and to better understand the youth social action sector.

I regularly draw on the relationships I have built with other Generation Change organisations.

Staff at my organisation have significantly benefited from participating in Generation Change work.

How much has your organisation benefitted from each of these activities undertaken by Generation Change?

Facilitating a common agenda

Our role in Step Up To Serve

Sharing data

Developing quality principles

Supporting shared working

Communication channels

Keeping members informed

Raising profile of social action

Some of my organisation’s long term goals can only  be achieved with support from Generation Change.

Agree or strongly agree:

We asked our members CEOs about how our work has impacted on their organisation.

Whilst not all members are receiving the same benefits equally, in some areas we have added significant value to national-scale programmes.

Funding unlocked for 2015 £8 k

£10 k

£15 k

Income, 2013 - 14

£33,000 Members

Services

Trusts and foundations £14 k

£10 k forecast

£45 k £69,000

Expenditure, 2013 - 14

Staff

Consultants

Events

Core operations

71% 27%

6% 2%

£31,272

Generation Change’s business model is light touch and very lean – yet we have been able to punch above our weight on a very small budget. Our total income last year was £33,000 – a fraction of our members’ combined income last year of over £60 million. Every pound invested during our start up year unlocked £3 for 2014 - 2015.

GC started

£11 million youth social action trials

Quality guidance and Charter

•  Consensus

•  Cross sector commitment

•  Mobilise support

•  Collaboration

•  Shared learning

•  Trial new methods

•  Capture data and knowledge

•  Calibrate new standards

•  Better outcomes

•  Better recognition

•  More demand

•  Scale-up funding for

quality opportunities

•  Know what works Launch of Step Up To Serve

Common principles

Shared application

Common reporting

Evidence base

Recognised standards

- Minister for Civil Society - Labour’s Leader in the House of Lords

Our key supporters:

The Dulverton Trust, The Cabinet Office, Step Up To Serve

Organisations:

Swarm, The Social Innovation Partnership, Blue Rubicon, IVR, The Young Foundation, NPC,

The Behavioural Insights Team, Barclays, Forward Foundation, Founders Forum For Good,

Pilotlight, Birmingham Leadership Foundation, The Ethical Property Foundation, The Social

Change Agency, Global Generation.

Individuals:

Charlotte Gerada, Fiona Murray, Patrick Taylor, Jim Riddiford, Anna Machin, Alice Thornton, Claire

Newman, Philip Ly, Penny Daly, Dr Robin Pharaoh, Eibhlin Niogain, Bethia McNeil, Elizabeth

Anderson, Liz Moorse, Matthew Van Poortvliet.