We are six organisations in Islington, North London, who put our relationships at the heart of our services.
Interviews with the development partners by Ciorsdan Brown from The Goldsmiths’ Company Charity.
In 2015, the Cripplegate Foundation launched its Development Partner programme to explore how the funder, together with some of its funded partners, could work more closely together to make a deeper impact in improving lives for Islington residents.
Initially the Development Partners involved five organisations, Claremont Project, Company Three, Cripplegate Foundation, Help on Your Doorstep and The Parent House. Later in the process, a sixth (unfunded) partner, the London Borough of Islington’s Homes and Communities Team, joined us.
The early part of the programme was spent getting to know one another and our different areas of work. This was invaluable in building trust and understanding. It also meant we were quickly able to discover a common passion for improving the way people are treated by voluntary and public services so that individuals feel they matter and have a voice in the support they receive and decisions that affect them.
From this we have defined a core purpose for the partnership - to explore what a “people matter” approach means in different contexts, how it can be supported and how it can improve people’s lives and experiences.
We have created this website to share some of the ideas which emerged from our programme of work together, to promote the idea of How Not What and provide some starting points for those organisations wishing to explore the relational approach.
This way of working is not new or complex but requires real and ongoing thought and intention. Many organisations/individuals work in this way and we don’t always get it right. The resources we have shared on this website are drawn from a range of examples we have come across and from things we use in our work.
