21st Dec 2012
The Manchester United manager may not be your idea of a model for NGO managers, but in the field of M&E his example can teach us a lot. Monitoring and Evaluation workshops clog up very fast with jargon
3rd Dec 2012
Robert Chambers’ guiding principle for workshops, being ‘optimally unprepared’, comes straight from his commitment to participatory learning. The paradox makes me sit up and think: where can there be room for ‘unpreparedness’ in a workshop, and how do you measure
10th Oct 2012
In a previous post I shared some first impressions about using audio. Now Keith Ricketts and I have had more time to digest and think about what we’ve learnt, and it’s opened up more new ideas. Here’s a few: Think
21st Sep 2012
Just returned from the launch of my report on the Kings Hedges Family Support Project in Cambridge, with a speech by our MP Julian Huppert (pictured with the report). There was lots of birthday cake, and about 80 toddlers and
21st Sep 2012
It has been a busy Summer and the Autumn looks set to be busier still. I’m currently working with Oxfam Novib on their framework for Knowledge and Innovation Management and with The Leprosy Mission International on their system for Annual
13th Sep 2012
This was something different! Going from the family support project (see previous post), to a room full of initially rather intimidating police men and women: black uniforms, high viz vests, belts bulging with what? Handcuffs? Radios? I wasn’t sure I
21st Aug 2012
I’ve been exploring how to use audio interviews as part of my work. If making a lot of mistakes is any guide to how much learning is going on, then I’ve learnt a lot! Luckily for me, I’ve been working
28th Jul 2012
It looks and sounds like a pre-school play group. But in fact, it is a well-disguised project to battle poverty and disadvantage in families in north Cambridge. When it started 18 years ago the Kings Hedges Family Support Project was
18th Jun 2012
Last week I attended a four-day course on domestic renewable energy technology. I am a member of the St Andrews Environment Network – a small community organisation that encourages people living in my locality to save energy and live more
8th Jun 2012
Both speakers at a recent event run by MDN (consultants working with voluntary sector organisations in the UK) emphasized the huge shift in the environment for non-profits in the UK. While they both started from the fact that the funding
I’m sure many of you are seeing your newsfeeds full of discussion about what is happening in Ukraine, and how best to help. That desire to help is a basic human instinct, and the reason why many of our current
