Failures, and successes…

I am one for reflection (for the sake of improvement), so, here are the main failures (which I take full responsibility for) and also successes (shared with others)…

Failure #1 - Expressing the personal experience of loneliness and voice of older people. A number of our projects and some of our recent media and public campaigning work at the Campaign to End Loneliness have involved older people. However, despite exploring improvements, we have not yet successfully involved older people in a concerted way, and I think this is for three reasons that are applicable to any change management failure: staff turnover - lack of embedding deeply in our work - time pressures. I know the team continue to work on this, and are actively looking for peer examples from other organisations doing this really well too.

Failure #2 – Growing rather fast. From 2017 onwards, following a major investment by the Lottery, we were focused very much on growth – a wider range of target audiences including businesses; influencing policy and practice in all four UK nations and regions, and growing from 3 to 14 people in the space of a few months and all that this entails. But most of the growing pains came from juggling our past with our present: working to meet the needs of our commitments to a new and generous funder with the well-established ethos and core positional advantage of the Campaign as it was just before that investment. The flexibility, listening to the network of supporters, sharing the leadership and remaining evidence-based (as described in previous blogs) were tough to maintain when we had agreed to very tight deadlines, multiple new audiences to reach and massive public engagement targets. A nice problem to have, as my MBA tutor and then-mentor said, of how to spend ￡2.7 million pounds of lottery money most wisely, without losing the core of how we had succeeded in the past.

Failure #3 – Managing our role within the success of the issue. The Campaign to End Loneliness originally aimed to inspire more people to work on loneliness – and by 2017/2018, with the huge energy and dedication of Jo Cox, Seema Kennedy, Rachel Reeves and Tracey Crouch, and all those charities and businesses involved in the Jo Cox Commission, there had been a massive upswing in interest, media attention, action and funding for loneliness. For much of the last few years it has been less about growing interest in the issue and more about retreating strategically and gracefully from some of the space that others were now in when we have also simultaneously promised to major stakeholders around us that we will ourselves grow our standing, output and voice. A tricky balance. I found this new order rather challenging, which surprised me after so many years of merrily leading collaborative efforts in what previously was an underdog issue. 

Failure #4 - Not always adequately celebrating success. This is a bit like answering an interview question about your weaknesses with something that is clearly a strength. However, I do think that charities often find it hard to blow their own trumpet and I know many campaigners are busying onto the next thing before a celebration is thought of. Also, my style of celebration (reflection and delegation of action points, with a bit of tea and cake) is not everyone’s idea of a wild party.

So, particularly in the last few years, what did I fail to celebrate fully?

Recommendations in the Jo Cox Commission report – working with Age UK, Kate Jopling and The Campaign to End Loneliness' management group, we pushed for long-lasting recommendations to be the centre-piece of the Jo Cox Commission manifesto. Some senior members of the Commission were against this – looking instead for quick wins and media friendly splashes – but - alongside the hard work of many others - we stood firm on long-term commitments and cross-sector, cross-department policies – and we got them.

Influencing strategy – When it came time to publishing that world-first – the Loneliness Strategy – DCMS did a great job of consulting with a wide range of stakeholders. In addition, the Scottish strategy was announced before the Westminster one, and the Campaign alongside a coalition of others, pushed for tangible gains. At Westminster, the Campaign stood firm on advising a solid and cross-government strategy with no quick-win gimmicks or white elephant investments that would somehow solve loneliness in one-grant-payment. These recommendations played out in the resulting cross-departmental and solid strategy - well done Tracey Crouch and team (for both achieving this and listening!).

Public campaigning – the Campaign to End Loneliness hasn’t even scratched the surface of public behaviour change and what we need to learn about this in relation to loneliness – but we have done three things well: (i) we based our campaigning in academic evidence (has anyone else done this on their loneliness public campaigning in the UK, or further afield?); (ii) we involved, initially, a wide range of people in creating the messages; and (iii) we have, for a very small organisation, achieved huge reach (admittedly, only the first stage in a behaviour change campaign). 

Local influencing – we have worked with local groups and activists and influenced local politicians, policy makers and businesses since 2012, and in a number of different ways. The Campaign currently leads change in four areas of the UK with a highly experienced team of campaign managers in the four nations. Some of this work will only come to fruition in years to come – so it is hard to celebrate too early. Yet there is so much to learn from and early indicators of change to celebrate, including our influencing of local health agendas across England; our leadership role in Belfast since 2015 and our role influencing public campaigning in Cambridgeshire.

Research – The Campaign to End Loneliness continues to gather, distil and influence policy makers and the media with, major research on loneliness. This facet of our work always feels like an endless task, and there are so many valid yet alternating views on loneliness research that getting consensus about whether success has been achieved is a long way off yet…                                                                                                            

International awareness and network – we have strong links with other “campaigns to end loneliness” and a handful of countries have set up their own Campaigns, inspired and influenced by our work. We learn from them and vice versa. We all feel loneliness, and need purpose, belonging and resilience – no matter where in the world we live.