Take a breath…
Now contemplate this.
Responding to the emerging community voice
We, all of us, have laid the foundation for the future ASP, that has been imagined and defined by the members – not the Directors. There are many examples in nature that we have used and lent heavily on for ideas, inspiration and belief:
a group of starlings forming a murmuration, to increase their survivability, sensing.
a lobster responding to the stress of a shell that is too small to support its future growth. Shedding its hard shell and being vulnerable until the new shell develops, trusting
a caterpillar creating and entering its chrysalis to emerge as a butterfly – without knowing what that is, courage.
All examples of letting go and letting come.
Take your pick, they all inspired us.
It wasn’t easy to start with, and then most of the key players (Tim, Michelle, Julia and Gwyn) tasked with the transformation work, while still running the organisation, one-by-one became unavailable for weeks that turned into months: divorce/house sale/down-sizing, new projects/work demanding full attention and ill health and injury with chronic pain that sapped concentration.
The community stepped in
Damien, Simon and Denil started the data gathering and analysis. Tim, Sandra, Corinna, shouldered the difficult stuff: 3H facilitation, Project Management, Corporate Strategy Playbook. Robyn, Kaarina, Shel, Oke, Eleanor, Erin, Ruth and others have offered their time and skills to help review and shape what is emerging. At one point we counted 15 members contributing (10-12% of the community!), not counting those of you who contributed during the 3H sessions and reviews.
Leadership in bottom-up transformation
The Directors/Guardians under the inspiring, instinctive leadership of T stepped up.
Did you see how many events they created and led over this period?
Every one of them: Jane, T, Alan, Helena, Jagdish. They kept the pulse beating.
Plus, they backed us. They listened, raised eyebrows, reviewed and advised, cautioned and praised but never dictated or prescribed – this was always intended to be, and turned out to be, bottom-up transformation. Council at its best. Eldership.
Continuous impact
During this period, in parallel, we established the Community Matters space with Pay-it-Forward, Community Coaching and Self-help resources.
T, Julia and Sam are reimagining our Education and Events. Creating structure and visibility to how our events and education-via-inquiry can respond to and support the needs and wishes of members. Corinna and Kemi have already come forward with fabulous ideas of how they could build on this and expand its impact.
And work is now starting on revising the website, incrementally, to more accurately and inspiringly convey what ASP is all about.
We’ve also recently appointed an external accountant to create a more robust and professional basis for what we expect is to come.
The future
We have the mandate now and the requirements for a new ASP, imagined and defined by the members, to be guided by, and to serve, the members. The new systems will be chosen to enhance and support human relationships and behaviour first, technological possibilities second. We now understand how we can harness growth. It’s our impact as practitioners that needs to grow – we see the need every day! Every other form of growth is secondary, and only entertained if it can help grow our members’ and ASP’s impact. That’s the principle.
And now the reality
We need to completely revise our financial model to create a sound and sustainable basis for years to come.
The first need is to pay for the costs of deploying and running the admin systems that we need over the next few months: £4000.
Later we estimate we will need to raise another £5000 to pay the people who will build and run the community platforms a professional wage/fee. This will all be done by our members so this is us paying us.
We believe membership fees, (possibly £5000 pa) will still be required and we are planning on implementing a scheme based on two important principles:
- Pay-what-you-can afford
- Purchasing power parity (PPP) as we are increasingly attracting members from other economies outside our traditional largely European and North American base
And then we need to work out how to maintain a steady-state, post transformation, sustainable mix of membership fees, supporters’ donations and other mechanisms. I stress WE because it is our community. We have within our midst amazing skills, creative and innovative talent, radical ambition, and experience. It is up to us to make it work.
If we can, it will be a great example to others.
So let’s get started… give what you can afford… and trust it will be enough…
ASP’s “Transformation for the Future” Donation HERE
