Building a Portfolio Approach

 

• Investing in big ideas not big organisations

• working locally to address real issues

• working locally to ensure representation in design and delivery

• working locally to share wealth, knowledge and opportunity

• working strategically to collate observation and research for community-led Think & Do Tank initiatives - working with people, organisations and government stakeholders at all levels

• working strategically to inform, support and influence policy agenda, service design and investment choice

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SEEit Working Trust was founded to create and test out innovative sustainable development activities that placed culture and creativity at the centre of thinking about and designing ways to address social issues. Social issues are complex because people are dynamic. Complex strategies are therefore needed to address them, but they don’t have to be complicated. We use systems thinking to explore a number of interventions so each component part can be simple. Our holistic models address big issues – usually more than one at a time as that is how life is - on a local level to test out ideas, evaluate and pilot for wider roll out. Each project is independent but becomes part of the "bigger picture" solution when joined together.​

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We are project based and work collaboratively so keep core costs low. Projects are costed separately and delivered by SEEit Working with partners and collaborators.  People/organisations we work with can start small and grow within our Collaboration Collective approach.  We encourage independence, personal, professional and organisational development and like to grow with the organisations as it provides us with a unique pick n mix partner and delivery team portfolio from which to create bespoke projects – allowing us to develop complex initiatives that allow local governance and participation, and ensure there is local level distribution of wealth, knowledge and opportunity.

 

By working this way we want to develop a scaling up by scaling out model for network impact. We need to remain innovative, fast reacting, nimble, cost effective and connect hyperlocal activity to global change. We create different ways of working, test them out, and provide evidence of impact for further, wider roll-out and social change so need to be able to make fast decisions and adapt to the project environment. 

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We believe sustainable social change is only possible by working with a community’s existing cultural behaviour and needs. ​ We work with partners in the Collaboration Collective to develop a Portfolio of initiatives that will allow “Investors” to SEEit Working.

 

We are developing our MELI (monitoring, evaluation, learning and impact) framework to be part of each project and build into a valuable data resource to inform, influence and support cross-sector policy agenda, service design and investment choice.

• Policy affects people so people should affect policy but current representative structures and engagement models are outdated and over complicated - many communities feel excluded from, under-represented in, and unable to voice their concerns about, the decision-making process to finding their own community appropriate solutions.