How does it feel to grow a social enterprise?

Every day someone will ask me something like… ‘How is it all going?’ or ‘I love Nudge, it’s all amazing isn’t it?’ — and I got to the point where there is so much happening and such a roller coaster of feelings and such a desire from people for it all to be great and exciting — that all I can say is ‘Oh you know — usual juggle’ or ‘All good, just spinning the plates.’

This started a couple of years ago now, and Wendy and I have shared less and less of what it’s really like. I used to blog about what we were up to, what we were learning, the barriers and challenges we were experiencing but suddenly it felt like we couldn’t show that side of things anymore.

I’m not sure why that started — I think it was a combination of always (and still) being judged as unprofessional, too ‘community’, risky and naive — just because we believe things are possible and can be different. That’s despite the scale of change that has happened in just 5 years and that we are now major landowners on the street starting from nothing.

I felt like sharing too much of the highs and lows could reinforce these judgements from people with power and influence, and worry the people who rely on us in all sorts of ways every day. But the result is that I’ve become really guarded and feel disconnected from a lot of people. That’s not what I want and it doesn’t feel right, so I’ve decided to start sharing more again. I hope people won’t use it as a reason not to support us or judge us even more than we are already. I think it’s probably what a lot of other social entrepreneurs and leaders disrupting the norm experience and also can’t share.

So cut a long story short, I’ve had some coaching and I was set a challenge to make something that expressed what I was experiencing. Right up my street!! So I went through my bag of bits from the scrapstore and made this:

The process of sewing this and thinking how to set it out made me think a lot about what we are doing and where we have come from and the impact it’s had on us (good and bad) and the community.

It started with just the first section. It shows the journey that most people know. Starting out with nothing, being brave, and how much hope, colour and change it’s made, but it also shows that there’s a whole hidden experience that swirls underneath it all.

From little beginnings to quite a journey — even through the trickiest times the light shine through.

Then it moves to this last year, where we have scaled, experienced real growing pains and challenges and are struggling to find the capacity to plan and prioritise key strategic things that push us on to the next stage and look after ourselves. Lots of decisions that affect what we can do are outside of our control or influence, and we have to hold that uncertainty.

But there’s a confidence, hope and resilience that we’ve been through so much and there’s such momentum and desire from local people to keep making change that we will find a way, which is the shards of light shining from the top.

Swirling around the challenges of growing an organisation, more risks and more to lose and less clarity on what steps to take and how to build the capacity to get to where we want to.

Finally, the future…where I hope we will continue to have highs and lows (because it would be boring otherwise!), we take risks, we stay different and disruptive, but with a calmer background and stronger support around us.

In case that makes no sense (it is quite out there) I’ve done a little film talking it through here, complete with lots ums!

Where we are heading — calmer, lovely bubbles of support around us, a shared process of making change happen.

We have had a tough few weeks (there are many tough weeks but these are up there), being around all the different people in our spaces and the little conversations have helped me realise it will be OK…

Just in the last couple of days…chatting to Dom our youngest member of the team about life, sharing car problems with Mary, going to Maria’s retirement party and being reminded of how far we have come, reminiscing with Craig about DIY in The Plot during the pandemic, talking about moss with Sonna, helping Magda write a letter, the knowing looks between me and Liliane as we juggle the summer holidays, listening to conversations in Jar Squad as they make Brown Sauce, hearing Nadine chatting away with a new volunteer, laughing with people about painting my nails before an important meeting — we are SO lucky to be on this adventure with all these people.

That’s what you can’t capture in a plan, strategy or funding application — all those relationships and moments that make a community that looks out for each other and can make change together against all the odds.

Thanks for reading, I’m going to share more from now on so look out for the next instalment! Next time you ask how it’s going I’ll try and give a more honest answer. I have no idea what to do with this random bit of sewing — all ideas welcome.

Hannah x

PS I’ve assumed you know us, if you don’t know about Nudge Community Builders check us out here.