Pioneering projects that are disrupting the status quo
16 January 2023
Modernising the movement against unjust debt and toward a fair economy. Telling the real story of homelessness, helping to solve the problem one person at a time. Elevating the dogs and people who make life possible for so many. Changing the game for children’s sports coaching. Giving the next generation of environmentalists a platform from which to be seen and heard.
That’s just a few highlights from the past 18 months of social and environmental change projects already making positive ripples in their respective spaces.
It’s a been privilege to work with so many trailblazing charities and organisations. Not just recently, but over the past 20+ years. Partnering with pioneers is what gets us out of bed in the morning. We’ve dedicated ourselves to finding what matters about these changemakers — about their true purpose, their unique solution to the world’s problems. And then creating the stories, brands and participation needed to make these matter more to the world.
We’ll be sharing some of what we’ve learned, along with early outcomes and impacts throughout the year. For now, here’s a long overdue snapshot of our work.
A big shout-out
Thank you to all the people we’ve worked with so far — our client-partners, their supporters and stakeholders, and our collaborators and extended community — for an inspiring, humanity-affirming, purposeful journey. Here’s to making positive change matter more in 2023. #TheBetterYear
Dogs for Good
Helping to make life possible
Ever heard of Dogs for Good? Having helped this extraordinary charity tell its story on BBC Radio 4 at Christmas, we hope a few more people around the UK will recognise that name.
Dogs for Good truly is a trailblazer in its sector. A charity that could revolutionise social care in the UK. What the team do is extraordinary, but how they do it is even more so.
They expertly train and nurture dogs to support people with diverse health and social-care needs, carefully matching them to form life-changing partnerships and community projects that enable each person they work with to feel empowered, independent and connected to the world.
The process is centred on both the person and the dog, ensuring mutually beneficial outcomes. Supporting people in ways other humans just can’t, the dogs feel loved, cared for and full of purpose. These are dogs that make life possible in ways we’d never imagined… Who knew Labradors could help us get dressed in the morning?
Before Christmas, we’d been working behind the scenes with Dogs for Good for about a year, deep-diving into identity and culture and becoming a trusted extension of their team. And what an inspiring, illuminating journey it’s been so far.
Your Place
Reframing homelessness
Having worked with Crisis and Shelter, we were excited to be able to support another homelessness charity making waves in the sector. Caritas Anchor House, as they were known when they got in touch with us, is now Your Place: a sanctuary and a starting point for people experiencing homelessness, where they can rebuild a sense of community, belonging and self-belief in their future. A progressive organisation that we found to be ‘solving homelessness, one person at a time’.
What an epic journey it’s been, from research and engagement through to renaming the organisation and reframing homelessness to help shift perceptions, starting with those of the people they support. It’s early days, but we’re intrigued about what the future holds for this incredibly hardworking organisation. Case study coming soon.
Their National Park
“Don’t break nature!”
Playfulness can be a potent vessel for a serious message. Which is exactly what we had in mind when asking a bunch of keenly informed South Downs schoolchildren what the future holds for their national park, and what adults can do to protect it for generations to come. Their National Park is a series of film clips delivering a powerful edict… and a few practical lessons for parents wanting a better world for their children.
We were asked to make these as an extension to the bigger Your National Park project, a collection of short films for South Downs National Park that we’ve been working on for two years now, partly due to pandemic delays. More on that epic mission and its many outcomes soon.
Debt Justice
Modernising the movement for a fair economy
Now more than ever, the world must wake up to unjust debt. A complex and ingrained instrument of financial oppression that’s driving up the cost of living, perpetuating poverty and neocolonial exploitation, and worsening the impact of climate change on communities that are most vulnerable yet least contributing to the crisis.
A call for change that connects the issues was central to the brief the Debt Justice team (then Jubilee Debt Campaign) asked us to answer through a transformative renaming, rebrand and reimagining of purpose. We helped them shed their outmoded identity and equip themselves with the language and symbolism to build the movement for debt justice, equality and fairness.
Play their way
Changing the game for children in sport
Neo have gone further than expected to help us truly understand what matters most to children when taking part in sport and physical activity delivered by someone coaching.
— Sion Kitson, Coaching & Professional Workforce, Sport England
During the pandemic, we guided a group of progressive coaching professionals on an epic and organic journey to realising their dream for radical change in children’s sport. With our help, what began as a seed of an idea grew into not only a powerful proposition, but also an inclusive call-to-action for coaches, parents and policymakers to: play their way.
The Children’s Coaching Collaborative is made up of members of coaching bodies and workforces, children’s advocates and a children’s rights lawyer. Working in partnership, we created an identity, manifesto, organisational strategy and the beginnings of an engagement plan — all based on the needs, voices and rights of children. It could be a while until this is put into action, but Play their way has the potential of becoming a UK-wide movement that could help to shift mindsets, address inequalities and make physical activity more accessible for more children and young people.
World changers, we’re with you
We’ve always been with the optimists. Those who believe the world can be different, that radical human change is possible. The disruptors. The pioneers. The progressives. Those with the ideas to unlock our greatest human challenges, but also the boldness of heart and mind to make change happen.
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If you’d like to learn more about how we can help your brand, culture and organisational change matter more, book us in for a free advice session.
