Moving on — but staying part of the family always
After 11 years as Founder and CEO of The Cares Family, I am starting to think about succession and plan to stand down at the end of April 2023.
Starting, leading and growing The Cares Family for such a long time has been one of the greatest privileges of my life. In 11 years we have built a group of five locally rooted charities in rapidly changing cities, each reducing loneliness amongst older and younger people through genuinely mutual relationships and shared experiences across difference; and one umbrella charity leading national projects, campaigns and storytelling to drive narrative change, systemic change and culture change so that we promote community, neighbourliness and togetherness over individualism and separation.
We have been more successful in that journey than I ever could have imagined. From a standing start in 2011, more than 26,000 older and younger people have now found connection in disconnecting times through social clubs that bring joy, magic and meaning to people’s lives; one-to-one friendships that help bring some of the outside world in for people who can struggle to get out; outreach that identifies people at risk of isolation where they are and builds trust slowly; and community fundraising that helps older and younger people to build camaraderie and agency while keeping all their activities free. These approaches express our values that people in communities have power, and our fundraising approach means that only 1% of our income is raised from national or local government. The Cares Family started as a bottom up community; 11 years later, we remain a bottom up organisation, albeit with national influence.
Of course, I am most proud of the impact we have had in our communities. Our intergenerational model is shown to reduce loneliness and isolation amongst older and younger people alike; to help people feel happier, closer to the community, and that they have more people who they can rely on; to feel deeper understanding across generations and backgrounds; to feel a sense of connection to self as well as belonging to community – to feel ‘part of something bigger than their own lives’. In these 11 years spanning austerity, Brexit, populism and polarisation, a pandemic and other huge challenges to our local and national togetherness, our work has helped people to hold another close.
We’ve done this while successfully challenging some shibboleths: that loneliness is an affliction confined to older people or simply a personal emotion and not a wider social problem; that charities have to be bureaucratic or systematic, or see themselves as saviours, rather than enablers of human relationships in communities; that funders should have the final say on what happens in the work they support. When the pandemic came in 2020, we decided to work even harder to keep people connected in disconnecting times: the result is that we worked with more people than ever in 2020 and 2021.
In that period, we also built on our experience to launch The Cares Family’s national projects too. By 2024 The Multiplier will have supported 50 people building connection in their own communities in their own ways to deepen their initiatives and impact – with grants, coaching and a uniquely relational leadership programme helping community leaders around the country to build power through relationships. The programme is based on my Obama Fellowship, which I would never have had the privilege to be part of without the support of my colleagues who have constantly inspired me to think bigger.
We have also launched our national Ripple Effect programme, which will help 50 institutions around the country to adopt and adapt The Cares Family’s intergenerational model wherever they are in the UK, and which will support them to build their work sustainably. The Cares Family’s plan in the next four years is to spur a ripple of connection everywhere, and we have an updated strategy and brand new funding partnerships that are enabling us to do that.
I’m also proud that over these 11 years of challenge and change, The Cares Family’s vision of a more connected age has influenced the national argument so much. Our work has featured in every major newspaper in the UK, as well as on the Today Programme; BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and Sky News and BBC1’s Inside Out documentary; in the Chicago Tribune, Sydney Herald, and in media in Germany, Hong Kong, Japan and beyond. In 2021, East London Cares was even on Eastenders. This ambitious storytelling is fundamental to our approach – because stories, in their emotion, motivate people to take action.
In 2018 I was also proud that we contributed so much – through the work to honour my friend Jo Cox – to the creation of the world’s first ever government level loneliness strategy. The strategy was launched at a Cares Family social club by the then Prime Minister: it remains an exemplar of how governments everywhere can tackle what I call the personal, public health and political crisis of loneliness.
To support our mission, The Cares Family has raised £14 million in 11 years. Even in challenging times, we have broken even or achieved surpluses in 35 accounting years out of 37 across our six charities – enabling us to invest in further growth confidently. Our latest plans show nearly £1m in reserves (around five and a half months of planned expenditure). In 2022, we have rebuilt our Board and Senior Leadership Team for the long-term, bringing in experienced leaders to guide the organisation in the coming years. We have secured new national partnerships with The October Club and others to enable us to continue to grow. Most crucially, what started in 2011 as an idea – with no trustees, no plans and no money – has grown into a team of 50 dedicated, passionate people who, along with our communities of neighbours, remain the beating heart of The Cares Family.
As each of these milestones has racked up, I have become ever more confident that this is the time to step aside and allow someone else the privilege to lead The Cares Family. I have other passions in life that I want to follow: the problems in society beyond loneliness and community separation; how politics might and might not be the right solution to those challenges; football and music, writing — and writing about football and music; my friends, family and my own community in north London; and of course my baby twins and my partner Dom who have been more than patient enough as I have tried to co-parent while also giving so much to my other family, The Cares Family.
I also feel I still have something to contribute to The Cares Family that has been such a huge part of my life for so long, so I will continue to support the organisation’s growth, the team and the next Chief Executive after April while I appraise my next steps. I’m grateful to the trustees for their accommodation and belief in this arrangement. In return, in the coming months I’m going to help the organisation I love to find the best CEO to take The Cares Family into the future (if that’s you – find out more here).
Finally, a word on the people who have really built The Cares Family: our team of staff, past and present, who have given so much energy and love to our shared mission and to their neighbours. Reducing loneliness is hard. Making social change is hard. It takes patience and compromise. It takes a pinch of radicalism and a ton of pragmatism. It takes sacrifice. And it takes an eye on the long view – not the fashion of the day, or the chant of the crowd, but a belief that while we have to start with the world as it is, we can also be optimistic, and imagine the world as it should be. Your compassion makes you the best of the best; believe in better still, and you will make more change than you know is possible.
Back in 2011, my intention was simple: to build a community, not a charity or an organisation per se, to bridge difference and division. As it happened, we built six charities and one national organisation. But I hope that the spirit in which they were built – ambitious, enterprising, restless; unencumbered by process; working on neither side of the culture divide, but rather to bridge it; making the argument and telling stories every day – will be carried forward by one of the most inspiring groups I’ve ever met.
The process for selection for the next CEO has started: if you’re interested in leading The Cares Family through its next period of growth, innovation and impact, find out about how you can apply here.
