We are mapping our choice points and rooting ourselves in our purpose.
Our Journey
The Beginnings
In 2017 the final report for the Civil Societies Futures Inquiry was published highlighting changes that need to be made in England in relation to civil societies. Following this our Partners (SCVO, Royal Society of Edinburgh, Foundation Scotland, The National Lottery Community Fund, The Robertson Trust, Corra Foundation and Carnegie Trust) came together to start the conversations about an inquiry into social action in Scotland. They created the Founding Document for the Inquiry.
The inquiry was due to start in 2020, but was delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. During the pandemic more people began doing social action and part of the Inquiry’s funding was used to fund Together, We Help – a national research project collecting those stories.
From 2021 the Core Team of Social Action Inquiry Scotland was recruited and the journey began. The Inquiry consisted of 12 Guides, 17 Communities telling their in-depth stories alongside storytellers capturing those stories.
Sharing Phase
Social Action Inquiry Scotland finished the storytelling phase of the Inquiry in December 2023. In 2024 there was resource available and a need to continue the Inquiry’s work by sharing the stories created by the communities. The Inquiry moved to a Sharing Phase.
In the Sharing Phase, the Inquiry resourced a network of people who have been involved in the Inquiry to share the stories and the findings of the Inquiry amongst their existing networks.
The Inquiry’s core team created Helping Change Happen – a guidebook containing the Community Stories, the learnings from the Inquiry into what Helps and Hinders social action, Calls for Action and the key messages from the Inquiry, the Time to Themes. Additionally, Helping Change Happen contains tools and resources created by, and used by the Inquiry.
Our Purpose
We are here to ask.
We know that social action is beneficial to our society. What we are inquiring into is what is helping it to happen and what barriers are getting in the way.
Therefore, with all the communities we partnered with we gave them two major questions: what helps them to do their social action and what is hindering them doing their social action?
What helps social action?
&
What hinders social action?
We are here to share stories.
We are sharing the stories from the communities who have partnered with us. We want to showcase social action with it’s struggles and it’s triumphs. We hope that others doing social action can see their own journey within these stories and that these stories are a legacy for social action. We are also documented our process during the Inquiry (explore the Learnings and Unlearnings from the Inquiry Process sections in Helping Change Happen Guidebook) to aid the work that follows us.
We are here to share stories.
We are sharing the stories from the communities who have partnered with us. We want to showcase social action with it’s struggles and it’s triumphs. We hope that others doing social action can see their own journey within these stories and that these stories are a legacy for social action. We are also documented our process during the Inquiry (explore the Learnings and Unlearnings from the Inquiry Process sections in Helping Change Happen Guidebook) to aid the work that follows us.
We are here to help the future of social action.
Things need to change. We are sharing our learnings and what helps and hinders social action with our Partners so together we know what we need to do differently. This will ensure that the future of social action is kept alive.
