At last, the time has come: betterplace labs well:being and co:lab are launching
At last, the time has come. For five years now I’ve been wishing for a space where people that work to serve the public good can strengthen and regenerate themselves. A space where they can reflect upon their own activities and develop new inner and outer competencies that make them happier and more effective in their work.
And that’s exactly what we’ve got now: last week we launched the programs betterplace well:being and betterplace co:lab. They are aimed at all activists and volunteers, heads and employees of associations, NGOs or social businesses, following the approach: only if you yourself are doing well, can you effectively contribute to the societal transformation process that is so urgently necessary now. And only if you are stable within yourself, can you enter into strategic alliances with other organisations, thus significantly increasing your influence.
In How are you? Good enough, to do good? I described why the social sector needs a radical cultural change. After all, it is precisely those people who help others and work for a healthier, sustainable and solidary future who are often most on edge. They suffer above average from burnout, depression and poverty in old age.
To reverse this alarming trend, we need a new culture in the social sector: a culture that supports activists in their personal development and helps them form effective alliances with like-minded people to increase their impact.
In recent years I have experienced that transformation has an outer and an inner dimension. But while we pay a lot of attention to the outer dimension, we lack both a differentiated understanding and the tools and resources necessary for inner transformation. In New Work needs Inner Work Bettina Rollow and I describe how digitalisation, globalisation (and today corona) make our world more and more complex, fluid and uncertain. But to be able to shape it, we need sufficient security and orientation. If these are greatly reduced on the outside, we must develop them on the inside. That is why new inner competencies such as self-contact and authenticity, empathy and transparent communication, multiperspectivity and meta-reflection are essential components of the “digital mindset”. (I recently wrote an article for the Stanford Social Innovation Review on the role of wellbeing in the social sector.)
My first inspiration to combine social change and inner transformation came from the international Wellbeing Project. Here I met social entrepreneurs who had gone through a deep personal growth process that fundamentally changed them and their organisations for the better. At the same time, we went through a similar process in the betterplace lab, which focused on building inner competencies.
When betterplace was given the use of the 3500m2 former transformer substation on the Paul-Lincke Ufer in Kreuzberg for five years as a gift from Google in 2019, my colleagues and I spent several months in a container on the construction site of what was to become bUm, holding many discussions with associations, NGOs and activists. Again and again the unhealthy, even exploitative culture of our sector came up and solidified our vision to build the bUm as a regenerative place for socially engaged people. My colleague Carolin Silbernagl added another focus on collaboration to my plans for a wellbeing program. She saw the need to help the many small organisations work together successfully to become more effective and powerful. Although many organisations strive to collaborate with each other in theory, this is rarely successful. Co-creation and collaboration need extra resources and new skills.
Collaborating with unusual, exciting partners
In the betterplace lab, we then outlined a comprehensive program and started looking for sponsors. This was not easy, because many sponsors saw the need, yet were unwilling to get involved in this new subject. After many planning rounds, presentations and the generous support of Sebastian Baier from the Co-Creation Loft (via Tomas Björkman), we had found an unusual, but in its diversity very exciting coalition of supporters in early 2020: The betterplace well:being program is supported by three company health insurance funds, BKK VBU, Salus BKK and pronova BKK, who bring their own interests in the subject: what will the health care of the future look like, when many people no longer work as permanent employees in companies, but as solo entrepreneurs in co-working offices? How does digitisation change our health needs and interests? For the betterplace co-lab program, we were able to win the Schöpflin Foundation and Luminate. Both sponsors are committed to researching and improving the conditions for successful collaboration in the social sector.
In the last few months, as the programs have been honed, this choice of partners has proven to be a real stroke of luck. Because our partners have the same interest in knowledge and implementation as we do and the cooperation is accordingly collegial and constructive.
What can you expect as potential participants of the program?
Two Programs under one roof
betterplace well:being
By the term Wellbeing we understand the ability to deal with the inner tensions of increased complexity and uncertainty in a mindful and conscious way. This includes developing a new balance between our basic needs for security and freedom.
The term Wellbeing is not very common in Germany. That is why for a while we were looking for a catchier German term. But as the months went by, Wellbeing popped up more and more in the international discourse and established itself as the umbrella term for a whole series of developments that aim to improve quality of life. These include, for example, the Wellbeing budgets of New Zealand or Canadian governments, but also the concept of “Digital Wellbeing” (healthy use of technology).
Within the framework of the program betterplace well:being, five different free workshops for inner strengthening await you. The workshops build on each other and will be repeated on a rolling basis over the next two years. Due to Corona, the first workshops will take place digitally. As soon as possible, we will also offer face-to-face events at bUm. And while the initial courses are in German, English language workshop will follow in 2021.
betterplace co:lab
Our societies are facing comprehensive challenges. There are no easy solutions to questions of economic and political participation, the management of natural resources or rapid technological development. They require ongoing social negotiation that recognises systemic connections and accepts that there are many different development scenarios.
This negotiation can succeed if organisations and stakeholders from all sectors learn to engage with their different perspectives. Good cooperation therefore requires time, a commitment to others, give-and-take, and the courage to take risks. We call this collaboration.
Collaboration does not mean transactional negotiation, which we know from working with others. Collaboration means co-creative development: in a creative process, a solution perspective emerges that is more than the sum of its parts.
Within the framework of the betterplace co:lab, a total of 66 free workshops for beginners await you over the next two years, in which more than 500 people can participate. In addition, we will accompany eight cross-organisational groups (so-called theme clusters), which in turn consist of needs-based process coaching and work sessions.
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All offers are free of charge and open for participants that engage themselves full-time or on an honorary basis for the social-ecological change of our world.
Details about the workshops and the team of coaches, therapists and organisational developers can be found on the respective websites:
Link to betterplace well:being
Link to betterplace co:lab
P.S.: Another note on our own behalf: with this program we are, in many respects, breaking new ground. That’s why we are all the more keen to share our experience and knowledge — e.g. in the form of podcasts and blog posts. But we would also be very happy about accompanying scientific research. Please contact our project manager Anja Adler (anja.adler@betterplace.org) if you want to do research in our range of topics!
The German version of this article appeared last week on the betterplace blog here.
