Work in progress, March 2023

Discovery

• Project: Explore how Dovetail governance could evolve (while mindful of Catalyst)
  • Commissioned Robert Pye at Ethos to carry out work
  • “A social impact incubator working in the areas of wellbeing, work and placemaking.”
• Interviews: 7 people who have relationship with Catalyst, Dovetail and me
  • Dan, Ellie, Siana, John, Gem, Ben, Noam
• Workshop: Playback of findings and discussion

Learnings

• I have more passion for the purpose and mission of Dovetail than SIDE
  • I want to work at infrastructure / capacity building level
• People interviewed see Dovetail as my thing (and seem to trust me)
• Dovetail would benefit from funder and charity stewardship / interrogation
• Question raised about perceived conflict of interest (SIDE holding Dovetail)
• Ongoing sustainability is not clear (i.e. within Catalyst? own legal entity etc?)

Draft plan

From April to September (6 months)

• Focus most of my time on Dovetail (3 days Dovetail, 1 on SIDE)
• Setup up Advisory Group to meet every 4 or 6 weeks
  • Agency = Noam
  • Charity = X
  • Connector = X
  • Funder = X
  • Infrastructure org / capacity Builder = X
• Create Conflict of Interest register
• Develop value proposition (charities, then connectors, funders & agencies)
• Explore ongoing sustainability (i.e. business model, sustainable funding)
• Explore future governance and management