These memos exist to help document the honest, behind-the-scenes reflections of building an alternative research space. I share my personal musings, developments and systems as I run Reconcile Journal, which is helpful for a few reasons:
shows my working - helps me work out the kinks transparently or ‘in public’
acts as our personal archive as RJ grows
allows me to share some of the thoughts that don’t sit neatly into a research digest, which is the main resource shared on the website
Today’s reflection is an emotional one, as it’s processing the rejection we received earlier in the summer. Do it Now Now is ‘an open-innovation organisation committed to the empowerment of Black people through the provision of access to opportunities for social mobility through financial inclusion and entrepreneurship’. I’ve long admired them and continue to love the work they are doing with Black + Global Majority founders.
They launched a wonderful fund called ‘Innovate Now’ in collaboration with the Wellcome Collection:
An intro to the Innovate Now fund I applied for
Applying was ambitious because at the time of the open call, we were within our first 6 months of existing, and had only just begun our public engagement supporting researchers to imagine, play and question the way they ‘do’ research. Supporting researchers (specifically Black and under-represented researchers) is one of the main things we do here, but not the only thing, as we also translate and visualise research as a public resource too, amongst other things.
The process was beautiful (though high-pressured) because it allowed us to start thinking about social proof and impact measurement from very early on. Music to my ears because before academia, I was Head of Impact and Communication for a small mental health charity in East London and enjoy working on social proof and impact.
Researcher feedback in our deck
We gathered feedback, testimonies and comments from researchers, senior lecturers and practitioners from the UK and beyond about how our work impacted them.
And honestly, who doesn’t like to read a love letter to the world they are building?
The comments we gathered filled me with confidence that we are on the right path. I will share more feedback & social proof here on the archive at some point in the future.
Anyway, to cut a long story short, we were unsuccessful this time round. After the initial few weeks of devastation😭, I am finally ready to get back on the horse and apply for something new. I am oversimplifying the mourning process, as the fund really did feel tailor-made for us, but to support the reflection process, I have asked for feedback to help us understand what was misaligned. In addition, I am sharing the full evidence deck we submitted below, alongside some thoughts on lessons learnt for full transparency.
The main benefit I’ve found from applying for funding before you’re conventionally ‘ready’ is the bootcamp training that teaches you what it takes to be your own ‘Head of Impact’ very early on.
Both the application questions and deciding what counts as evidence of our impact has shifted the way I design our offerings and how I collect data. It has led to me saving emails, comments, responses and feedback - however small - as I go along. It also means the systems I create (such as how Google Forms are used and stored) are tailored to the work we are doing as we grow, rather than trying to create it after the fact.
Another thing that I think has helped is pushing the creativity around what metrics we can report on. Because we are in our first year, I used less common metrics to help demonstrate our work.
Example:
It’s why you’ll always see me include a brief person profile for every attendee quote I share, so you know who said it (seen in each of the above examples). As you know, if conversations are a research method, who contributes to that conversation has to be helpful context. I have built a spreadsheet of all the wonderful people who have attended, what their research passions are and what their research ‘role’ is. I collate this by matching their registration form details, what they share in the chat/transcript during the session, and their feedback form.
Having to do a budget spreadsheet was also extremely helpful (if not a little bittersweet) because now I know exactly how we could spend the money to improve what we do here, if I had it. A friend of mine had asked a while ago:
if an investor offered you 15k tomorrow, would you know what to do with it?
Now I do! Need someone to follow through and give us the money now 🤭
Lastly, the confidence to apply for funding has to start with simply applying. Now the mystique has been broken, there is clarity to the level of work and hours needed to pull it together, and a good foundation of impact measurement methodologies in place, momentum can develop as I can apply for the next fund that aligns with our values.
any questions?
Please feel free to get in touch if you have questions, advice or want to chat anything through as I am happy to help/share more. If you are a successful fundraiser and want to offer support, even better - I would love to learn from you.
Better yet - if you are an investor and want to give us money, we are very willing participants and will spend it intentionally and wisely!
Read the other memos in our playbook here - where I share honest, personal reflections on building Reconcile Journal
until next time
Amberlee from Reconcile Journal
