What are the practices and mindsets that can be helpful to navigate loss, grief, change and transitions? And what does it mean to make good compost as we close ideas, forms, collective creations that no longer serve us?
These are some of the questions we are asking at Stewarding Loss.
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In these times of transitions, of systems shifts, of collapse and erosion, of unravelling - of so much no longer making sense, or seeming to work - we think that the shape of tomorrow will be in part determined by the richness and health of the compost from which seeds of the future grow. This means paying as much attention to endings as we do to beginnings.
We can’t do systemic work without tending to the end of things as well - whether that’s stewarding endings as they unfold, or trying to accelerate something coming to a close through intentional hospice work – where outworn patterns can die with dignity and witnessing.
Some of our interests and work in this space are practical and applicable in the here and now - especially for civil society. We know that there are a growing number of organisations, of people in leadership roles, of huge portfolio’s of initiatives that are all being required to look at their longevity. We really care about this work, and that it is done well - this is what makes good compost.
And we are just as interested in the bigger questions, ideas and practices related to hospicing - how integral it is as part of systemic work, to growing our capacity to cope in a climate-altered world and to the work of being in transition. As well as how it links to decolonisation, to unlearning, to the dying, submerging, dismantling and disintegration of mindsets, worldviews and industries.
If you want to jump to reading some posts that give you more detail ~
The original blog post from 2018 that seeded Stewarding Loss.
The role of endings in any work about transitions and transformation.
A list of 60 things that will help build the infrastructure for better endings in Civil Society.
Need practical support with an ending? The Decelerator is ready to help.
If you are a UK-based civil society organisation looking for practical support with endings you are anticipating or designing, The Decelerator is a service set up in 2023 to support better endings.
The Decelerator emerged from research and endings support tested through Stewarding Loss. The international work of Stewarding Loss around hospicing, loss and transitions continues alongside that of The Decelerator whose complimentary focus is to meet the urgent and growing need for practical support for endings in UK civil society.
“We need to pay attention to endings as much as beginnings (start-ups) - hospice work for the dying culture as much as midwifery for the new. ”
— International Futures Forum
Our Journey So Far
2019
This started out as an idea for a Farewell Fund, and supported through an Ideas & Pioneers grant to Cassie Robinson from the Paul Hamlyn Foundation.
The Farewell Fund was a response to there being so little conversation, let alone action when it comes to the ending of organisations in civil society. Cassie had been working for over 15 years in the ‘systemic change’ field and with ‘transition design’ practice and the endings or hospicing aspects of that work always had the least attention paid to them. Endings are important as part of the natural cycle of growth, change, renewal and innovation within civil society. Sometimes organisations need to die - to end - and they should be supported to do so with dedicated funding, practical support, care and intent. As is done at the start of the life of an organisation.
Then Covid-19 happened.
2020
With the arrival of Covid-19, warnings of a tidal wave of nonprofit closures abounded. Sector commentators, organisation leaders, funders, infrastructure bodies and other stakeholders warned that 1 in 10 organisations could face closure as a result of the pressures of the pandemic. For that reason it felt inappropriate to continue with the Farewell Fund framing. The loss we’d been looking to confront through that work looked like it had been accelerated and the decisions about which organisations will and won’t survive felt out of anyone’s control. We chose to focus on supporting nonprofits to find ways to cope with this shift, and to support the sector. We believed it was more important than ever to steward loss and look at how to end things well.
We also made a distinction between the enforced closing of organisations brought on by external events versus encouraging organisations to identify the right time to end - and we were looking to support both.
Iona Lawrence came on board to lead the work, to inform this she interviewed over 30 people, listened to the experiences of those who have led organisational endings and sought to witness where nonprofit leaders were anticipating loss by hosting Loss Circles, with the support of Thanatologist Cass Humphries-Massey.
In November 2020 we published the following:
Sensing An Ending shares our first draft of 7 principles to steward better organisational endings, with an accompanying guidebook. This was an important trajectory to take, as it is responding to the context of the present, and the impacts of Covid-19.
Staying Close to Loss is an introduction to the idea of continual enquiry in an organisations’ life span — where loss is considered within organisational strategy as ordinarily as ‘growth.’ This is explored through a series of canvases.
2021
Rooted in what we’d learned over the first year, we started 2021 with the following ambitions:
To support organisations considering, facing or designing a closure at this time with practical and emotional guidance and signposting to support. This work is rooted in our belief that whatever situation an organisation finds itself in, it is possible to find agency and determine how an ending will feel, be experienced, and what it will leave behind.
To contribute to a wider systemic shift whereby organisational ending or closure is considered within organisational strategy as ordinarily as ‘growth.’
Therefore over the past year we have experimented with the following ideas:
A community of practice — creating a network of practitioners who can support civil society organisations to design their endings, and intelligently and carefully dismantle them.
Ongoing listening circles — a series of peer-to-peer circles facilitated by Janice Johnson, with 3 different focal points to choose from: one for people going through organisational endings, one for people anticipating an organisational ending and one for people that want to explore the wider systemic and regenerative practices that need developing in relation to loss, across civil society
An enquiry specifically for funders — funders who want to better understand and define the appropriate roles that they can take in resourcing wise and dignified organisational endings can join a growing community of funders are exploring this.
A series of events — that will bring this work into the wider consciousness of civil society organisations — to encourage a cultural shift in how organisational endings are perceived, designed for and experienced. Alongside positioning this work in a longer time frame, connecting civil society work to the losses other crises will bring, like the ecological and climate emergency.
From mid 2021, Iona Lawrence was joined by Louise Armstrong to steward the next phase of this exploration.
2022
In 2022 we focused much of our energy on rolling up our sleeves and experimenting with the most effective ways of supporting organisations to consider and undertake closures and endings. This work included:
Working with the Small Charities Coalition - through it’s final chapter, Stewarding Loss supported SCC to design the best possible ending in the circumstances it found itself and capture and share its learnings for funders, infrastructure and wider civil society. Read the learnings and legacy report here.
Working with Campaign Bootcamp - Stewarding Loss supported CB to reflect and synthesise its learnings from its 8 years of growing and closing a social justice organisation. Read the report here.
Both these closures set against the wider ‘perfect storm’ of rising costs, shrinking funding and increased need for civil society support in communities paints an urgent picture of what is needed to support good endings in civil society. We hosted a closed doors conversation for 20 funders in October 2022 to explore this together.
All this work and much more convinced us that dedicated support (or infrastructure as some call it) is needed for endings in civil society. It is our hope that The Decelerator will support organisations and individuals to consider and design closures, mergers, CEO transitions, programming ends, and all sorts of endings as just part of the everyday life of organisations and inevitable cycles of change in civil society. And we will work with funders, partners and stakeholders to show them how better endings can make a world of difference. To find out more about these plans and get involved, visit the Decelerator page.
“This is structural, if things ended well, civil society would be healthier overall.”
An interviewee as part of our research in 2020