2019

This work started out as a blog post provocation, with 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.

“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.”

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 co-lead the work. To inform this Iona interviewed over 30 people, and both Cassie and Iona 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 was 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.’ 

Throughout 2021 we experimented with the following ideas:

• A Care-Full Closures Fund — building on the original idea of the ‘Farewell Fund’ and with a £20,000 grant from Paul Hamlyn Foundation, we prototyped the readiness of the field to apply to a Care-Full Closures Fund.

• 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.

2022

In 2022 Louise Armstrong joined Iona in the work and they focused much of their energy on rolling up their 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 them that dedicated support (or infrastructure as some call it) is needed for endings in civil society and the idea for the Decelerator was born.

During this time Cassie was primarily embedded within several philanthropic institutions but continued to contribute what she was learning through her work in those contexts. She also did some one-off consulting contracts focussed on endings with places like the Shuttleworth Foundation.

2023

Iona and Louise started fundraising for The Decelerator and that became their full-time focus. The Decelerator is supporting 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 visit the Decelerator.

“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.”