What makes organisations good at meeting people’s needs?
During the three early months of the first Covid pandemic lockdown in Britain, from April to June 2020, Public World research associate Rose Rickford conducted online or telephone interviews with representatives of 35 grassroots community organisations around England and Wales.
Her aim was to discover how they were working to meet the needs of their local communities and to analyse correlation between organisational characteristics and effectiveness. This research was the raw material for her PhD thesis awarded recently by the University of York.
In this new report for Public World, Dr Rickford outlines the main findings of her research, and notes: “When an organisation enables its workers to develop caring relationships with those they are supporting, and values the knowledge gained through these relationships, the organisation creates the circumstances for responding effectively to changing and diverse needs. When this is well resourced, workers and organisations can act in ways that help to meet the real needs of their communities.”