This is because we don’t believe that meaningful social change can be effected in isolated groups, nor when spaces are inaccessible to many. Instead, we need a connected and accessible approach within our organisations and our movements.

We work with groups in civil society to build framing strategies that can shift cultures. We believe that for frames to do the work they need to do—uniting movements and giving people voice—the process of developing and telling stories is as important as the content that is actually produced.

Increasingly, then, we have come to see the need to organise in anti-oppressive and democratic ways as integral to our approach. We’ve started by redesigning our own organisational structure so that it is rooted in practices that are both more aligned with our values and make us a more effective team. We’re working to develop this work further to enable others in our movement to work to their potential.

Our work is strongly rooted in the social sciences and in participatory practices. Social psychologists Shalom Schwartz and Anat Bardi have shown us the importance of intrinsic values; researcher-storyteller Brene Brown and cognitive linguist George Lakoff have taught us the impact of stories on ourselves and our culture; Anat Shenker-Osorio, the FrameWorks Institute and the Centre for Story Based Strategy, have all informed our methods of developing and testing frames; Training for Change, bell hooks and Paulo Freire have influenced our pedagogy; we’ve been inspired by Edge Fund, more like people, movements such as Black Lives Matter and Sisters Uncut, Platform and our constantly evolving friends at NEON in our understanding of radical organising and organisations.

In response to this, we formally moved to working non-hierarchically in late 2015. This means that every team member has equal input and decision-making power in the direction and running of the organisation, and we share the tasks related to general organisational management as well as project or delivery work.

We do this through four Core Groups (Direction, People, Programming and Resources), four Delivery Roles (Network, Production, Research and Workshops), staff retreats, and a clear meeting cycle and lines of accountability. It isn’t always easy, and we’ve learnt a lot along the way. But building an organisation based on our values is critical to our work, underpinning and informing our focus on shifting culture.  

As we continue to develop these systems internally, we’re also hoping to build a community of practice around organisational culture work. We’d like to share, and learn from others, and so this has also become a core part of our strategy. Find more about that [here].

Liberation

We are working towards a more equal society. This requires that we dismantle the current interlinking systems of oppression (such as the patriarchy, heteronormativity, ableism, imperialism and white supremacy), both in the world ‘out there’ and within our own groups and organisations. To that end, we work with diverse groups and seek accessibility for participation in the events that we run (such as workshops), in our communications (for example publications) and in our own hiring practices.

Furthermore, we’d like the way we work to actively challenge the power structures that reproduce inequality and injustice. This means consciously choosing to work in ways that are liberatory, or anti-oppressive, and being aware of our own privileges.

Connection

We believe change happens through people working together; building power through movements; and sharing resources and knowledge. This requires us to create new connections outside of our usual ‘bubbles’, but also to build and strengthen the networks and communities we already inhabit. This means communicating compassionately and in ways that are accessible, building trust, and sharing with and supporting each other. In this vein, we work collaboratively and openly, in partnership wherever possible, bringing diverse groups together, and producing resources for wider use.

Participation

A more democratic society sits at the core of our mission and so we seek to build democratic and participatory principles into all of our work. This is true, not least, in the restructuring of our organisation away from hierarchy and towards a flatter, more inclusive way of working. We also try to embed these principles in our project work and with collaborators.

Creativity

We cannot continue to ignore the structural issues within our society that maintain power imbalances, injustice, and exploitation. Our current systems are failing us. We need new ways of working, not tweaks to the old. We think this requires creativity and experimentation: trying new things and taking risks. A man we know once said failure is the compost of success, and we agree. We try to foster creativity, lightheartedness and humour in all of our work: in our workshops with other people, and in the resources and communications we produce. We value ideas in the workplace and try to be honest and celebratory about our failures as well as our successes.

Connection with the natural world

We believe in protecting the environment for future generations and encouraging current generations to enjoy and appreciate nature more now.  To that end, we work towards a sustainable office environment, we travel by train for work commitments and we have meetings outdoors whenever technology and weather permit.

PIRC was set up with grants from the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust (JRCT) and the Social Services Trust over 40 years ago. One way or another, JRCT has supported every one of our major ventures over the years.

Currently, we also receive funding from the Friends Provident Foundation, the KR Foundation, the Open Society Foundations, the Polden Puckham Charitable Foundation, Jam Today, the Marmot Charitable Trust and the 1970 Trust.

We’re also grateful to former funders of projects and core income: Allen Lane Foundation, Anthony Thorold, Artists Project Earth, Arts Council Wales, the Consumers Association, Dag Hammarskjold Foundation, Ford Foundation, Hamamelis Trust, Lipman Miliband Trust, Lush Charity Pot, the Network for Social Change, Nuffield Foundation, RH Southern, Sainsbury’s Family Trusts, Scurrah Wainwright, Social Science Research Council, Trocaire and WWF-UK.

We’ve also been kindly, but indirectly, supported by the funders of other organisations we partner with, such as in our work with ILGA-Europe or NEON.

If you would like to support PIRC, donate here or get in touch.

* With the recent exception of statutory support following the 2020 Coronavirus Pandemic.

Founded by Charles Medawar and Michael Young, we set out to develop and apply methods to assess corporate performance, focusing on the issue of excessive secrecy in British governance. Much of our early work was of an investigative nature, uncovering the (usually negative) impact of corporations and public bodies on people, communities and the environment.

As society became increasingly aware of climate change and the need for widespread understanding and action, PIRC shifted its focus accordingly. Between 2005 and 2010, under the leadership of Tim Helweg-Larsen, we worked to stimulate the environmental debate in the UK, giving others the space to push for deeper change in policy and attitudes.

It was partly through witnessing the limits of the environmental movement, in particular its over-reliance on communicating information without an understanding of psychology, that we developed a crucial aspect of its approach: working on values in collaboration with The Common Cause Foundation. During this time, PIRC published the Common Cause Handbook and ran over 100 workshops for campaigners, activists, artists, trade unionists and politicians who worked on everything from human rights to tax to climate change. We worked with campaigners and communicators to apply values to three key areas of their work: what they called for (the ultimate change they wanted to see); how they organised (the structures and dynamics in their own teams), and how they engaged people (framing).

This led us to our current focus: developing participatory approaches to framing and informed our decision, in 2015, to transition to a flat management structure.

Read more about PIRC’s history.

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Public Interest Research Centre
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