What is ‘Collective’?

Culture Central and people make it work are working together to build a programme, for those traditionally excluded from senior roles within the cultural sector. Collective takes an intersectional approach and aims to avoid working in a deficit model, focusing instead on the structures that limit and exclude.

Here at Culture Central, we want to see change within the cultural sector in the West Midlands. We recognise this happens through a plurality of experiences and a climate of inclusivity which leads to wider dynamism and relevance of the sector.

As a programme, Collective will accumulate and build each year, with the cohort maintaining a relationship with Culture Central to embed, share and support change.

Through this iterative and collaborative programme, we want to understand the factors that are holding people back in the region and make strategies and actions together for change. Collective, alongside Culture Central’s other programmes, activities and networks is integral to our role and commitment in supporting change.

Collective won’t make radical changes overnight but will give participants the the tools, mechanisms, and techniques to make change alongside Culture Central.

How does the Collective programme work?

Programme leaders

As programme partners, the people make it work team will bring extensive experience in developing and delivering tried and tested, cohort-based, collaborative learning programmes and communities of mutual support which empower and enable individuals to come together to realise the real and lasting transformation they wish to see in themselves, in their organisations and across the sector.

Approach

people make it work create learning programmes that are practice and people-focused, approaching leadership transformation from a holistic, non-hierarchical, inclusive perspective, guided by the following set of principles:

Human-centred, developmental, collaborative practice
Building consensus, ownership and agency
Durational, non-transactional engagement
Disruption, momentum and action orientation

Care, inclusion and trust
Parity and equity

Through our approach, we aim to build positive communities of trust based on shared leadership values, ensuring all participants are well-resourced, purposeful, focused and connected. We create holistic frameworks of support that allow leaders to work from a place of action and empowerment to implement their change goals both individually and collectively.

Programme format and structure

The Collective programme will span six months from October 2023 to March 2024. It will consist of six, day-long sessions held at cultural organisations and Culture Central partners across the West Midlands.

Alongside the series of in-person cohort sessions, we will be developing and curating an online hub of tools, materials and resources for open, on-demand access to learning for participants and their organisations.

Through 1:1 leadership progression sessions at the outset of the programme, we will explore the needs and ambitions of each participant and identify individual concrete development goals and strategies for change as they embark on the journey with us. We will reconvene with individuals at the end of the programme to reflect, take stock and identify next steps approaches as we move into year two of the programme.

Based on our action-learning approach, we envisage that participants will maintain progress and momentum through independent work over the course of the programme - testing insights, applying learnings and engaging with other cohort members between the sessions themselves.

This work is funded as part of our Arts Council England IPSO work.