Sometimes the joy of “Yay! we got funding” turns into a queasy feeling of trepidation. We call that the Fear of Delivery and it can strike at any time…
Some groups are just not ready to go it alone. Getting community projects off the ground takes a wide set of skills and in our experience you’re very lucky if a newly formed group has got them all. As part of our Community Activators project we’ve seen the Fear of Delivery strike the keenest of groups.
The high hopes of “we could do this brilliant thing if we had the funding,” turns into “oh no, we’ve got to hit these targets within this timeframe or else”. So what’s to be done? Especially with the pressures of co-production and community-enabling agendas making this a growing problem.
No-one likes to make mistakes in public. So, we offer to support or even lead local projects in a way that allows community participants to have a go and develop their skills in a safe space. We will work alongside them and slowly worm our way into the background and through the exit doors as their fear turns into confidence.