This is not my... Interview
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Michael Norton OBE, Author of '365 Ways to Change the World'
"The ultimate answer for anyone who has ever asked "How can I make a difference?"
See www.365act.com for more details of what one Daily Mail reviewer say's is: By far the most enticing and informative book…I finally stopped being a cynic.* |
When did you first get involved with Social Development Work?
Many many years ago while I was working as a merchant banker.
I was 23 at the time. I had been doing some voluntary work but I wanted to do something to help immigrants who had recently arrived, many from South Asia who could not speak English.
I was told that I couldn’t just go and ‘do good’ I needed a skill and I thought – well I speak English.
It ended in me setting up the first language teaching scheme in the country.
It was an accident but I became the expert. I had a feature in the Telegraph and was on television. Education authorities began writing to me saying – can you help us?
So of course I did and came up with solutions.
Such ideas as – in your school you have 90% of pupils who speak English and 10% who can’t – why don’t you get those who can speak English to teach those who can’t....
We were all volunteers and we begged borrowed and stole books and equipment. It wasn’t like today though – we didn’t have a name or organisation or money – we just did it.
We would do fund raising parties two or three times a year. We would get a free space and bring along music and food and it was just a giggle. I sometimes regret that today everything is very much set and structured. You can’t just get on with it.
When I started the project I would just go to a school and talk to the head teacher and ask if they had any recently arrived pupils that required home tuition. They would give me a list and I would go and knock on people’s doors and ask if they wanted a teacher.
They always said yes.
I had a very understanding boss who allowed me to go and do this.
In my next company it was actually a requirement of the job. We were told that we had to take half a day off to do other things.
They reckoned that people would try to follow their other interests anyway and by legitimising it you would gain the loyalty and hard work of your employees.
It meant that I worked with all sorts of fascinating people. Someone managing a pop group, another a writer, the financial controller of a Ugandan hotel chain. All sorts of things.
So your company allowed you time to continue the project?
Yes, which was great as at that time I was probably doing a couple of evenings a week volunteering and the rest mad partying. All those things that young people get up to.
Then I left and became a Managing Director of a publishing company within a big corporation.
Unfortunately, it actually meant that I ended up selling really crappy books to South Africa. As I didn’t really like the idea of selling horrible books to South Africa and they wouldn’t give me money to expand the division, we engineered a row and they gave me a years money to pay me off.
So I then decided I was going to go into Social Activism properly. It took the next 3 or 4 years doing a lot of thisis and thats – Open University tutoring, organising campaigns, teaching at the Architectural Association, writing, before I set up an organisation to catalogue Social Change.
That was really the precursor to 365 Ways to Change the World.
It was a directory of ideas for change which could steer people to useful information. For example, with housing we didn’t just have details of housing co-operatives but about houses made from garbage or building your own log cabin.
All sorts of things – not just the mainstream.
It was done, as 365 Ways to Change the World is, with different components: information about the ideas, information about who is doing things, contact details and further reading.
The difference is that in the Directory you found information and the organisation to link to it and in 365 Ways to Change the World you are encouraged to just go out and do something.
We originally intended to do 10 Directories but we only made it to 4. At the same time I had set up an organisation to train people in fund raising and that eventually took over.
The organisation I established went on to publish handbooks and grants guides and run training courses for charities which is still going and had an annual turnover of £2 million when I left in 1995.
Since then I have worked on lots of ideas. One of which was setting up Unltd.
(UnLtd is a charity which supports social entrepreneurs - people who have the ideas and the commitment to make a difference in their communities.)
As the Millennium Commission (set up to commemorate the Millennium with national Lottery funding) was coming to an end, outsiders were given the opportunity to bid for a £100 million endowment.
I had just been talking to a group of people about some ideas for supporting social entrepreneurs, so I brought them back together and said 'let’s do this!’
In the end, we got seven small groups together to make the bid. We were up against really big organisations like the British Council and the Prince of Wales Trust but The Millennium Commission liked our idea. We were very engaged and excited about what we were trying to do.
Our bid was successful.
We have now been making awards for 3 years.
How many projects have you been able too support?
About 1000 per year.
We also have a lottery fund that supports young people so we are given another 4 million per year to help with that. Those funds are available for anyone between the ages of 11 and 25.
We have been doing a lot of work to engage young people and have set up different organisations to help with that.
One called Changemakers, encourages youth action. Another, YouthBank UK sees young people taking responsibility for distributing money.
The lottery has now done the same and started a youth fund governed by youth committees and sustained by young people.
The Government is drafting plans for having community funds in schools.
I was also overseeing an international youth summer school the organisation of which was all arranged by young people.
Individuals from all over the world would converge and they would be responsible for everything. Dealing with all of the arrangements and emergencies, making the programme, covering cost.
I am now working on children's banks which will use micro-funding for charitable giving.
So that continues.
And while you were doing that you also came up with the idea for the book?
Out of all of that I came up with the idea of one doing action a day.
It just seemed to make sense.
Just like David Robinson at ‘We Are What We Do’ I feel that we can do things within our lives and through what we do to make a better world.
If people do lots of little things we can make a big difference.
I met David before he published his book, I have known him for many years, and we shared ideas about what we were up to.
We are writing different books though. His is a glamorous call to action, mine a repository of wacky ideas. It is much more counter cultural and designed to make action a lot of fun.
I admire the success of his book. I am not sure that mine will be so successful but we do have 5 international editions coming out in the next 9 months.
356 Ways to Change the World was 1st published in December and I have been talking to a large publisher who may want to take it over. Other people have come to us who want permission to write things in the same style. I am also thinking of writing an activist guide.
‘How to be an activist’ would show how you start from thinking that something is not quite right to thinking - well what can we do about it – to small practical actions – telling others – setting up projects – starting an organization– right through to world domination… All those stages.
The starting points are everywhere. They are the little seeds that grow into tomorrow’s successful organizations. Or just do something that will make a difference now.
What was the idea behind www.365.com?
With the 365act.com I want to build an international network and organisations in different countries who will work together.
There will just be one website but there may be differences in the books that are produced for different countries.
So did you come up with all of the actions yourself?
I had an assistant for 3 months and then one of my Canadian friends started the electronic side of the things. But she ended up finding some of the entries a bit radical, such as that on the 1st April (which I reckon will be fulfilled by a lot of people - intentionally or not... Susie)
In America they are a lot more straight laced. So some of the more “irresponsible” actions will be substituted.
So now going forward what will happen?
I now have a web designer who I will run this with. Currently the website is still being developed but it should be working soon.
We will have an action for each day on the site as well as thinking of ideas for future editions.
Will you be asking people though the site to make suggestions for actions as well?
Yes, but I really want to focus on things that are new and interesting. It is very easy to say – ‘give some money’ but that is not this book. The ideas will have to be different. I am trying to make them a little bit wacky.
As part of the Make Poverty History Campaign I found that you could ‘Kick a Millennium Goal' which was something that made it a little more fun.
I also came across The Bug Buster, an aural screen saver that keeps mosquito's away, so in my book the entry on malaria is based around downloading this information onto your computer and sending it out to people around the world.
Books like this can give you ideas and contact details to help you to find ways of doing more.
There are lots of fun things out there.
* In turn making this an occassion when I am less cynical about the Daily Mail...
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