The document summarizes Good for Nothing, an organization that brings together skilled volunteers for 48-hour collaborative events to help grassroots social and environmental innovators. Their mission is to build a community that can accelerate the work of these innovators. They have hosted several events where volunteers from varied backgrounds work together intensively to create projects that benefit partner organizations. Both volunteers and partners report positive experiences, and the organization aims to host more and bigger events to have a greater social impact.

1. Are we Good for Nothing?
Britain’s New Radicals
The Observer and Nesta
January 2012

2. Asi told us a
bout Britain
the commun ’s New Radic
ity and got a als so we as
big “yes go ked
for it”, and 0
no’s

3. What is Good
for Nothing?

4. a short film of one of our creative collaborati
on gigs.....

5. our mission
BUILDING A COMMUNITY THAT CAN ACCELERATE AND SCALE THE WORK OF
GRASSROOTS SOCIAL AND ENVIRONMENTAL INNOVATORS WHO IN MANY
CASES ARE INNOVATING MORE RADICALLY THAN LARGE CORPORATIONS.
NURTURING MORE PURPOSEFUL, COLLABORATIVE + FUN WAYS OF WORKING
“It felt a bit like the fu
ture....”
James Hogwood

6. why we do it
It felt more like a ‘love
-in of big doing’ than
work
Katie Lindemann
BECAUSE WE’D LOVE TO BUILD A SOCIETY
THAT’S MORE EXCITED ABOUT DOING, GIVING,
FIXING AND PARTICIPATING THAN BEING PASSIVE
& CONSUMPTION-LED...

7. Good for Nothing started with a question...
...WHY ARE SO MANY TALENTED SKILLED PEOPLE
IN THE CREATIVE INDUSTRIES SPENDING SO MUCH
OF THEIR TIME AND ENERGY IN LONG UNWIELDY
LINEAR UNPRODUCTIVE PROCESSES PUMPING
MORE NOVELTY INTO AN ALREADY CREAKING
PRODUCTION/CONSUMPTION SYSTEM?

8. ...which led to our first ‘gig’ in Dec 2010
WHAT MIGHT HAPPEN IF WE PUT A BUNCH OF SOCIALLY-MINDED PEOPLE
WITH DIFFERENT SKILLS WHO ARE FRUSTRATED WITH THE SYSTEM
TOGETHER WITH 3 GRASSROOTS SOCIAL/ENVIRONMENTAL INNOVATORS
IN THE SAME SPACE FOR 48HRS? HOW MUCH POSITIVE USEFUL WORK
COULD THEY DO AND HOW MUCH FUN COULD WE HAVE ALONG THE WAY?

9. DOING NOT TALKING
COLLABORATE + EXPERIMENT
SUPPORT THE TRUE INNOVATORS
our 3 practises

10. we made a
manifesto for
how doing GFN
should feel...

11. and 6 rules that
challenge
people to work
fast...together

12. writers designers developers
coders
artists bloggers
film-makers
do-ers
accountants
we put the call
tea-makers out and 60+
hackers
diverse and
amazing people
lawyers
strategists turned up to
give their time,
project managers energy and skills
architects for 48hrs...
for nothing
animators consultants

13. we throw in some great
DJ’s, delicious food
and the odd drink

14. and openly share what we lea
rn...

15. other ingrediants

16. THANKS!
We funded the first 5 gigs ou
rselves
with lots of free help from ou
r ‘friends’

17. and recently launched Good
for Something -
Good for Nothing inside orga
nisations - to help
widen community + become
self-sustaining

18. 1 year on and we’ve put on 7
Good For Nothing
‘gigs’, helping 18 different so
cial organisations

19. we hatched
our 1st glob
al interventi
on -> a coll
aborative digital fundr
aising exper
iment

20. No ‘client’ or ‘owner’
43 projects created in 9 countries
Hundreds of volunteers involved
Nearly £250,000 raised

21. Nearly 500 people have sign
ed-up to our online
community and about 500 p
eople have actively
given time doing ‘Good for N
othing’
= about 2 years or 750 da
ys worth of professional
time given for nothing to acc
elerate social causes

22. “GFN is an intense weekend of creativity and energy turned into
concrete projects for social good. The weekend was a buzz of
energy, but instead of talking about it, everybody was focused to “I think the intense creative burst of energy
have something solid that can be taken away to help the over the Good for Nothing weekend was
organisation. For us, it was two great promo videos, and also a simply wonderful and that one of the
seed that was planted - which led to a major overhaul of our greatest things to have experienced is the
online systems for communications and volunteer management. atmosphere of genuine support,
GFN stirs things up! Kelvin Cheung, founder FoodCycle enthusiasm, problem solving and creativity.
I don’t thing anyone left unfulfilled”
Neerja Vashista, Global Generation
Here’s what the social innova
tors have
to say about it.....
“The GFN weekend was as Nick put it 'overwhelmingly beautiful.'
I came not knowing what to expect and left with a real sense of
purpose, renewed enthusiasm to get stuff done and experiment,
and empowered by the results of collaboration among
exceptional, talented and kind people who gave up their free
time to take part. Matt Linnecar, Co-founder Gnewt Cargo

23. GOOD FOR NOTHING
IN NUMBERS AND WORDS
Faster, less proving of points, people
wanting to help each other rather
than hinder. A general sense of
We did more work, of better quality, enthusiasm and positivity. People
in 48 hrs than an agency would take sharing skills, listening to what others
weeks to deliver. had to offer.
1. AN EXPERIMENTAL COMMUNITY WORKING DIFFERENTLY... 2. CHANGING WAYS OF WORKING...
And this is what
the growing OF GFN’ERS
MORE LIKELY TO
OF GFN’ERS
MORE LIKELY TO
OF GFN’ERS
MORE LIKELY TO
OF GFN’ERS MORE
LIKELY TO DIVIDE
LEARN BY DOING SET THEMSELVES SELF-ORGANISE AND CONQUER
community are OF GFN’ERS SEE IT AS A GREAT
WAY TO BUILD COMMUNITY AND
EXPERIMENT WITH NEW WAYS OF
OF GFN’ERS MORE LIKELY TO SELF
ORGANISE ON THEIR PROJECTS TO
WORK MORE EFFECTIVELY
- PROTOTYPING,
SKETCHING,
MAPPING
MUCH TIGHTER
DEADLINES
AGAINST
THEIR WORK
CHALLENGES
AND WORK IN
SMALL, DIVERSE
TEAMS
WORKING
saying... TO WORK MORE
EFFECTIVELY
3. POINTING AT THE BIG ISSUES THAT NEED DISRUPTING... 4. IT’S ADDICTIVE...
AREAS THE COMMUNITY WANT TO WORK ON..
FOOD 71%
EDUCATION 701%
WASTE 65%
INEQUALITY 59%
NATURE/BIODIVERSITY 48%
CLIMATE CHANGE 48%
ENERGY 41%
It was great. An opportunity to work
with great people for one thing, and
a chance to test yourself against the
clock. It was self-organising, rapid,
agile and iterative and it didn’t really
feel like work.

24. 2012 is all a
bout more e
xperiments
fo r bigger imp
act
More people
More gigs in more places - London, Bristol, Brighton, Manchester...
Bigger challenges
More doing - at gigs and virtually through the online platform
Festival ‘Good for Nothing’
More organisations - businesses, universities, local councils...

25. Good for No
thing found
ers
Dan Burgess
@dansolo Tom Rowley
@tomrlondo Tom Farrand
dan.burgess n @tomfarrand
@pipelineide
as.com tom.rowley@
pipelineidea tom.farrand@
s.com pipelineideas
0795821531 .com
0
07500 8059
58 0774811647
9

26. web
www.goodfornothing.com
online community
www.goodfornoth.ning.com
twitter
@g00dfornothing
facebook
www.facebook.com/g00dfornothing
vimeo
http://vimeo.com/goodfornothing
flickr
http://www.flickr.com/photos/
goodfornothingflickrs/