Our Mission

Details make an organisation. Mission statements are one such detail that often get overlooked in the face of more immediate and pressing information and yet remain the foundation upon which we stand and are held accountable - so here goes.  

It is our mission to build a diverse and supportive community where your goals, your talents - your mission - can flourish and thrive. Together, we want to build a better Birmingham, one that is fairer, more democratic and more inclusive.

In order to do this, we believe we need an environment whose physical and social habitat reflects the community it serves. A welcoming and malleable space where eclectic individuals can collaborate to tackle some of the most wicked problems we face as one.   From Tech Start Ups to Social Enterprise, we feel that organising ourselves around a single discipline would only increase the silo effect in the city and structurally prevent us from addressing the interdependent problems that affect us all.   We are all in this together. For tangible impact, it’s time that we move our minds, hearts, thoughts, words and matter together, working in unison to affect real change in our city.


Impact Hub Birmingham Town Model

Our ambition is to systematically align our business model to the mission - evolving the financial architecture from being a tax on social entrepreneurs & changemakers to being a product of meaningful outcomes and impact in building a better Birmingham. We will be developing communities of practice and key focus around the following areas in 2016 to move closer to this mission, together.
Web

Measuring Impact  

Wholesome words aren’t enough. We want data, metrics and both qualitative and quantitative evidence of impact to hold ourselves accountable.   We feel that the current methods of measuring impact are at best unrealistic and that a more progressive approach is needed. To create the fertile ground needed to increase employability, bolster value creation and reduce child poverty we need to look at measuring the impact we have on our own community.   Initially, we will look at measuring the betweenness and connectedness of the network as well as its resilience and capacity. Focusing on these metrics allows us to build a sustainable route to a future for new, disruptive ideas that are formed within the network and will in turn impact on larger system metrics.   As we build this impact together, we feel it’s important that we all play a role in deciding how this is measured and communicated. For further information, be sure to check out our more comprehensive guide titled ‘Mission Data’, available soon.  

Evolving with your help

Whilst our mission statement and vision document are value aligned with our ethos, we’re committed to hearing your views going forward and aim to always be open to discussion. From the metrics we use to the ways in which we could better illustrate our impact, we invite you to comment and suggest your own ideas. With this document as with any other, we’ll always do our best to work with you to sharpen our message and redouble our efforts.  

Influencer Model v1

(Open to Edit, Suggestions, Improvements)

Hub Member Manifesto

(v1 Open to edit, suggestions for improvement)