People Know How is celebrating our 10th birthday on 19 March 2023!
The last ten years have been a wild ride for People Know How as we’ve grown exponentially, developing our social innovation work, services and spaces, leading us to win awards and support thousands of people in Edinburgh, East Lothian and across Scotland.
Humble beginnings
People Know How began in 2013, running from a small room in Corstorphine, Edinburgh. Our mission was to innovate positive change by believing in people, something that hasn’t changed too much to this day. With just a small group of trustees, two interns and a project coordinator, we were small but full of ideas.
We soon began running the consultations that would form the foundations for our core services while also recruiting volunteers, establishing partnerships and hosting placement students.
By 2015, we had developed a wide portfolio of consultation projects, ranging from topics like school transitions, health, alcohol, digital and the Spanish community in Edinburgh. You can see these in our Project Archive.
With all these consultations under our belt, we needed to pick a focus. And so, the next few years saw the establishment of our Positive Transitions service, Reconnect service and volunteer-led research. This led us to have over 100 volunteers.
As our services continued to grow, we piloted interventions like befriending, music therapy, art therapy, outdoor journeys while continuing consultations with groups, including parents and the communities of Craigentinny, Restalrig, Loganlea and Lochend.
Working in this way, we established our social innovation model. Our name ‘People Know How’ comes from the belief that people know how to identify their needs and the solutions that will help them fulfil their potential and solve social issues – which is why we start every new project by asking those people to share their ideas, needs, strengths and assets. What came afterwards was a cycle of researching existing literature, developing projects and putting them into action, sharing our learning and collaborating, and continuing this process. This is what we now call our social innovation model.
Services, spaces and collaboration
Having dabbled in the idea of community spaces before, in 2019 we began the partnership that would lead us to purchase the All Aboard canal boat with Polwarth Parish Church. Alongside our partnership with Edinburgh Palette to manage 525 Ferry Road, this established our Spaces, promoting gathering and collaboration to support and empower communities.
With our network of partnerships building, the year also brought the launch of Connect Four, where we identified the importance of collaborating across the four sectors to drive social innovation.
In March 2020, we had eight staff members, two core services and two spaces. What we didn’t anticipate was that the following two years would bring about the largest growth People Know How had ever experienced.
When the first lockdown hit, we began our digital transformation, adapting our services to remote support. As the impact of coronavirus grew, we continued to move forwards with our services offering support. Alongside delivering our services and managing our spaces, we went Scotland-wide, launching a national campaign to end data poverty, beginning an action-research project around school transitions in Scotland, establishing the Connecting Scotland digital support helpline, and winning a few awards in the process. Since the start of the pandemic, we have supported thousands with digital across Scotland and provided support in over 50 schools across Edinburgh and East Lothian.
Present day
At 10 years old, we’ve come a long way from our small office and single team member. We now have a dedicated team of 24 staff, two core services, three spaces in the community, four bases, a national campaign, a national action-research project, and partnerships across the four sectors (third, academic, business and public) throughout the UK.
We’ll be celebrating with our staff team this month and will be announcing the details of a larger event for all the People Know How community in the coming months.
We’re very excited to see what the next 10 years have in store as we work towards achieving our strategic aims and drive social innovation across Scotland.