“We believe in radical kindness as the connection we have to each other and to wider society; we commit to putting strong relationships at the heart of everything we do.”
When Carnegie UK first began talking about kindness in 2016, it felt uncertain. We knew that kindness and relationships were critical for individual and collective wellbeing. Yet we felt under pressure to justify its place in policy discussions, as something that was more than just a ‘nice-to-have’ but a central part of the way that organisations and governments should go about improving outcomes for people and communities.
Fast forward five years, and kindness is the focus of both national campaigns, from kinder politics to mental health, and of local, community-led movements. It is visible at the heart of the Scottish Government’s National Performance Framework and the subject of public policy debates in the Welsh Parliament. And, during a COVID-19 pandemic that has put strain on all of our wellbeing, it has been more prevalent than ever before in the conversations we have in public and in private about what we value most as a society.
At Carnegie UK, as we developed our new strategy in the context of this growing movement, it feels like the right moment to ‘lean in’ to kindness as an organisation: to shift from having a specific programme on kindness, to integrating kindness more holistically into our strategic mission of improving collective wellbeing. We have done this by foregrounding the importance of human relationships and social connectedness in the ‘wellbeing tests’ that will inform what we do and how we do it; and by including kindness as one of the four values that articulate who we are and what sort of organisation we want to be.
The decision and ambition to embed our understanding of kindness across our portfolio of work does, however, mean a change in focus. Throughout our research and practice exploring what it takes to build kinder communities and organisations, there has been a consistent message that kindness is not something that can be prescribed. While there are certain conditions that make kindness more or less likely, it can only be achieved if it is led and shaped by people in place.
Over the last couple of years, we have noticed this beginning to happen, with grass-roots movements connecting people around a shared vision for a kinder town, city or region, and with a growing number of organisations articulating kindness as a way to deliver their core purpose. The transition to a new strategic plan has provided us with an opportunity to acknowledge how far we have come, and to recognise that the rest of the journey will require leaders from within sectors and organisations to take a risk and commit to kindness.
Next month, we will be launching a Commitment to Kindness which distils all we have learnt about what is needed to embed kindness in organisations. Our experience tells us that by committing to this set of actions, and constantly challenging themselves, organisations of all types can grow a culture of kindness that will improve the wellbeing of everyone they work with and for. But we know that this is work that Carnegie UK cannot do itself: that it must be taken forward by organisations in a way that fits their contexts and trajectories. By sharing this learning and inviting others to endorse the Commitment, we hope to allow other leadership to emerge, and to sustain and grow a kindness movement.
As we shift away from having a programme of research and practice and encourage others to take forward leadership where they are, within Carnegie UK we’ll be doing the same. By mainstreaming kindness across our organisation, we will remain part of this movement, striving to put into practice all that we have learnt over the last five years. And in the years to come, we’ll continue to talk and learn about kindness, and to connect with those who work to advance kindness. Most of all, we’ll continue to practise kindness and encourage others to hold us to account on the values that we set out in this strategic vision.