ReOrienting Ourselves as a CIC
Coworking retreat in the Brecon Beacons. From L-R: Daniel Akinola-Odusola, Hannah Yu-Pearson, Araceli Camargo, Kavian Kulasabanathan, Guppi Bola, (not pictured: Josh Artus & Biggie)
In a remote canalside cottage in late January 2024, friend, advisor, and collaborator Dr. Kavian Kulasabanathan asked a question that would linger in our minds for months, ‘how do you hold yourself accountable?’
Despite trying to operate with dignity and morality, these factors were ultimately governed by the decisions of two people, the organisation’s founders and directors from 2017 to present day. Was this enough?
Ultimately, it’s not. Our minds and hearts were set on serving those who are advocating for their health against challenging systems. But with our existing governance structure we could change directions, actions and attitudes at our whim. Was this being of service to people, or was this serving us more?
The year progressed and in the Spring of 2024 whilst in conversation with Kate Swade about contributing to our Community Health Impact Assessment programme a throw away comment about wishing we’d set up as a CIC turned things on its head for us. Kate was generous enough to explain that Companies House allows you to “put a CIC hat” on your existing non-profit company limited by guarantee. You just had to get the paperwork right.
WHAT IS A CIC?
A CIC is a community interest company. Companies House describe CIC’s as limited companies which operate to provide a benefit to the community they serve. The purpose of a CIC is primarily one of community benefit rather than private profit. To successfully become a CIC you have to satisfy the Regulator that a reasonable person might consider that the CIC’s activities are or will be carried on for the benefit of the community. One reason for this is that CIC’s receive more favourable terms within fundraising than other company vehicles; so in order to protect charitable funding, funders and social investors interests regulators aim to minimise abuse to keep a system running smoothly. We knew inherently from our work with communities from across the UK that met this requirement but how do we put this down into a legally governing document that would guide all future actions?
We felt that converting to a CIC would help us put our money where our mouth is by giving us an accountability framework and improve our relationships with funders and partners who value good governance.
To get this paperwork right meant doing a deep dive into Centric Lab, the ecosystem it's fostering, and the ecology it sits within. The paperwork was centred on defining the community we intend to serve and the activities that will detail how we’ll serve them - these activities are written into the new articles of association that legally govern the operations of Centric Lab. To help achieve this we organised a retreat for most of the people within the Centric Lab ecosystem who are helping deliver projects and programmes. We nestled into a few cabins in Hampshire and spent the long weekend going on walks, cooking big shared meals, and giggling into the night amongst lots of al-fresco coworking sessions.
Guppi Bola & Dr. Rhiannon Mihranian Osborne
WHO IS OUR COMMUNITY?
Communities and groups of people in the United Kingdom who are experiencing poor health outcomes due to avoidable structural factors. These are communities who face direct exposure to intersecting issues such as contamination from commercial and industrial activity; poor housing and economically deprived neighbourhoods; poor access to health infrastructure; discrimination and socio-economic marginalisations such as, but not limited to, racism and classism.
What activities are we to carry out in our articles of association that bind our organisation to supporting our community?
ACTIVITY 1
To prototype ways to use health-based scientific evidence to support justice movements, surface and socialise non-western epistemologies and create language to articulate the health injustices felt by many racialised and marginalised communities.
How will this benefit the community?
By focusing ourselves on this, we believe that the community will benefit by our ability to provide communities who face intersecting systemic challenges that have health impacts with the necessary tools, resources, and knowledge points to help them advance their advocacy and work. We aim to do this by creating an infrastructure of financial resources, scientific professionals, technical experts, and a knowledge archive, that is actively designed to support grassroots groups, community organisers and non-profit organisations advance health justice. The work is centred on providing the community with open-access community centred resources, justice-led narratives and framings of health, and insights on health, communities, and place.
ACTIVITY 2
Running collaborative research-led co-creation programmes and courses with people who have lived experiences of health injustices.
How will this benefit the community?
By organising ourselves with our resources we believe that this will benefit the community as being able to access educational and supportive environments in which they are able to learn and embody information about poor health outcomes and systemic factors. This increases the agency and advocacy capacity of community and grassroots organisers and connected social enterprises to enact social change on issues that impact health.
ACTIVITY 3
Organising events and roundtables with stakeholders who are influential in enacting change at a systemic level.
How will this benefit the community?
Our experience with various community groups around the UK over the years has led us to believe that if we organise ourselves accordingly, that our community will benefit by having a support network of scientists, researchers, and professionals to steer them through complex systems that can otherwise be harmful and difficult to navigate for independent citizens. The company will work to create an active and meaningful network of people who work in systems related to healthcare, urban planning, technology and social change to support a community’s efforts in enacting change.
ACTIVITY 4
Producing accessible written, audio, and video material for digital and print distribution to diverse audiences.
How will this benefit the community?
The community will benefit by having free open-access to scientific-led work in an accessible language and format to support their knowledge development, sharing, and advocacy. Science research is often held behind expensive paywalls and in formats inaccessible to many non-academics or field experts. The company will break down this barrier to support citizen knowledge-development of health issues.
Centric Lab has evolved over the years. The Covid-19 pandemic brought its most pivotal moment of change. Since then we have been working towards this moment in time where we understand our place in the ecosystem and how as an infrastructural organisation supporting the many movements for health justice from the ground up. As we go forward, all decisions that are made will be governed by the extent to which they support our community as defined by the above.
We have also expanded our directorship so that Centric Lab CIC is now directed by Joshua Artus, Araceli Camargo, Hannah Yu-Pearson and Daniel Akinola-Odusola. It has two additional members who have voting rights on approving directors actions, they are practicing physicians and health justice organisers Dr. Rhiannon Mihranian Osborne and Dr. Kulasabanathan. Kavian also sits on the advisory board alongside longtime advisor Guppi Bola of Decolonising Economics, and Abdirahim Hassan of Coffee Afrik CIC.
We believe that (starting) with this new governance structure, and company asset lock, we are best placed to (a) serve our community, and (b) allow our actions to be held accountable, and (c) work alongside other partners with trust and assurance in our ability to deliver on our goals.
Back row L-R: Daniel Akinola-Odusola, Dr. Rhiannon Mihranian Osborne, Guppi Bola, Araceli Camargo, Joshua Artus. Front row L-R: Dr. Kavian Kulasabanathan, Yinka, Hannah Yu-Pearson, Charlotte Kemp.
A FEW LEARNINGS FROM THIS PROCESS
There's a need for advisory services from philanthropic organizations and impact sectors to impact founders.
The legal paperwork is one thing, having all the processes in place is another. It is a significant investment to bring this together. Thankfully, organisations such as RadHR are there to share some best practices.
Always ask your movement based friends and comrades how they’ve organised themselves and what lessons you can learn from them.