Annie Legge is co-founder of DOT PROJECT, Tech4Good South West and Tech for Good Organisers UK.
Annie has a deep passion for purpose-led and social impact work, and uses any opportunity to bring like minded people together to explore positive impact on the world. None less than through the Tech4Good South West community, a community in Bath, Bristol and the South-West driving support for technology for good through bringing people together, sharing knowledge and ideas, matching needs with skills, and creating space together to innovate.
In a discussion with Arielle, Annie shares her journey into tech for good, supporting the charity sector and her hopes and dreams for growing a tech for good community here in the South West.
Episode transcript
[Arielle]
Welcome to the Tech for Good southwest podcast brought to you by Annie, Alicia and me Arielle.
Here at Tech for Good SouthWest we're on a mission to build momentum for the Tech for Good movement here in Bristol, Bath, Exeter and across the Southwest. We're going to be joined by charities, investors, startups and initiatives to share their stories, challenges and successes.
For this first ever episode I'm really excited because I get to interview one of the founders and driving force behind Tech for Good SouthWest - Annie Legge. Hi, Annie. Great to be talking to you today. So we decided that over these first three episodes, we'll be introducing each of the hosts so that our listeners can find out more about us. So I'm very pleased to be interviewing you today. Annie. It'd be great if you could start by telling us a little bit about you and what you do.
[Annie]
Of course! I'm Annie, co founder of Dot Project, which is a nonprofit designed to really drive digital resilience across the charity sector. Shortly after founding Dot Project, we really wanted to get involved in the wider Tech for Good movement and launched Tech for Good Bath actually on the back of only seeing sort of groups meeting up in London. So yeah, that's when it started in 2017.
[Arielle]
Can you tell me a bit more about Tech for Good southwest?
[Annie]
Yeah, of course. So Tech for Good South West launched as I said back in 2017 and we shortly after merged with a group that had launched in Bristol, and I guess back then we were both those groups were deeply affiliated to a global movement around Tech for Good, which is very, very different in different parts of the world, you know, very different in San Francisco and Lusaka in Zambia than it would be in in Bath and Bristol. I guess primarily all with that real essence of trying to really drive skills and support the charity sector, particularly around digital, seeing Tech for Good as how it can enable their work, looking at training and providing opportunities for charities but also looking at new technology and what might really enable them.
[Arielle]
So for someone who maybe hasn't been to an event or doesn't know much about it, what sort of things does Tech for Good SouthWest do? What could somebody get involved in?
[Annie]
I guess we are sort of shifting it all the time and trying to respond to ever changing groups of people, but fundamentally, there are sort of learning opportunities. So there's kind of skills building Lunch and Learn type sessions that we might typically run online. And that could be anything from how to use Google Analytics, how to choose a CRM, those are often quite targeted at the charity sector.
Through to more convening style events, really trying to get people together to think about what we might need as a region. Thinking about things like digital skills, thinking about diversity, thinking about Tech for Good startups, how can we have more of those, how can we enable those sorts of organisations and then and then often case studies, so really showcasing, you know, really interesting initiatives or projects that are happening across the region and occasionally from elsewhere as well to really inspire us. That's really what this podcast is about, as well, to bring these different voices, and we wanted to share stories of tech for good in practice.
[Arielle]
Can you tell us a bit more about the podcast and what we hope to get out of it?
[Annie]
It's been a long time coming. I think this one particularly, and I think what we always learn is that there's so much happening in this region alone, even in the city of Bath, Bristol, Exeter and further Southwest. We realise everybody's got a story and they're coming along to our events because they have an interest in Tech for Good, whatever aspect that that might be.
We really saw actually, this podcast could be a really good platform for surfacing what people are doing, what organisations are doing, what initiatives are being launched, and really trying amplify the amazing work, but also the challenges and where actually we need to change things and create different support systems around what people and what organisations hope to achieve.
[Arielle]
Focusing a bit on your story now and it'd be really great if you could tell us a little bit more about Dot Project and how that really came about.
[Annie]
Dot Project really came about through meeting my co-founder Cat, whose background is in international development. My background is predominantly in the commercial sector around digital and technology. I've always been in requirement analysis type roles and digital leadership within different different sectors, different size organisations as well. We came together with a desire to do social impact work in the context of digital. We saw a real gap around the support that was being provided to charities around this internal infrastructure - internal foundations around technology.
There seemed to be a lot of funding and a lot of momentum around building new technology, building apps and websites, but very little around core capacity building, organisational strengthening work. At the time we were wanting to do the boring stuff that nobody else wanted to do, and it kind of felt like that. It felt like there was a lot of support from IT specialists, and there are a lot of digital agencies out there, branding and marketing specialists, but there didn't seem to be anyone really focusing in the middle and joining the dots. So that really led to the foundation of Dot Project.
Over time, we've really honed in on a particular approach that really brings together digital competence of teams, driving their digital skills and capabilities, but alongside building technical competence. We have a broad set of practitioners that support Dot Project - maybe a background as a CTO through to organisational coaching expertise. Organisational change is really at the heart of what we're doing, and embedding those two mindsets across all our work.
[Arielle]
And that's quite a challenge. Isn't it? I know from my own work that actually quite often people are seeing the end product. I work with quite a lot of charities and they come to us and they say, you know, we want an app, we want a CRM. We are helping people to understand that digital is about a way of working and a mindset and process. It must be quite challenging. Do you come up against that sort of thing?
[Annie]
Yes, absolutely. And it took us a while, I'd say actually a few years, to really understand that organisations had to be ready to work with us because it's quite disruptive. Because actually, what you end up sometimes surfacing are organisational issues, challenges with ways of working, ways of making decisions. What we surface can be quite disruptive. So actually, you need to be ready for the change.
Digital change is really, really hard. Often we see organisations with failed technology implementations in the past. And actually, they recognised that it was a lot of factors beyond the technology itself. And those would be the perfect organisations for us to work with. They recognise that it's hard, they want to learn and they want to change.
[Arielle]
And can you give some examples of some of the projects that you might have worked on?
[Annie]
We work directly with charities where they already have some funding or they have some budget they want to allocate to working on digital change work. But we also work with funders and that's been a really big part of our journey because it is about delivering the support, but it's also about advocacy. There was definitely very little funding for this type of work a few years ago, but as I said before, a lot of funding for building something shiny and new.
Over the years, a lot of our work has also been about advocacy and really trying to understand how the funding system works, trying to get to know some of those funders, and really trying to kind of drive a different voice in the conversation around where digital funding can be allocated.
When we work with funders, it's typically with a digital fund, where they've got a number of grantees who've been allocated grants for digital change, and we exist as a partner for the funder and a support partner for the grantees as well. We are often in that role for a few months and it is very hands on in the work.
We are practitioners we bring a lot of different skills. We've got a wide ecosystem of individuals and organisations that we'll bring in and we deeply recognise where we don't have the skills for a particular organisation or a particular aspect of the project they're doing. For example, it could be to do with cybersecurity, or maybe there's something very particular around data governance that really needs a specialist who really lives and breathes the sort of legalities and the complexities of that. So yes, it's very much working on those kinds of larger funding programmes and intermittently working directly with a number of charities of varying sizes. I would say, typically we work with organisations that don't have a big enough team and capabilities internally.
[Arielle]
You obviously do this and it sort of does crossover very well with Tech for Good Southwest and it'd be really interesting to hear about what Tech for Good means to you and your organisation?
[Annie]
It definitely crosses over and I'd say that Tech for Good Southwest is much broader than what we do at Dot Project. We have a very specific mission and it is around charity, social enterprise sector. Tech for Good for this region is much broader. We're seeing a lot of a lot of Tech for Good startups. We're also seeing a lot more tech organisations actually really trying to look at their social impact and purpose. So it is a lot broader. To me, tech for good is a broad broad movement looking at how technology can have a positive impact on the world.
[Arielle]
That is obviously something you're very passionate about. And I think it's interesting because you say that you come from a commercial background. So what made you want to change Annie?
[Annie]
It was always there, deep inside me that it was wanting to be more involved in the social impact sector. It just didn't present itself as a choice really early on. You get on our path and you just kind of follow it and you aren’t encouraged to deviate from. My personal story is one of literally taking that leap of faith. At the time I was Head of Digital for an organisation called Les Mills based out in New Zealand. It was a fantastic role,I travelled a lot and had responsibility for digital marketing but also increasingly internal technology and infrastructure. It really became quite all consuming and at the time I also realised that actually I was just getting more and more involved in my work, and less and less available for my family and for myself.
That’s when we decided to change. We had two small boys at the time and left New Zealand to volunteer in Cambodia for a few months. We just made it up really. We did six months in Cambodia, and then moved to Malaysia for a year. That was like a deep sort of introspective kind of process of going from one world you know, earning money working really hard during the week and then being exhausted at the weekends to actually then literally on the ground living day by day. This was even harder, but so rewarding. We had to relearn the value of money and the value of time. Relearning actually what was important in the world was a big part of me then coming back to the UK and being determined to not fall back into what I've always done and that's really hard, because that's your safe space.
I’ve always been open to serendipity and met Cat through a freelance role in an international development consultancy on my return to the UK. It feels like for me, particularly, that this project was actually bringing the skills that I had from my previous early, early career, into a world that I deeply didn't understand and know. So it's been a real learning journey, particularly around the funding systems and how that works. I also think about not leaving behind the aspects of what I've done in the past that I've really enjoyed and loved because I really love the technology sector. And I really love what digital can do and how it can enable and I think that's for me at the heart of what I've always loved about technology.
I'm not particularly techie. I'm not, you know, hugely creative, but what I love is the enablement part of it. You know, so you and I were talking Arielle about creating transcripts of our podcasts and whether that was something we should always publish and actually how enabling that is for for many people to have access to content in different ways. The fact that we've got tools and applications that make that so easy now is just, yeah, that's where I get a real connection and positivity around and hope, technology.
[Arielle]
Yeah, it's amazing. And I think also in your organisation, I understand that. It's not just about the work that you do that has a social impact, but actually, the way that you're set up because I know that you're a co op. Can you talk a little bit about that?
[Annie]
I think that leads to the journey, my own personal journey definitely around being in quite large, hierarchical systems that often weren't supportive enough for individuals in their roles and not being able to do work not in your job description. I suppose I found that deeply frustrating. coalesced around a group of individuals, including Cat and the rest of the team at Dot Project who really wanted to try and do things differently. So we set up as a cooperative, which means that if you're a member of the cooperative, you collectively own and run the business. We have a flat day rate that we will all earn the same whatever your experience, whatever you're bringing to the project.
Immediately there's a sense of equality that kind of takes that pain away that we've often all experienced in previous roles. We have a collective approach to decision making, as well. And that's, you know, there's been so much learning around that it's definitely not been easy and isn't easy. When it works, it's just so empowering because everybody feels that they have an equal voice. And that's really, really important. I think particularly in the type of work that we're doing.
[Arielle]
It's been brilliant talking to you, Annie and hearing so much about your journey. And I think I just wanted to end our conversation by thinking about change in Tech for Good or in the human impact that your organisation is having. What change would you most like to see?
[Annie]
I'm thinking about it more from a regional perspective, and I think we've made some good steps towards that. But what I'd really love to see is is a really joined up approach around some of these really important initiatives to take digital skills, for example, actually, where you see a real cross sector response to that challenge, where you are working with local authorities, voices of the charity sector who deeply understand these problems that they see day to day, and combined with the expertise and skill that sits in our technology sector and digital creative sector as well. You can bring new solutions and ideas and ways of approaching problems collectively, and I just deeply believe that actually bringing those sectors, bringing the skills and the variety that sits within there, surely that's a way of actually just having some amazing solutions, or at least trying to make things significantly improved across the region.
[Arielle]
I feel that because I've only recently started sort of coming to the Tech for Good Southwest events, previously moving from Wales to Bristol, and it's quite amazing to be in a room with so many different people, people who are working in tech people who are working in charities, public sector, and actually all discussing these same issues, things that they want to change about society things they want to make better, and it just feels like doesn't it surely if you get all of those people together, and have conversations that something good is going to come out of it?
[Annie]
Absolutely. And you just see people thinking, wow, I hadn't actually thought of that perspective. But now that makes sense. I think the real challenge we've got is how you then how do you build from that? How do you create the sort of systems or ways of coming together where we, where we actually problem solve and work on or create kind of collective initiatives or ideas to actually not just talk about it? And that's the challenge and I think that's definitely the challenge for Tech for Good Southwest.
[Annie]
We’ve done very well at bringing people together and having some sort of good events for people to share the you know, what they want to see change, where they want to see change happen and what you what they're really passionate about, but how do you then activate that momentum? I think that's the challenge ahead.
[Arielle]
That's the big challenge ahead, but I think you can do it Annie we can do it. We can do it.
[Annie]
Absolutely. It’s baby steps and actually the fact that we have a good community, we've got active events and things happening and definitely through this podcast. I think this is a real way of us actually surfacing as I said, not just amazing stories of what everybody's doing, but actually what are the challenges and where, where would change really enable and support a societal issue that we have.
[Arielle]
It's been really great talking to you, Annie. And this is the first in a whole series of podcasts. There are many more to come. Thank you so much, Annie. It's been really fascinating talking to you and I look forward to more of these podcasts.