An escape plan to happiness and co-design with Richard Collins, Sortified

Send us Fan Mail"Partnerships are vital to our existence...We all should be working a lot more in collaboration...and I think we can do a lot more," says Richard Collins, creative director of Sortified.Sortified aims to improve lives and reduce social inequality. It produces toolkits, runs projects, and works around people and place through co-production.In this episode, Richard covers why launching Sortified was an "escape plan" allowing him to put something back into the Lincolnshire community.He describes how co-production can work in practical terms (without being tokenistic). People can be involved in the delivery of local services through a place-based social economy, he says, and there's a move away from a traditional perspective when it comes to commissioning and top-down service delivery.The episode also covers:the results and impact of Sortified's work. He's candid: "sometimes it's really difficult" to measure, but there are other outcomes and impacts they can measure.the key area Sortified wants to improve on in terms of impact measurement, and the metrics they measure well.Sortified's plans for 2020: "we're going to change the world!"Recent work in Gainsborough, supporting a successful bid for social investment to the Local Access Programme.The impact of budget cuts on collaboration and working in partnership.Why "blended finance" is the way forward, in Richard's view, for social businesses.Where the Sortified name came from.Enjoy this interview with Richard - and please leave a rating or review and share the episode so other people can find it.Support the showHi, I'm Heidi Fisher, the host of the Make an Impact Podcast.  I'm an impact measurement expert, passionate about helping you make a bigger impact in the world by maximising the impact your services have. I can help you to measure, manage and communicate the impact you have better to funders, investors, commissioners and other stakeholders, and to systemise your data collection and analysis so that it frees up time and doesn't become an additional burden.  I love helping you to measure social and economic impacts, including Social Return on Investment or value for money assessments, as part of understanding the change you make to peoples' lives. You can get in touch via LinkedIn or the website makeanimpactcic.co.uk if you'd like to find out more about working with me.