The transformation, expansion and success of a homelessness charity

The King’s Arms Project (KAP) homelessness charity experienced a dramatic transformation during my eight years of leadership. The organisation went through a period of growth and success, opening numerous services and gaining national recognition. The public works I present in the context statement have improved the lives of homeless people in Bedford, provided a local response to an international refugee crisis, developed dignified and skilled support for Asylum Seekers and forged partnerships to improve county-wide systems and services.

Using Tracey and Stott’s (2017) framework for organising social innovation, I reflect that my public works were enabled by intrapreneurial changes. This provided the foundation for entrepreneurship; during this phase KAP launched multiple new services, including three of the four public works I present. The success of the entrepreneurship activities provided an opportunity to work across organisations in a phase called extrapreneurship. It is within this phase that the fourth public work I present was realised.

I analyse my experience and works, taking an autoethnographic approach, and applying four areas of enquiry: Leadership, Organisational Culture, Sensemaking and Spirituality. I discuss literature within these areas, connecting it to my experience. As I reflect, it provides clarity to confusing events and structure to the methods I used to produce my public works.

I conceptualise the learnings from the public works in several models which provide both methods to end homelessness and a leadership approach for change and organisational success. The homelessness models highlight the importance of relationships in ending homelessness and include a model for support providers. The leadership models build on existing literature to provide approaches for change and organisational culture alignment.