COMRADESHIP STRATEGY Overview Comradeship within the Legion is a key component of the overall strategy of the Legion that underpins much of what the organisation achieves. It was one of our founding objectives and we are seeking again to have it as a Legion Objective. In 1921 when we were formed, the therapeutic value to ex service personnel meeting to share their experiences was an important part of their recovery and reintegration into society. That process is as important today as it was then. This strategy seeks to develop a sustainable supporter base going forward that effectively assists current efforts and that provides the baseplate for future work through raising awareness and garnering support within the widest possible range of communities. As a strategy it is supported by two sub-strategies; Membership and Armed Forces Engagement. Comradeship will be experienced inside and outside the membership and delivering the Membership Strategy and engaging with the armed Forces will both play pivotal role in delivering our overall vision for Comradeship. 1. Vision Comradeship is one of the "Four Pillars" of the Legion's Mission and as such is seen as an important objective of Legion activity. We are looking to create: A sense of belonging and support with individuals who have shared experience 2. Mission Comradeship is not a product or service that can be "delivered" in the way Operations can deliver Health & Welfare or Fundraising the Poppy Appeal. Comradeship is an emotion, an experience which cannot be created in itself; what we can do is to put like minded people into the right environment. The practical aim of working towards the above vision can be summarised as: Providing the environment within which Comradeship can foster and grow 3. Background 3.1 Definition Comradeship can be defined as: A sense of belonging and support with individuals who have shared In the Legion this takes two forms: experience. Amongst those who are in the Armed Forces Community who have had an experience unique to that group; or Amongst those who want to work together in support of the Legion's objectives regardless of their background and who wish to express their respect and support in the community with those who have served.
3.2 Promoting Comradeship Comradeship itself is an emotion or state of mind. The role of the Legion is to foster comradeship, to set up the environment where comradeship can spark. The original ethos for the Legion, apart from giving tangible support to those who had fought in the Great War, was to provide a place where those who had served could share their experiences with others who had gone through the same experience. Comradeship in this form was part of the founding objects of the Legion and within the Legion it is a long-standing and central pillar of the organisation's Mission. However, Comradeship is not something that can be created or delivered by a series of processes. There are environments where with the right people, comradeship can be fostered. The Legion's strategy will be to seek and create those environments and make them available to serving and ex-serving personnel and their families. It is clear that running events in the Community will offer one favourable environment but this is not the only way of encouraging Comradeship. 3.3 Legion Clubs Historically, the Legion has delivered comradeship primarily through its Clubs. That legacy is fading and is no longer the sole base on which to build but it is an experience from which we need to learn. The requirements and expectations of ex-service personnel are now broader. Development in communications has given opportunities other than face to face for sharing experiences. With the membership, the Legion going forward must create additional options for members and supporters of the Legion who have other motivations, interests and levels of engagement, but still want to participate and contribute. Comradeship may also emerge from other pillars of the Mission, from the opportunity to "give back" to the Legion in order that the organisation can help even more beneficiaries. 3.4 Positioning as a core activity Few would doubt that comradeship is an outcome of much of what the Legion does. However, many would argue that it is merely a by-product (albeit a valuable one) of Legion activity. This may have been the case in the past. But with this strategy we are saying that comradeship is too important to let go its own way; we need to work at it to foster and sustain it. By including Comradeship in the Four Pillars the Trustees support the view that promoting Comradeship is a core activity to be nurtured by as many aspects of Legion activity as possible. To do this we will need to engage more effectively with members and supporters by developing real and virtual communities and linking comradeship to other elements of the corporate mission. 4. Core Competencies 4.1 Engaging People The Legion will need to focus on promoting examples where Comradeship has been demonstrated. With these examples we need to consciously encourage desired outcomes by building in comradeship within all the organisations future activities. With such organisational learning embedded in what we do, we can begin to identify the common thread and seek to emulate best practice. At that stage, the knowledge of, and the ability to deliver, Comradeship will grow. To gain maximum traction we will need to create groups of individuals in the Legion some of whom have served in the Armed Forces, to formulate ideas on how to further develop Comradeship. We need to document and evaluate previous initiatives such as Legion in the Community. Running events within the Community is one area where we may explore for Comradeship, building on our
experience of Legion in the Community, or more likely we will attach ourselves to externally organisec events, such as the Karrimor Great Trail run (in the lake district), and encourage group participation. 4.2 Enabling Community The Legion needs to enable communities within the Legion family for Comradeship to flourish. This will involve organising events and creating the environment for members or supporters to self organise, to initiate and run events. It will also mean building in a comradeship objective to all Legion events whether organised by Membership, Operations or support services. Asking questions such as "Does this provide an opportunity to nourish comradeship?" should become part of all Legion activities which involve membership, supporters or other Legion non-staff stakeholders. 4.3 Reinforcing Connections A key part of enabling comradeship is to create and reinforce connections between activities and people. This means ensuring that the different parts of the Legion know what other parts are doing. It will involve creating interactive digital media which can publicise and promote community. It will involve bringing groups together which may not otherwise have met. It will involve encouraging the use of current Legion property be this at branch or club level or at the NMA to bring people together. 4.4 The Role of Membership Membership will play a vital role in encouraging comradeship, though will need to do so in an inclusive way that encourages involvement by all. Membership strategy is covered in the Appendix but essentially it involves: Extending the benefits of membership (excluding participation in governance) to the serving community Making the membership more attractive to existing members through loyalty offerings and involving the membership in Legion business such as the sale of merchandising Encouraging member participation in the objectives of the Legion. Set best practice for Legion involvement and incentivise involvement of branches and clubs with Legion programmes Contacting members, through local offices, branches and clubs and ejectronically, advising them of needs and opportunities for involvement. Giving members a choice of roles, tasking people to their abilities and encouraging branches and clubs to create pools of members willing to volunteer Continuing to levy an affiliation fee to keep the membership self funded. An outward looking, modern, membership which is beneficiary and fundraising focused will form an essential part of delivering the Legion's comradeship objectives. 3
4.5 The role of Armed Forces Engagement Engaging with individuals whilst they are still serving will promote the Legion to the newest of our beneficiaries. Such engagement will be across the four pillars but the two most relevant to serving personnel will be Health and Welfare and Comradeship. Whilst our initial engagement may be about the Welfare Services, once an individual allows us personal electronic access, we can promote the wider aspects of Legion activity. Serving personnel are our richest source of future members and whilst Comradeship can undoubtedly be experienced outside membership, it will be stronger and easier to access through the Membership. It therefore follows that by promoting Comradeship to the Armed Forces we encourage a strong and active membership thereby helping to protect the future of the Legion. 5. Strategic Initiatives 5.1 Analysis of current activities The development of a meaningful, coherent Comradeship arm within the Legion will not be created overnight but will instead be achieved by first broadening the level of relationships with existing stakeholders whose feedback will aid the development of an attractive and broad affiliation framework. The 2011 Tangible Study focussed primarily on the challenges of reinvigorating the Membership and for the Legion to gain relevance with the Armed Forces Community. Those findings have formed the bedrock to the Comradeship and supporting strategies. The membership, through the Membership Council and discussions with Counties, branches and at Conference, are fully engaged with the development of the Membership strategy. Engagement with the Armed Forces is underway at three levels, firstly operational bases and areas of reservist deployment (Chilwell), secondly training establishments (Sandhurst etc) and areas of concentration of senior officers, and thirdly in the corridors of power with the Ministry of Defence. These actions are intended to increase the awareness of our supporter group of the direction of travel for the Legion. The next steps are to broaden the Legion's reach into the Veterans and the Cadet communities whilst conducting additional study into the needs of those donors and volunteers that are committed to the Legion but with whom there is no interaction other than in response to the Legion's specific ask. In this way we will understand what environments we will need to create and how do we get the right individuals involved in that environment. 5.2 Explore digital media Developing relationships with the armed forces community and other supporters will focus on using digital media to provide platforms on which we will seek to provide regular updates on what the Legion is doing and achieving. Included will be opportunities to participate and benefits made available to members and supporters such as discounts on goods to purchase. Much of this messaging will be generated from existing Legion Magazine material thus avoiding significant additional cost. Subsequent data analysis will shape this messaging, rewarding those that contribute whilst creating cost saving opportunities via improved marketing techniques. 5.3 Use of focus group. Having established that Comradeship is not a finite product or service it is essential that representatives from all key stakeholder groups contribute to the development of Comradeship in the Legion, not just at the outset but through time. Focus groups will be set up to recognise why and how comradeship occurs so it can be replicated. 4
5.4 Other Initiatives Attracting and retaining the support of a broad church of stakeholders will require all of the Legion organisation to play a part in generating and maintaining interest in promoting Comradeship. Gaining the requisite support begins with developing a clear understanding of the contributions the Legion offers to our beneficiaries and what definable role supporters can be involved in. The Legion will encourage the philosophy that comradeship can be experienced by participating in all the activities of the legion; not just the social activities but also raising funds and helping support our beneficiaries. Once recruited, the next challenge for our supporters will be to instil and then maintain that sense of comradeship that will come from being part of a successful team. 5.5. Role of Clubs Clubs formed the bedrock of Comradeship during the formative years of the Legion and whilst the number of successful Clubs may have reduced, there are still more than 500 in existence. These clubs are going through a tangible audit around governance, funding and state of the property. The best organised clubs will come through that audit and as part of the membership strategy we need to involve the members of those clubs in becoming actively engaged in the support of activities that fulfil the Comradeship role. 5.6 Member and Supporter Engagement Once Members and supporters are engaged they need to clearly understand the Legion's message, how they can most effectively deliver it and what resources they will have in support. Those resources will include media campaigns and effective marketing. Successful delivery of positive messaging about an attractive and meaningful brand will create the conditions for success which will in turn deliver that sense of fulfilment which will encourage subsequent participation. 5.7 Awareness Raising Effective marketing and merchandising which underpin a consistent, clear and strong message are key to raising awareness. The Legion can only win support for what it does if the Public is aware of what we are doing and why. Awareness raising is the role of a central department by setting the consistent message supported by all those representing the Legion whose role is to reinforce and deliver the message. Part of the Comradeship strategy will be to identify and adequately support those that can deliver the Legion message within all areas of Society. 5.8 Funding for Events Creating the environment where Comradeship can be expected to spark will involve participation in events. Some of these events will be self organised, others will be external activities in which the Legion will facilitate a group involvement. The sound principle that must be adopted is that events organised within Clubs, branches or centrally must be expected to be self funding. In reality events should be budgeted to make a small surplus to reduce the risk of shortfall. Funding for Comradeship will be provided to set up structures, identify opportunities, take feedback and encourage good practice and support generic advertising and promotion.
5.9 Reporting on Success The successful evolution of Comradeship within the Legion will be achieved by identifying what works and what should be repeated. We already have some sound information from events organised through clubs and branches but as noted in the membership strategy, the Legion will look to collect examples of good practice and relay that to the front line of activity. This can be achieved through the timely reporting of activity against clear objectives; the success of every initiative and event should be considered against clear outputs assessed as being of value to the Organisation. 6. Benefits and Outcomes 6.1 Beneficiaries The beneficiary benefits in two ways. First, he or she has access to a social network of like-minded people, with whom they can relate, building relationships and combating social isolation. At our foundation such interaction was valued as much if not more than tangible welfare support. Second, Comradeship activities educate Legion supporters about the Service experience and serve as a space within which new volunteers may be found to engage in case-working, visitation, fundraising or other tasks. 6.2 Links to other Strategies The Comradeship strategy is tied closely to: Health and Welfare, to increase awareness and access to services and support Volunteering and Membership, to deepen ties with our current members and new supporters Remembrance, recognising that a key aspect of community is the recollection of those who didn't return to it Representation to provide a tangible body of support; and Fundraising will benefit both through support for the Poppy Appeal and merchandising. Information Systems will help extend the reach of Legion efforts in this pillar, and Facilities/Property will help maximise the benefit of our current Clubs and sites in this work. Implementing the Legion's Comradeship activities will build on the existing strengths in Membership. This is picked up in more detail in the Membership Strategy. Understandihg the needs and interests of different segments of the Legion community will allow us to develop new opportunities and events. Included in those opportunities will be the expansion of on-line facilities to enable a significant and growing population of the Legion's beneficiary group and supporters to be able to experience Comradeship remotely. 6.3 Measurement Comradeship at the Legion will require definition over time, as iterative implementation further clarifies existing needs among portions of the beneficiary population that is known and well-understood. We will need to adapt our comradeship objectives over time to include additional populations who will become the Legion's long-term supporters and beneficiaries of other services and support. Actual performance measures will need to be developed but these may be subjective in nature or, like comradeship itself, a by-product of other measurement activities. APPROVED BY THE BOARD OF TRUSTEES ON 6TH SEPTEMBER 2012 6