In this blog we explore what a ‘place with purpose’ can mean in rural Scotland; why Polly and her Board chose to be part of an international network of Impact Hubs; and how the entrepreneurial ecosystem in the Highlands & Islands forces cross-sector fertilisation.

About Polly and her work

Polly is a Development Officer with DTAS and a Co-founder and Director of Impact Hub Inverness. Having worked in the broad area of community development in the Highlands and Islands for over 30 years, she has a proven track record in working constructively to support change in rural communities.

What does “places with purpose” mean to the Impact Hub and DTAS?

Polly explains that places with purpose works on at least two levels: place as a physical building and place as communities. At DTAS and Impact Hub, both are relevant. Impact Hub has its own building and has nurtured a community within those walls. But they also do outreach business support, working with other communities who may or may not have a space of their own.

Many Development Trusts also own a physical asset that serves the community in some way. These are important for the sustainability of both the organisation, and the sustainability of the community. But obviously Development Trusts are all about creating and sustaining their communities more generally, so places with purpose are part of their DNA.

How does Impact Hub Inverness go beyond being a place of work, to being a place with purpose?

Impact Hub is a global network of independent coworking spaces that must offer three core components: space, content and community. At Impact Hub Inverness, ‘content’ is served through business and entrepreneurial support, and helping others to set up rural coworking spaces in the Highlands and Islands. Meanwhile, ‘community’ is all about the quality of hosting, engaging with members, building a network and facilitating the development of a genuine community. The Impact Hub team is constantly creating opportunities for connection – through a visual member board, the layout of the space, WhatsApp groups, member events and informal coffee mornings (to name a few).

In my conversation with Polly, it was clear that what elevates the Impact Hub from a building to a community is the feeling that is conscientiously created there. It’s a feeling Polly experienced when she visited the Impact Hub in Tokyo many years ago; the initial spark that inspired her place-making journey. She said, “it was a very different culture, but this place felt like home”.

What is Impact Hub’s local community like?

Like The Melting Pot, Impact Hub Inverness attracts a lot of freelancers, social enterprises, charities and remote employees of national organisations.

Polly highlights the prevalence of freelancers in the region. She describes them largely as “forced solo entrepreneurs”. They may have moved to the area (e.g. with a partner working in the public sector) but struggled to gain employment due to more limited opportunities. So, they are forced into setting up their own business. This greatly impacts the local economy: “the community benefit of a lot of freelancers is quite significant, in terms of community sustainability.” Small businesses addressing local needs, like a community shop, make rural living more attractive. This can bring more families into a community, so the school stays open, which can be a resource for the wider community, and so on. Ultimately, the local economy and culture are more likely to thrive.

Even though most of these entrepreneurs are technically ‘private sector’, Polly believes “the private / third sector distinction blurs quite a lot in a rural community.” This sparked my interest as a learning opportunity for The Melting Pot, operating largely in Scotland’s capital but seeking to bridge communities and cross sectors to stimulate social innovation. I wonder if this blur in distinction leads to a more connected and open entrepreneurial ecosystem in the Highlands & Islands.

Polly confirms: “You have to be more connected here. It’s difficult to operate as a social enterprise in isolation. Everything is so much smaller, the population is smaller, there are fewer customers. Everyone needs to pitch in. There is more mixing, blending and drawing upon other sectors and resources”.

This echoes a recent conversation I had with David Bryan from Social Enterprise Academy. He said that the Highlands is full of social businesses, even if they don’t realise it. He describes the small business culture in terms of “I / they / we”. Up here, a business can’t thrive with an “I” mentality; those just wishing to make money for themselves find it pretty difficult. And communities can’t always rely on, or blame, “they” (e.g. the local council, or whoever they think should be providing a service / solving a problem). Instead, everyone has to work together: a “we” approach. What results is a tapestry of small businesses, providing what their community needs, whilst relying on each other to fulfil different functions.

So, what role does an independent coworking hub play in this kind of grassroots social innovation?

“The beauty of community coworking hubs, regardless of their size, is that they bring people together who wouldn’t normally come across each other. With that comes innovation and ideas. It’s where the magic happens.”

Polly and I agree that this is special to local, independent coworking hubs. “How we run our spaces; the fact we’re based in our communities; the activities we offer around our spaces – I think that attracts a different kind of person, who is more open to social innovation.”

And what’s the power and potential in being part of a network of these coworking hubs?

Impact Hub Inverness offers an interesting case study into the power and potential of being connected to other hubs. They are now part of networks at various levels: global, national and regional.

Polly describes the organisation’s decision to join the international Impact Hub network as political. It is no coincidence that they joined in the same year as the Brexit vote. “Inverness can feel at the edge (and our friends in the Northern Isles even more so). You can feel distant from where things happen and are decided.” Joining a global network was a message to their community that they were intent on being part of something bigger. That Brexit wouldn’t win here.

The global network, and especially ‘local’ neighbours like Impact Hub London, have been supportive of the Inverness hub. They share a brand, ethos, some infrastructure and learning resources. It also provides a source of inspiration and wider outlook.

In contrast is the Impact Hub’s local coworking hub network. Over the years, they have supported a lot of place-makers, Development Trusts, and even private businesses, to set up successful coworking hubs in rural communities across the Highlands & Islands. This organically led to an informal coworking hub association who mutually benefit from sharing resources, learning, referrals etc.

And so, a natural next step for Impact Hub Inverness was to partner with The Melting Pot, Dunkeld & Birnam Community Co-working and The Glasgow Collective to build Connected Hubs: a Scotland-wide network of independent coworking hubs. The aim of this network is to create something greater than the sum of its parts – driving local economic development and social regeneration across Scottish communities.

Finally, what are Polly’s top tips for an aspiring place-maker?

1. Know your community. Don’t impose from the outside, but be part of it, work with it and understand it.
2. Gain inspiration and learn from elsewhere, but tailor it to local needs. Reflect the locality – it is called place-based innovation for a reason.
3. Be flexible. Don’t go in with a very fixed idea of what something is going to look like. Things will change before you even start, so you need to be adaptable.
4. Be prepared to be moved. The sense of community you build will be the icing on the cake. It’s the really special bit.

“There are times when I sit in here and my heart swells and I’m almost moved to tears. At our latest coffee morning, I was listening to the different conversations going on and it was really heart-warming. To see the connections; to see the community that we have created.”

If you’re interested in using, learning from, or joining the community of an independent coworking hub in your area, check out the Connected Hubs Scotland website.

Find Polly on LinkedIn.