Power Lab
Join our journey towards understanding power for organisational integrity
Power & Integrity is incubated within 
and Power Lab was possible thanks to the support of Oak Foundation.
Join our journey towards understanding power for organisational integrity
Power & Integrity is incubated within and Power Lab was possible thanks to the support of Oak Foundation.
The rationale
A new holistic approach
As nonprofits become more aware of the potential harm from their work, most struggle to navigate the increasingly complex web of integrity issues and expanding list of requirements. As well as seriously hampering board oversight, the current piecemeal management of integrity practices can lead to harmful gaps and lapses.
With a power-sensitive, whole-system, and synergy-led approach, we believe nonprofits can transform integrity practice across the sector. We are running a Power Lab to start co-creation and learning on how best to apply holistic power analysis in the nonprofit setting.
Holistic integrity areas
These include:
- anti-corruption
- anti-racism
- equity, diversity and inclusion (EDI)
- gender
- human rights
- leadership
- safeguarding
- sustainability
- blind spots
THE OPPORTUNITY
Lead the way in addressing organisational power dynamics
Five UK-based nonprofits have joined our six-month programme to explore:
- how power dynamics shape organisational and individual behaviours
- how seemingly separate integrity areas are interconnected
- practical steps for nurturing positive transformational power and addressing negative power
- pathways to embody organisational integrity.
We will explore how power analysis is foundational to organisational integrity and how to adapt integrity practices accordingly. Rather than starting from scratch, we will build on well-evidenced power analysis frameworks used in campaigning and programme work. Participating organisations will develop bespoke action plans, and contribute to the co-creation of open source tools to be shared across the sector.
Photo by Alex Kondratiev on Unsplash
The benefits of participating
The teams will form part of a small, dynamic cohort at the forefront of informing sector knowledge of power for evolving, whole-system integrity practice.
The lab will build your skills and confidence in understanding, articulating and addressing power for integrity-related decisions.
There are significant longer-term benefits as well. Understanding your organisation’s underlying power dynamics means you can address potential integrity issues in an effective and efficient way.
Reduced risk of harm
Rather than reacting to new aspects of integrity as they arise or or when the sector prioritises a new area, you can be proactive in identifying blind spots, reducing potential harm.
Improved stewardship
Reducing fragmentation and duplication in how you address multiple aspects of integrity will lead to better stewardship of finite human and financial resources.
Increased assurance
Gaining holistic oversight of integrity across your whole organisation will give you much more confidence that you are prioritising appropriately and able to make timely interventions.
THE PROGRAMME
The Power Lab journey
Participants from the five nonprofits will work together in four 4-hour workshops. Facilitation will be sensitive to different learning styles, and will apply a balance of experiential, applied and reflective learning methods.
There will be a few weeks between each session for reflecting, and to refine practices in their working environment. There will also be a virtual check-in meeting with their PI partner.
Power Lab’s main aim is to develop practical tools, frameworks and learnings to be shared in openly across the sector. But we will also explore how to create an ongoing community of practice or open space for sharing and connecting.
Criteria for participation
- Interest: Serious about integrity, addressing power, and shared learning.
- Attendees: 3–4, ideally a mix of board and executive roles and a practitioner.
- Time commitment: 4 x 4hr sessions with 2h reflective practice between each.
Up to 28 hours of support
Power Lab will provide:
- 17h face-to-face workshop facilitation
- Up to 11h direct support from a PI partner.
Programme of events
Pre-lab: Participating organisations will have an initial virtual meeting with their PI partner and complete a survey on learning styles and experience of working on power and organisational integrity. They will then review anonymised results and consider questions for SESSION 1.
SESSION 1: Introductions; Organisational integrity
What is Organisational Integrity?
- Exercise to build on the Organisational Integrity framework that evolves throughout the lab
- Seeing the fragmentation
- Understanding the common risks and opportunities for increased coherence
Post-session: Applying learning and virtual check-in with PI partner.
SESSION 2: Understanding power
Understanding power and its relationship with integrity
- Understanding how power operates in a structural and formal way – exercise to introduce power frameworks
- How power works in organisations – exercises to demonstrate shared root causes for seemingly separate aspects of integrity
- A coherent way forward – exploring and evolving a practical framework for moving forward.
Post-session: Applying learning and virtual check-in with PI partner.
SESSION 3: Leading towards integrity
How power sensitive leadership can enable positive transformation
- Exploring transformational power frameworks using experiential exercises and practical examples.
- What is power sensitive leadership – exercises to explore and identify key principles
- What is the role of leadership and governance to enable organisations to embody integrity?
Post-session: Applying learning and virtual check-in with PI partner.
SESSION 4: Towards organisational integrity
Moving forward
- How we can work in a more holistic way within our organsations?
- What is needed to support organisations and the sector to take this forward?
- Critical reflection and lessons learned from workshop.
Post-lab: PI will share lessons learned with the Power Lab cohort and offer virtual monthly check-ins for up to 8 months after the workshops. We will also share anonymised learnings more widely in the spirit of open-source working, to support wider sector work addressing power.
Where and when?
Power Lab workshops are due to take place in London on the following dates in 2022-2023:
SESSION 1: October 24th
SESSION 2: November 28th
SESSION 3: February 6th
SESSION 4: March 6th
Funding
Our ability to run Power Lab is possible thanks to the support of Oak Foundation.
Participating organisations just need to contribute their time, skills and experience, plus any travel or accommodation costs. A voluntary donation of up to £500 will help support our wider work, which is not yet funded. However, this is not a requirement of joining Power Lab.
Interested to take part?
We have stopped taking applications for the power lab. We will however be holding some mini labs later in the year. To register your interest, please email khadija@power-integrity.org.
Find out more about the PI initiative
Check out our media channels
We’re starting to explain more about PI at events and via blogs and other media channels. See what’s available on our news page.
Stay updated
If you want to know how our work is progressing, why not join the PI mailing list? We’ll let you know about news, upcoming events and other important information.
Get in touch
Do you want to know more about participating in the PI initiative? Perhaps you have a media enquiry or just a general enquiry about our work? If so, let us know.
As well as matters relating to misconduct, integrity aspects can include a wide range of other concerns about culture, leadership, standards in supply chains or partnerships, investments in markets that undermine the mission, etc.
A member of our team will be yosur dedicated partner for the Power Lab journey. This includes meeting before to the lab sessions, and regular virtual check-ins between sessions and monthly for up to 8 months afterwards.
For example, power analysis is a key area of research at the Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex. ‘Power, Empowerment and Social Change’, published in 2019, provides an overview of well-established frameworks in chapter 3.
Power-sensitive
Adapting well-established work by nonprofits on power and inequality, we are exploring how societal power structures underpin negative organisational culture and behaviours such as saviourism, sexism, racism, bullying, and corruption.
Power analysis identifies the for multiple aspects of integrity, essentially providing the lens for the whole-system approach to organisational integrity.
A power-sensitive approach also provides valuable insights into how best to address negative power manifestations and – importantly – how to nurture positive power.
Whole-system
We are exploring how organisations can embody integrity. We mean this in both senses of the word: honest, responsible, accountable, and principled; and whole and unbroken.
Organisational integrity requires a holistic and strategic mindset, combined with integrity practice at individual, organisational and sector levels.
Using a whole-system approach, we will support organisations to integrate integrity practice that strengthens oversight, strategy, risk management and operations. This will help them be more proactive, more efficient, and much less likely to cause harm.
Synergy-led
Integrating power-sensitive integrity practice requires continuous learning and diverse perspectives to shape a shared understanding. So we will help build an enabling environment with the nonprofit sector to work collectively on power and integrity.
We will also work to increase coherence between donor requirements around integrity and contribute to wider sector-level work on legitimacy, decolonisation and power.
By learning collectively and reducing duplication, the sector can establish a strong foundation from which organisations can strengthen their integrity practice and, ultimately, their impact.