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Find out what happened when we realised that writing our 27-32 strategy was another creative project…
When Kate and I stepped into our roles as Co-CEOs, we did what most new leaders do: we sat down in a room together to “solve” the future. It was December 2025, and we were determined to put our stamp on a new polished strategy by April.
But the more we talked, the more something felt wrong.
Magic Me is built on co-design. All our projects are animated by the input and ideas of our community participants and partners. By rushing out a new vision, we’d veered away from the very thing we love most about Magic Me’s work: collaboration and inclusivity. We’d forgotten our own blueprint. So we went back to our Intergenerational Principles to see what we’d missed.
“Everybody is needed and exchange is important”
They reminded us first and foremost that we need everyone’s voice. We need to receive the wisdom of our community in order to deliver them a meaningful strategy.
So we extended our current strategy through 2026/27, giving us the space to do the deep listening that’s a hallmark of our project development.
“Participants come together as equal partners around a creative common purpose”
Realising that the strategy itself is our creative common purpose (what is more creative than imagining the next five years of our shared future?), we made a list of those participants we felt would want to contribute. We define participants as “younger and older people, staff and residents, Magic Me and project partners”. So for this strategy ‘project’ we needed to have all these voices represented as stakeholders including health and social care students, local neighbours, sheltered housing residents, staff, artists, care homes, schools, peers and funders.
“Magic Me believes that everyone has a past, a present, a future and an imagination”
The whole team is getting involved. We’re launching a series of deep-dive interviews where every single staff member will speak to five different stakeholders. We want to know what they see when they look at Magic Me’s past, what they need from our present, and what they imagine for our future. The questions we ask will avoid ageist stereotypes, assuming everyone, no matter their age, has experience to share, and future ideas to contribute.
This all leads up to a half-day of intergenerational creativity where we’ll have everyone from secondary school students to older neighbours, Arts Council reps to care home managers sitting side-by-side, using their collective imagination to co-author our aims for 2032.
“Whatever our age, the arts can offer ways for us to express how we want the world to be” *
Once we have our aims and objectives, we’ll gather our artists in the summer for some creative magic-making to explore the sorts of exciting, creative programmes Magic Me could run to deliver them. Then the staff team gets to wrestle with the options (and copious post it notes!) until eventually as Co-CEOs we can bottle up the essence into the final document.
“Reflection is built into each project.”
This pivot has been a big lesson for Kate and me. We’ve realised that our “stamp” on Magic Me isn’t about having all the answers. Instead we want to bring the right people together and facilitate the brilliance that’s already there and now. By the end of this process, we’ll have a rich range of voices shaping this strategy.
Personally, I’ve worked in senior leadership across manufacturing, education and the third sector for almost 15 years and never been part of a strategy process anywhere near this consultative. All it took was returning to our principles. It’s incredibly exciting and I can’t wait to see what everyone has to say…
And for those thinking: “how did you find the time for this?”… By spreading the consultations across our team they only have to find 1.5 hours per week across May. This gives the team a development opportunity while Magic Me gets the rich data that will form the foundation for an exciting 5 years ahead.
We’ll be sharing our new principles-led strategy and what we’ve learned from this process later in the year. Watch this space.
