FINAL REPORT May 2020
CONTENTS THANK YOU 1 OUR GOALS 2 THE ORGANIZATION 3 ORGANIZATIONAL DEVELOPMENT 4 MINDFULNESS & SUSTAINABILITY 5 MINDFULNESS X SUSTAINABILITY, THE JOURNEY 6 SOCIAL MEDIA 7 EXTERNAL EVENTS 9 SPONSORS AND SUPPORTERS 10
Vïølå
executive president board
Jëßßïçå
executive VP - design board
Vïñçëñt executive VP - logistics board
Lïñdå
Rïççårdø
Ë mmå
Çlåüdïå
Këvïñ
Ølëñå
Påmëlå
communications crew
communications crew
communications crew
communications crew
finance crew
finance crew
finance crew
Bëßtlå
Jøhñ
Åñå Rïtå
Jøåññå
Røbërt
Mïrå
Mëågåñ
Vïçtørïå
Jåñå
Çårlëÿ
event design crew
event design crew
event design crew
event design crew
event design crew
event design crew
HR crew
HR crew
HR crew
HR crew
THANK YOU
Being a volunteer in DANSIC has been a special experience for many young people since 2011. Certainly, through the years, each cohort of volunteers has formed a bond strengthened by inspiration and a common goal to achieve something together. In DANSIC20 this was no different. The DANSIC20 volunteers deserve every single piece of credit that comes their way for the outstanding manner they took on the objectives of DANSIC20, as well as the eventual hiccup caused by COVID-19. While it is an oft overused cliché, this time round it really was about the journey, not so much the end destination. The volunteers representing a diverse range of academic and cultural backgrounds really came together under pressure. The entrepreneurial spirit well and truly shone through as the team pulled the year from potential disaster to skilfully pivot and execute an
online event within only a matter of weeks. It was awe-inspiring to witness the team at work. Often ‘thank you’ is said, without much meaning behind it, but truly the DANSIC20 can say with absolute sincerity that this year even ‘1000 thanks’ do not even come close to conveying the gratitude felt towards the volunteers of DANSIC20. Congratulations on a job well done and welcome to DANSIC Alumni! Our thanks are paid to the DANSIC Advisory Board for its ongoing support of the organisation. The direct access supplied to the DANSIC board by the Advisory Board is greatly appreciated. In particular being provided with empathy, stern advice and encouragement was at times what was needed to overcome a temporary stumbling block. Furthermore, the sparring sessions were valuable exercises. On behalf of DANSIC thank 1
you very much for the time, energy, and above all belief that you continue to show to the organisation. The Advisory Board members for DANSIC20 were Steffen Thybo Drostgaard, Lasse Zobel, Anne Kjær Skovgaard, Simona Maschi, Lærke Ullerup, & Frederik Nellemann. Finally, we would like to extend our enormous thanks to Tuborgfondet, and the University of Copenhagen’s Innovation Hubs (Innovation and Entrepreneurship at UCPH) unit for judging DANSIC20 to be worthy of large financial contributions. Without your generous support DANSIC’s activities would be more difficult. The belief shown by both organisations in the power of young people in Denmark is not taken for granted. We at DANSIC look forward to continuing this partnership.
OUR GOALS In the current climate crisis, our intention with this year’s project was to positively impact young people’s mindset while giving them alternative tools on how to behave more sustainably. This willingness to connect mindfulness and sustainability came from the awareness that young people are passionate and worried about the climate crisis but they are not always able to act towards it in their daily lives, for example leaving their trash on the streets after the weekends parties. This behaviour is not due to a lack of articles on which actions are needed to be more sustainable, so we wanted to investigate deeper the connection between behaviour change and sustainability, using mindfulness as an alternative way to change habits that are unsustainable.
Therefore, our research question was ‘How to use mindfulness techniques to influence young people to act more sustainably?’, while our goals were of making young people:
Beside these goals, we also had some structural goals for the organization, based on our experiences and needs, which was to:
of the power of mindfulness and habits 1 Aware Create a small change to change their behaviour effectively 1 where volunteer to be more sustainable; conscious of their unsustainable 2 Be behaviour thanks to mindfulness exercises and get information on what actions they can do to be more sustainable;
mindfulness methods and habit 3 Apply change techniques to put those tips in action and become more sustainable. 2
but united organization benefit from meaningful interactions with one another in a semiprofessional setting;
some of our internal processes and 2 Ease get an overview of where are our expenses mostly located;
all the information needed to create a 3 Collect smooth handover to the following board.
THE ORGANIZATION DANSIC20 consisted of 3 board members and 21 volunteers divided in 4 crews: • • • •
HR crew Communications crew Finance crew Event Design crew
Each of the crew had a director and a board member, who worked closely with that crew, and a number of volunteers from 3 to 6, depending on the amount of work needed in the crew itself, so the Event Design crew had the largest number of people. DANSIC20 was the first year in the organization in which the board was made only of non-Danish
speaker members, and in which the rest of the team was also mostly consisting of non-Danish speaker volunteers, which was due to a lack of Danish speaker applicants. This created some challenges in the performing of the tasks as in some crews there was a lack of Danish speakers so volunteers from other crews had to step in and help in the translation, for example for the funding applications. The volunteers were from Europe, specifically from Denmark, Germany, Iceland, Italy, Latvia, the Netherlands, Portugal, Slovakia and Ukraine - but also from outside of Europe, such as from Argentina, Australia, US, and Vietnam. 3
ORGANIZATIONAL DEVELOPMENT In DANSIC20 we introduced the following changes as part of our organizational development strategy: Weekly meetings We introduced a mandatory weekly meeting every Tuesday for all members, which started at 17.30 with a general mandatory meeting of half an hour for all the volunteers, in which the HR crews facilitated an ice breaker, conducted a meditation session, and shared information and updates on the organization. Overall this decision to host the weekly meeting at the same place (KU’s SUND Hub) and time was beneficial to the organisation’s internal workflow and complemented efforts to increase the familiarity among the volunteers with one another. DANSIC20 Community We aimed at creating a culture where volunteers would feel at home and comfortable with
each other so we also organized, besides the social days - which were both for professional development and for team building - frequent casual hang outs after the weekly meetings, in SUND Hub or outside, with the whole team. Community Development during lockdown (Covid-19) When the Covid-19 situation arose and our meetings in person were not possible anymore, we transferred the work completely online - giving the crews the possibility to meet singularly if they wanted too, when the rules eased up. We kept the same structure of the weekly meetings with an all-hands meeting at the beginning. However, the meetings online were less enjoyable than the meeting in person for all the volunteers, which nonetheless remained motivated until the end of DANSIC20 in May. Still we managed to organize a couple of online social days, the Running Dinner as well as a conflict management workshop. 4
Handover to the next board We created a guide on how to be on the board of DANSIC inspired by our DANSIC20 experiences and we translated and updated the Financial guide, creating also two extra guides for the most relevant processes in the latter. We believe that such a handover document is an important step in organisational knowledge retention. SUND Hub & collaboration with SIH During DANSIC20, we were hosted by KU’s SUND Hub, thanks to the link to health of our yearly topic, but we continued a close collaboration with the Student & Innovation House (SIH). DANSIC members attended weekly FIKA meetings at SUND Hub. The SIH events introduced us to other students organizations with whom we were able to share information and support each other.
MINDFULNESS & SUSTAINABILITY This year DANSIC worked with the concepts Mindfulness and Sustainability. Two very big buzzwords, that are being used out there but not necessarily together or in connection with each other. The DANSIC20 team discussed what they meant to us, and how we could contribute towards them - both as individuals and as a tribe of people that care about the topic. How our current behavior can lead to a positive impact on ourselves and the world? Can individuals create a better and more sustainable world by changing their mindset? Does it really matter what one individual does? The link between them The connection between Mindfulness and Sustainability was created and put into action after discovering the article Mindfulness and
Sustainability by Ericson, Kjønstad, and Barstad, which among other things highlights that promoting mindfulness could be construed as a policy that contributes both to sustainability and to greater well-being. The article argues that materialism is ruling our society, but people do not need as much as they consume, so by being more aware of themselves and focus on their well-being, the present, unnecessary objects will lose importance. As a result of being mindful the individuals will be more sustainable. We widened the approach of the article, from not only focusing on consumption but also including general behavioral change and food consumption. 5
Why we wanted to work on them As young people whose future is at risk due to the climate crisis as a result of a non- sustainable way of living, the DANSIC20 Team decided to focus on behavioral change of individuals. This behavioral change should link mindfulness and sustainability together as these are, as mentioned above two massive buzzwords in society but not yet connected as much as they could be to each other. We wanted our participants to realize the importance of their own well-being through being more mindful as well as the impact these can have on the environment through their actions.
MINDFULNESS X SUSTAINABILITY, THE JOURNEY Through indicating the different subjects we wanted to talk about - which were the following pillars: Behavioral Change, Consumerism, Food and Flow & Mind - we wanted to make sure to take the participants on a journey of behavioral change, reaching further than just a one-day event. Our initial idea Our initial idea was to have a 4-hour event on one evening, where the different speakers would each create a 45 Minute workshop on the different pillars. On that evening as well people would have to fill out a survey about their behavior. Another add on to the event would have been that we would have used our power of being from different countries to spread the word in our
home countries as well as in our own workplaces, but also to different organizations and schools with a sustainable focus. So that it would be a digital event as well as a real-life event, fitting our forward moving society. After the event we wanted to send the participants little nudges and ideas on what they could potentially change in 21 days. After this stimulation period we would send the participants another similar questionnaire on behavioral change to see if anything had changed before having one last event where we would sum up how to keep their behavioral change. The impact of COVID-19 COVID-19 massively impacted DANSIC20’s plans. After having a week of chaos and not sure 6
what was going to happen, the Board decided collectively to not be demotivated by the global pandemic but to keep working on the project and just change the format a little bit. All volunteers recommitted to the DANSIC20 project despite the massive changes thrown at them by COVID-19. Instead of doing a normal event it was decided to move to a podcast format which could be listened to online. The podcast was split into the four different pillars meaning that within the event week four different podcasts were launched, based on the four different pillars. Additionally, we did not want to change the whole format of the event hence we moved the 21days of habit change with little nudges online as well. This was realized through creating an online community on Facebook as well as sending out emails with
all the information collected to make people rethink their behavior and get different inputs. We ended the event with sending out another survey questioning people about their behavioral change and a 5th and last podcast episode wrapping up the whole event evaluating the survey and giving an overall feeling of the whole event.
M IN D FU L N ESS X SU STA INA BIL IT Y
The online event The online format was probably a little too complicated for individuals to understand as well as there were many different ways of taking part in the event, meaning that the setup was not always very intuitive. However, we got a lot of people on board and participated and listened to the podcast. We saw a decline in people interacting online with each other, from the time of the first podcast’s release (April 20th) to the last release (May 18th), while nevertheless keeping a permanent number of people onboard. The number of respondents for the first survey was high, however the follow-up survey received significantly less respondents. In general, through looking at the results of the survey and talking to the different individuals, the impact we had on how people changed their habits was significant. Challenges & learnings The biggest challenge was definitely coping with COVID-19: moving the event online, dealing with an event format none of us had dealt with before going along with a lot of other things such as editing a podcast. Nevertheless, the learning outcome was enormous due to the unfamiliar state of the situation. Additionally, people were not used to the pandemic and because our advertisement started during the COVID-19 lockdown it was hard to get people involved due to the crisis situation.
education to habit change
click on the podcasts to listen to them!
consumerism
food
flow & mind
closing podcast
Listeners to the Podcasts on Soundcloud: Listeners to the Podcasts on Spotify:
Facebook Group: 7
320 plays
590 plays 169 subscribers 252 members
Overall listeners: Mailing List:
270 plays
May 19 May 20
SOCIAL MEDIA The Communications crew took charge of DANSIC’s social media platforms. The key aim for the Communication crew’s use of these platforms was to present a clear message tied to appealing visual branding and imagery which reflected the Mindfulness X Sustainability theme, as well as both growing the awareness of the central theme as well as reinforcing its message. The crew repurposed DANSIC’s standard black logo to create a new logo for DANSIC20. The design process was led by the Communications crew, however it was holistic in terms of bringing
in contributions from other members of the organisation. As well as the soft blue and the muted orange colour used as the two main theme colours of DANSIC20, a ‘pay-off’ was also created for use in external communication material. An internal submission and vote was held to determine the contenders and the winner of the process and the winning pay-off was “THINK IN LOOP”. Underlining the key aim was the goal to grow DANSIC’s followership across its main social media platforms (Facebook, Instagram, & 8
LinkedIn) by 15% between October 2019 and June 2020. Internally the individual team members also set their own goals for their workflow and the skills they wanted to improve. The three platforms were used for alternate posting strategies depending on the platforms’ culture. The level of engagement and increased followers on LinkedIn was particularly promising, it is possible to argue that this was due to the engagement with DANSIC20’s collaborators’ professional pages.
Name of Event
Hosted by / including
Date
Falcon Academy
Student & Innovation House
May-June 2019
Festival for Verdensmålene /
Sustainable Now, CBS,
September 2019
Festival for the Global Goals
Frederiksberg Kommune, Student & Innovation House
Techfestival “Where humans
Techfestival
September 2019
CBS Society Day
CBS Students
September 2019
FIKA
Sund Hub
Regularly from late 2019
EXTERNAL EVENTS
New Year’s Reception
Student & Innovation House
January 2020
KU Planning for Innovation
University of Copenhagen
Early 2020 (ongoing)
Over the past year DANSIC members have been invited to join in many externally organised activities or events. These activities have benefitted the professional development of the DANSIC20 membership base, as well as strengthened the partnerships that DANSIC holds with many companies and organisations relevant to social innovation and/or student life. In many cases DANSIC was granted special access or given complimentary tickets. Furthermore, DANSIC members joined development clusters to foster student collaboration across two focus points: sustainability and a student organisation alliance. DANSIC was represented at the following activities or events:
Hub at KUB-Nord
& technology meet”
DISIE Impact Talks
Danish Institute for Sustainable February 2020 Innovation & Entrepreneurship
Student societies’ alliance
Student & Innovation House
February 2020 (ongoing)
Entrepreneurship cluster
Student & Innovation House
February 2020 (ongoing)
OIKOS Green-Week at CBS
OIKOS Denmark
March 2020
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SPONSORS AND SUPPORTERS DANSIC20 wants to thank all the sponsors and supporters of this year’s project.
Financial Supporters
Office Provider
Logistical Supporters
Community Partners
DANSIC Advisory Board
Community Supporters
Service Providers
Bryan Traum
Alejandro Franco Laust Lauridsen
DANSIC ALUMNI
Maria JessenPetersen Collaborators
Poornima Luthra
10
David Hirst
Jacob Schjødt
Irene Di Lauro
