The story starts...

We Are What We Do began life in a corner of East London, as an offshoot of Community Links, an inner-city charity that runs projects in Newham, one of the poorest boroughs in Europe.

Back in 2004, Community Link’s founder, David Robinson, decided to write a paper. It was called Reconnecting and it included his thoughts, based on 25 years as a community worker, on the need for change in society and the power of people coming together to make it happen.

He gathered a group of people from the creative industries, business, voluntary sector and government to do something about this.

Among this group was Eugenie Harvey, an Aussie with a background in communications and marketing. She met David, felt her calling, quit her job and took up the reigns.

A few late-night pow-wows and a vat of coffee later, We Are What We Do was born.

Change The World For A Fiver

We asked a simple question, “What would you ask one million people to do to change the world?”

Thousands of people from all over the world replied.

The result was our best selling book, Change the World for a Fiver – 50 actions to change the world and make you feel good.

It has been endorsed by Number 10, bigged up on telly, placed in hotel rooms, published in 6 countries and sold over 1 million copies worldwide.

Change The World 9-5

After the success of Change The World for a Fiver, people starting asking us for actions they could do at work. So we asked you. Thousands of suggestions later our next book appeared.

Working with other companies

Whether it's talking to people in their own workplace, like the employees engagement programme we're running with Sainsbury's, or working with companies to spread our message further, like the books and website we're producing with the drinks company Menos Es Mas in Spain, we've worked with lots of brands and companies so we can reach more people.

I'm Not A Plastic Bag

Action #1, Decline plastic bags, is such an easy thing to do. But a few years ago it was only tofu-eating sandal-wearers that considered bringing their own hemp carrier to the supermarket.

So we asked handbag designer Anya Hindmarch to help. Together we created the “I'm NOT a plastic bag” shopper. People saw it, loved it, and cottoned on.

Teach Your Granny To Text

Can kids change the world? Well, we certainly think so. So we decided to make a book especially for children. And asked them to create it too.

Erica suggested we teach our grannies to text. Cato and Edward told us to Walk our Dads. Jone told us to not start a war. All good advice.

Thanks to the DCSF, every school in the country has a copy to stick and tear and grow and unfold.

Working with schools

For the last couple of years we've recruited 200 young people from schools and colleges in England to be part of our Young Speakers programme.

We take them to a farm somewhere near Bristol, train them up, then send them out to run campaigns and do presentations in their schools and communities.

Last year our Young Speakers spread the We Are What We Do message to over 50,000 children.

The Young Speakers programme is funded by the Aldridge Foundation and v.

2010

Talk to old people, they know great stuff you don't.

Talk to young people, they know great stuff you don't.

2010 is all about Action #14, Spend time with someone from a different generation.

We've got loads of things in the pipe line: together with Google we're getting you to dig out some old photos and collect them on Google Maps, there will be new ways for you to do Action #115, Teach Your Granny To Text and nifty kits to help you do Action #131: Knit with Someone.

Watch this space.

What happens next...

How do we get more people, doing more actions, to bring about even more change?

Everyday we are concocting plans for what we do next.

Eugenie's idea for a 24 hour TV programme showing footage of a lightbulb hasn't made the short list... but a few others have.

And we're always keen to get suggestions from you too. Drop us a line.