I’ve always felt that the social impact space has some serious challenges and one of those challenges is the competitive environment for non profits. While we would all benefit from being collaborative and learning from each other, often simply because of the way funding works, organisations are encouraged to compete with each other. I’ve met several non profits who don’t share their material or learning simply because of this. About a few months ago I met someone quite similar to the space we’re working in and I found them being extremely helpful and someone who was willing to offer a lot of what they had learnt. We had visited their space and we were quite enthused by the work they were doing and envisioned that we could also perhaps take a lot from them.  Today we found out that they were starting a learning space quite close to where we are currently located. I was initially quite hurt that they chose to do this without talking to us but I also understand that this could purely be that they had not recalled that we were here and perhaps did not have a clear understanding of what we’re doing. We’ve grown quite attached to these learners and there is a sense of fear that learners would go to this space and not come to ours. I have played out some dialogues in my head and I can imagine some of this is going to hurt. One or two learners talked about this organisation starting a space and how they’d like to go there too.  It also started to raise some serious questions in our minds - What exactly is our offering? What does the community see us as? What are we necessary for? Are we even necessary? The model we have is quite different from what the other organisation brings but we all felt that perhaps we need to be more specific and define what it is that we’re doing. It feels like we’re going to be facing a serious litmus test.  I’m trying to take this positively but it is something that has caused a strange feeling in my stomach. I would love to collaborate with this other organisation and together better support this community but we do feel a bit scared knowing that this other organisation is a lot better positioned in terms of resources and funds. It also doesn’t feel right to feel this way. I know this community could hugely benefit from this other organisation’s presence especially given how much of a strain we’ve been facing off late. Having some learners move away might be something that will allow us to be much more effective. Having a place that is open on weekends is going to be great for the learners. Despite this I do feel a sense of tension and angst. I’ve been talking about how the social impact space lacks collaboration and now we need to walk the talk when the situation to collaborate knocks on our own doors.  We have to try and welcome this openly and know that this is something that will only benefit us in the long run. We have the opportunity to learn something about ourselves and also really think through what it is exactly that we’re offering to the community. Though I’m nervous, I’m quite looking forward to this next month or so.