Profile

David Robinson is co-chair of our board and founded We Are What We Do, the social movement inspiring people to use their everyday actions to affect social change, from which Shift evolved as an independent organisation.

David was an early advocate of using behavioural insights as a tool for tackling social issues and was a social innovator before the term became widely used. Whilst Shift has gradually adapted its approach to become a very different kind of organisation to We Are What We Do, David’s ambition to drive mass behaviour change and create solutions that appeal to their users remains, like David himself, at the heart of our work.

David is a community worker. He has founded and led several other organizations including Community Links, where he still leads the Early Action Task Force, the Children’s Discovery Centre and Changing London. He led the Prime Minister’s Council on Social Action for Gordon Brown and the original London Advisory Board for what is now the Big Lottery Fund. His policy work has been recognized with an honorary doctorate from the Open University and he is currently Practitioner in Residence at the LSE’s Marshall Institute. David was once described by the Guardian as “the godfather of the community sector, equally admired on the left and right”.

david.robinson@shiftdesign.org.uk

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Introducing the Relationships Observatory

Inviting you to observe, capture and share amazing examples of responses to COVID-19 that have relationships at their heart – all to help us learn for the future.

Coronavirus and social disruption

A view from the Relationships Project on how our lives and relationships are changing as a result of coronavirus.

Imagining a relationship-centred London

In brief In this blog, David shares his reflections on an thoughtful, energetic event in which 25 Londoners reimagined the …

Joining the dots: Wallpaper and relationships

In this contribution to Joining the Dots, The Relationships Project Founder David Robinson reflects on the importance of visual clues …

Joining the Dots: A Common Field

The Relationships Project is working with others on sharing and discussing ideas. We hope this work will ultimately help to …

Talking a little, learning a lot

As we have been shaping our ideas about relationship centred design we have been talking a little and learning a …

Rebooting relationships

I have been collecting some very short stories over the summer. Here’s a handful: The doctor sits on the bed, …

What have we learnt and now what? Part ten of Connecting Well.

David Robinson is Shift’s founder and a community worker in east London. He is currently exploring new work on social isolation at the Marshall Institute. This is the tenth in a series of blogs.

The Heart of the Matter: Part eight of Connecting Well

David Robinson is Shift’s founder and a community worker in east London. He is currently exploring new work on social isolation at the Marshall Institute. This is the eigth in a series of blogs.

Relational offset, the new imperative: Part seven of Connecting Well.

David Robinson is Shift’s founder and a community worker in east London. He is currently exploring new work on social isolation at the Marshall Institute. This is the seventh in a series of blogs.