Born in Shoreham-by-Sea in Sussex in 1943, and educated at Sevenoaks School and Keele University, Colin Ball, started his working life in the late 1960s as a teacher, in Malaysia (as a VSO volunteer in 1961/1962), the UK, Ghana and Nigeria. Then, after a year as a taxi-driver, during which he co-wrote his first book, Education for a Change (Penguin Books, 1973), he worked for some years as a civil servant in the Home Office and the Department of Employment in the late 1970s. During that time he co-wrote his second book, Fit for Work? (Writers and Readers,1979). He then established an independent not-for-profit research and consultancy organisation specialising in social and community enterprise, based in London, the Centre for Employment Initiatives.
Through his work there Ball gained an international reputation for his ideas and reports for international and inter-governmental agencies including the UN, EU, OECD and Oxfam and for governmental and non-governmental organisations in countries as diverse as Canada, the Sudan, the Gambia, South Africa, India, Pakistan, the Philippines, Vietnam and Brunei. He also prepared and presented two series of BBC Radio 4 programmes during this time.
His published work is very extensive and includes the OECD report Towards an Enterprising Culture, published in 1989; and Non-Governmental Organisations: Guidelines for Good Policy and Practice, published in 1995. He was a regular columnist in the Guardian newspaper and the Times Educational Supplement in the 1970s and has also published articles in a wide range and large number of journals.
Ball moved to Australia in 1995, where he continued with his international work, before moving back to the UK for several years to work at the Commonwealth Foundation, initially as Deputy Director and then as Director (2000-2004).
Now [2011] back living in Australia, Ball works as a consultant for community organisations both in Australia and in other countries, including India. (Source: Author's website http://www.colinball.com.au/about/ )
