working with communities
To co-create systems change.
OVERVIEW
There is undeniably growing interest from communities, like yours, to take climate action or create other positive changes. Whether you’re looking to create a transformative sustainability plan, build a partnership, or bring a new project to life, we can help turn your ideas into action.
We draw inspiration from the interconnected concepts of Doughnut Economics, the Circular Economy and Regenerative Design. We apply these frameworks to bring creativity, systems thinking and a curious mindset to collectively reimagine how your community can thrive now, and in the future.
“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.”
MARGARET MEAD
SUMMARY OF CORE SERVICES
01 Co-create Community, Place-Based Sustainability Plans: We work together with residents and local organisations to develop grassroots “Sustainability Plans” that focus on specific challenges and opportunities that are important to residents (e.g., tackling climate change, reducing fuel poverty, improving their local environment, reducing food waste and reducing loneliness).
02 Community Co-design & Bid-Writing: We work collaboratively with your community to co-design projects. We can then help you secure funding, so that you can move forward to deliver your project.
03 Project Management: If you’re ready to go with your project, we can provide project management services to ensure effective delivery.
04 Building Partnerships: We can work with you to develop a partnership of key people and organisations to deliver the change that you are seeking to create.
If you’re interested in something that’s not listed here, do get in touch and we can see how we can help.
A LITTLE MORE DETAIL…
01 Community, Place-Based Sustainability Plans
Whilst Combined Authorities and Councils are developing regional or city-focused climate change (or broader sustainability) strategies, it can be difficult to see what these strategies mean for your local area and how your community can shape implementation.
Developing a Community-led Sustainability Plan is about bridging this gap – co-creating a plan that is about making the place you call home as sustainable as possible. This can both be influenced by and inform regional strategies, but we focus on the challenges and opportunities that are most important to your community. It’s not about developing a “perfect plan” that cannot be implemented.
Co-creation process
The process for developing a Sustainability Plan will be different for each community, dependant on the issues and opportunities that are important to you, but it will typically include the following elements:
– Defining the social, economic & environmental goals of your “Sustainability Plan” – such as tackling climate change, creating jobs, reconnecting with nature, improving your local environment, improving access to healthy & local food, building energy independence, reducing loneliness etc.
– Co-designing the process – this is about working with you to develop a process for developing your plan, considering who needs to be involved and when, alongside taking inspirating from existing frameworks (e.g. doughnut economics, circular economy) to guide the creation process.
– Rethinking systems – mapping out the current systems that you are seeking to create change within (e.g. food system, transport system, education system), then creating your desired future system and collectively reflecting on how you can get from the current to future desired system.
– Using evidence & data – using datasets as a tool to challenge assumptions, ensure strategic approaches and actions are evidence-led, and to complement residents’ lived experiences to build a complete picture.
– Developing impactful projects – working with residents and partner organisations to identify “quick win” activities and develop longer-term, “anchor” projects.
– Creating co-owned action plans – collaboratively developing action plans to deliver the changes you are seeking to create, ensuring there is ownership, and a clear and realistic pathway for delivery. Actions will include opportunities for your Local Authority, Combined Authority and other key partners to support delivery.
02 Community Co-Design & Bid-Writing
Do you have an idea for an exciting new project, but you’re not sure where to start? We can work with you to collaboratively develop your project and secure funding. Whether your project is a community allotment, repair shop or renewable energy project. This may also involve engagement work to build partnerships, such as between businesses, or between the community and key stakeholders (e.g., local authority).
– Community Co-Design: Working with your community and key partner organisations (e.g., local businesses, your Local Authority, District Network Operator etc), we will develop and deliver a fun and interactive co-design process. Through a series of workshop sessions, we will take a an “idea” to a fully scoped project, ensuring buy-in from key stakeholders. We can then move the project forward to feasibility study stage.
– Bid-Writing: Professional bid writing to maximise potential for securing funding. With significant experience designing funding schemes and appraising grant applications, we understand what funders are looking for and can use this knowledge to either strengthen your application or develop the application on your behalf.
03 Project Management
If you have secured funding for your project, we can provide professional project management to ensure your project is delivered on time and meets the requirements of your funder (including reporting etc). We specialise in managing complex projects – those with multiple stakeholders, tricky timelines, and a number of workstreams to be executed in parallel.
04 Building Partnerships
Creating change requires collaboration. It is sometimes useful to formalise this through creating a partnership. This may be as simple as forming a dedicated “group”, or establishing an entity (such as a company) as a vehicle to develop and deliver projects at pace. We can work with you to decide which partnership model is best for your community and help you to establish the partnership.
Building a partnership may be something you are seeking support on its own for, or it may be complementary to one of the above core services.
