We are living in a time of transition. Social cohesion is fraying, public finances are tightening, political landscapes are shifting. The pace of change feels ever faster, and the capacity of our institutions to keep up, or even make sense of the change that is happening, is ever more strained. Place-based community-led change offers a powerful route to navigate these times. Because, it is at the community level that challenges are most acutely felt; and it is at the community level that opportunities to do things differently are most readily found. 

The case for community led change is strong, and there is growing enthusiasm for, and resources from, the UK central government. However, the conditions for community led change have perhaps never been so challenging and many of the tools and assumptions we have relied on seem inadequate to the moment. 

• How do you build consensus when communities can feel more fractured than ever?
• How do you create the patience for long term change when today's needs are so acute? 
• How do you collaborate for the long-term when funding feels so fragile and jobs so insecure?

It is in response to this context that Emily Sun from Place Matters brought together Mark Cabaj and Avril Macintyre, both big thinkers and well practiced doers to ask “what does community led change look like in these times?”

About Mark Cabaj and Avril MacIntyre

Mark Cabaj- is a founding member of the Canadian Tamarack Institute and has been at the forefront of collective impact and community led change for over 25 years. He is both a practitioner and a theorist - well known for his ability to craft frameworks and tools that help people turn ideas into action.

Avril McIntyre - is based in Barking & Dagenham and has three decades of experience in community led change. Starting her career as a social worker, she went on to found, run and grow a number of community based charities, Avril has been hands-on with the changing context, practices and creative possibilities of community led change.

Our conversation asked three questions:

1. Why is place based change so suited (and necessary) in our times?
2. What does good collective impact look like in a time of transition?
3. What role can funders play?

For our full, wide ranging conversation you can watch here; you’ll find a summary of key themes below:

1. Why place-based change is both essential and insufficient- Place is where people experience life. It is where we meet real people, share space, access services and encounter the state. It is also a scale at which we can customise responses to local contexts, weave together complex moving parts, unlock untapped local resources, enable faster innovation, and build social capital. Working at the scale of place can open up change at pace and also the level of adaptation that times of transition require. However, if we want impact at scale then place based change can not work alone. There will be things that simply can not be changed locally (like national policy or the allocation of central government resources). And furthermore, whilst all places are different there is much that can be learnt between places. So whilst place-based change is essential to this time of transition, to meet the scale of the moment,  it can't work alone — as Mark brought out,  ‘it needs coordinated cross-scale responses connecting local, regional, and national levels.’
2. Moving from organisational self-interest to collective place-interest- The structures that many of us live and work in are organisational. And organisations, even those set up with the best of collective intentions, often default to protecting their own viability and their own perspective on what’s needed. Community led change is ultimately about a transfer of power. It’s about communities leading on what they want and need and how to make it happen. Avril talked powerfully about the need for all who work in this space to be able to move from a mindset of “I and my organisation” to “we and this place”. This may be hard, slow and relationship dependent but it is also non-negotiable for genuine change.
3. The importance of social infrastructure for change- A key enabler of community-led change is the strength of the social infrastructure that brings together the key actors within a community to build a shared ambition and work collaboratively towards it.  The community itself needs to be at the centre of this, but the broader VCSE sector, local government, public services, and ideally, employers all need to come together, bringing their unique assets and perspectives.  Strong social infrastructure is foundational to communities’ ability to make things happen and adapt to challenging times (such as the pandemic). Yet social infrastructure is often overlooked and undervalued and the facilitation, coordination work and physical spaces required, are poorly funded.  
4. The limits of consultation — and the case for co-design Community consultation can become a lazy shorthand for community led. But they are far from the same thing. Place based work is fundamentally about a power shift. Consultation without power transfer is co-opting the language of community led. And when communities are consulted and then see little change happen or little that they care about, then consultation becomes extractive, performative and erodes trust. Rather than ‘consulting’ once plans are shaped’, community led work is a process of co-design from day one.

“Well, I think I would eradicate all community consultation. It's just such a nonsense. So, what we're seeking to do is, work where residents are part of the design from the very beginning" (Avril McIntyre) {edited for clarity)

1. How funders need to change Funders have an important and powerful role to play. Lankelly Chase's approach of asking "how do we create the soil in which things can grow?" is a direct challenge to traditional criteria-driven, accountability-focused funding approaches that often undermine local agency. 
2. The emotional work of transition- the issue of grief came up. Transition times are full of loss. It can feel like the scale of the challenges outstrips the scale of the energy, resources and hope needed. Place based work is ultimately relational, being able to acknowledge and be honest about how the work feels, about what we are losing and what we fear to lose may well be part of finding the connection to others and hope to keep going.