At Place Matters, our mission is to understand exactly how change happens in local communities and what it takes to bring people, organisations, and systems together effectively. To get under the bonnet of place-based working, our team is embarking on an ongoing programme of visits to projects in communities across the UK.

Our goal is to capture the "glue" that makes place-based initiatives successful, codifying these practices to share with policymakers, funders, and grassroots organisers across the country.

Our Place-Based Learning and Practice Lead Steff O’Keeffe, and systems change practitioner Scott Hinkle kicked off our journey in Scotland, where we met three projects in person and one online.  We saw some outstanding  examples of communities fundamentally rewiring how local change is achieved that we think will inspire others doing this work. 

1. Radical Power Shifting and Meaningful Investment in Residents

One of the most striking innovations we observed is in Edinburgh, where the Regenerative Futures Fund is flipping the script with a 10-year, £15 million pooled fund targeting poverty, systemic racism, and climate change. The innovation lies in their governance: a panel of 15 residents with lived experience of poverty and racism holds the ultimate decision-making power over where the money goes.

Whilst participatory grant making is not new, crucially, these residents aren't just asked to volunteer their time; they are treated as collaborative colleagues and paid equitably. Regenerative Futures pays the resident panel 1.5 times the living wage for their participation, honouring Scottish co-production payment policies. To ensure the panel feels confident and equipped, the fund also provides for extensive capacity-building and training. Residents participate in tailored "learning sessions" covering complex topics like housing, homelessness, and community wealth building. They have also been specifically trained to use the "Three Horizons" framework; a practical mapping tool that helps them visualise and implement true systems change.

2. What Actually Is Systems Change?

As we travelled, it became clear that "systems change" isn't a universally agreed-upon concept; it means vastly different things depending on who holds the power.

For the Regenerative Futures Fund, systems change is fundamentally about shifting power directly to communities. They noted a tension between their definition and the local authority's view. Regenerative Futures argues that this is in contrast to government bodies’ definition of ‘public sector reform’, which usually means connecting up existing statutory services while keeping power within the same traditional organisations. 

In Dundee, the What Matters 2 U initiative defines systems change as allowing communities to have more power in decision making, but the way in which they achieve this is different. Their ambition is to create a shift  toward a "preventative spend" model within institutions, centring community voices in strategic decisions. For them, a changed system looks like local housing or social workers having the flexibility to utilise community assets to solve root-cause problems before they escalate into crises.

For Everyone Everyday in Kirkcaldy, it is about strengthening everyday participation and social infrastructure so that residents routinely make, meet, create, and decide together. The focus is on building community confidence, capability, and collective agency first, with institutional influence emerging over time through partnership rather than being the starting point.

In the Corra ‘Getting Alongside Communities’ project in Blacklands, systems change is defined through both personal empowerment and institutional flexibility. For community members, it means recognising their own power, building the confidence to advocate for their needs, and realising that large, seemingly impenetrable policies and procedures can actually be influenced and changed. It involves transforming how residents interact with statutory services, shifting away from conflict toward having constructive conversations that create allies.

3. Going "Where the Energy Is" and Real-Time Learning

In Dundee, What Matters 2 U also demonstrates the impact of bridging the gap between grassroots activists and local government.

Rather than sticking to strict KPIs or arbitrary demographic quotas, their approach is simple: "go where the energy is". They have influenced the city council to move to a deeper and more dynamic way of engaging residents through cafe conversations rather than public consultations where up to 60 community members sit equitably with council leaders and frontline workers to solve problems together.

Instead of waiting for a post-project evaluation to measure impact, they utilise a real-time learning strategy based on "story circles". By capturing contextual human stories of change as they happen, they can dynamically prove the value of their preventative interventions to the council and continuously adapt their work.

The Road Ahead

If the Scottish leg of our roadtrip has demonstrated anything, it's that systemic change moves at the speed of trust. It is the quality of human connection that shifts the dial.  But we also saw that clarity is important for people to navigate and hold power.  Clear structures and processes are important in empowering people to act, but when held lightly.  We knew that meaningful place-based practice requires long-term commitments, leaving institutional egos at the door, and bravely shifting power back into the hands of the people who know their neighborhoods best. What we are uncovering is the uniqueness of ‘how’ this all happens in practice. 

We look forward to heading to the North West of England next, continuing our journey to uncover the people and practices quietly transforming the UK from the ground up.  We’ll be publishing some case studies on our website along with reflections on the patterns and themes that emerge.