Celebrating Community Power: Stronger Things 2025 

What do you get when you combine collective expertise with a dash of curiosity, a pinch of healthy challenge, and a sprinkle of optimism? You get Stronger Things 2025, of course, writes Liin Nur, Principal Practice Lead of New Local.

During the sixth iteration of Stronger Things, more than 750 leaders and positive change enthusiasts gathered at Guildhall in London. Another 250 joined online, some even logging on from Australia!

For many who attend year after year, Stronger Things is a staple on their professional calendar, providing an opportunity to reconnect, reflect, and rediscover what’s possible through community power. For many others (like me), this year was their first Stronger Things, and it was quite the event.  

To start us off on the right foot, the incredible Georgia Gould OBE MP, Cormac Russell and Indy Johar spoke on the main stage and set what felt like our quest for the day: How might we build a movement where communities are at the heart of change and feel empowered to co-create a radically different, improved future?  

After the opening keynote, it was a game of choose-your-own adventure, and everyone was off to the breakout session that piqued their interest. There were 15 in total on either side of the lunch break, with 3-4 happening simultaneously at any given moment. These sessions included those that explored prevention at scale, discussed complexity, mobilising for collective impact, and emphasised the need for radical listening.  

While each of the sessions had its specific flavour, some topics permeated across sessions and speakers, such as local government reorganisation.

At different points in the day, panellists challenged the audience to consider how local government reorganisation might catalyse strengthening community power within public services. They also shared what new skills and ways of thinking might be needed to lead councils of the future.

“In a world with no shortage of complex problems, we think it’s possible, necessary, and effective to work intimately with communities to wrap the right support around people. We must create more power to challenge complexity. We need to invest and trust in communities for better, cheaper results.” 

Emily Brook, Director of Innovation, Care City (Workshop: Building Belonging in Barking and Dagenham: A Year On)   

For me, conversations about power are something I will take away and apply to my practice. The idea that power isn’t static; it ebbs and flows to and from different people and groups. In this way, we can both redistribute and grow it, allowing us to co-create with all those we need to. This way of thinking about power challenges us all to explore new and interesting ways to incorporate it into our projects and programmes.  

Across different sessions, this redefinition of power entered the rooms as an offering to be explored further: 

“You can’t separate power, wealth, and health from each other. We have to recognise the work we all need to do to is not to just shift power, but to grow it. Power is not finite – with the right ingredients, it can grow exponentially.” 

Eve Holt, Head of Policy and Implementation, Greater Manchester Combined Authority (Breakout session: Stronger Together: How Community Power is Tackling Health Inequalities) 

Before we knew it, the day was done, but not before a lightning talk from Ruth Luscombe, Inner Circle Consulting and an inspiring closing keynote from Dr Hilary Cottam OBE. It was truly an energising day, and it’s been nice to see the various posts from participants and panellists sharing their reflections on LinkedIn and blogs.  

My favourite part of this memorable experience, other than the talks and reconnecting with people, was feeling the energy of possibility in every room. It felt like a gathering of like-minded individuals all trying to wrap their heads around how to solve the big, sticky challenges that affect public service, democracy, and citizen engagement. 

If it was your first or sixth time at Stronger Things, we hope the energy you felt on the day carried you throughout your week!

If you weren’t able to join us this year, we hope to see you next June at Stronger Things 2026. Sign up for our newsletter (below) and/or connect with us on our socials so that you’ll be among the first to know when we announce the date. 

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