Keeping the community power conversation going

Charlotte Obijiaku, Deliberative Democracy Officer at TPXimpact, shares highlights from our recent workshop showcasing six stories of community power, and makes the case for deeper collaboration.

Community power is more than just a compelling idea. It is the spirit that animates brilliant work by individuals and organisations around the country who are achieving real change in their communities. Working with New Local, I have had the pleasure of hosting spaces where people from councils and communities can come together to learn and build community power together.

Community power is more than just a compelling idea. It is the spirit that animates brilliant work by individuals and organisations around the country

In May 2023, my colleague Thomas Chigbo and I facilitated a live workshop on Community Power and Engagement at the fantastic Stronger Things event in London. During this session, we had the chance to share inspiring stories with a packed room of enthusiastic local leaders.

Following those great discussions, we were keen to continue sharing our ideas and keep the conversations going. We followed up with a second, online event, aimed at helping people make community power real in their area.

Much like our in-person session, the online workshop was packed full of passionate people who were eager to learn and ready for action.

Sharing approaches and connecting people

The workshop focused on six stories from people involved in building community power in different ways around the country:

• Bristol City Council spoke about their £4m community resilience fund, which was developed and delivered through a deliberative and participatory process.
• Barnet Council told us about their recent Citizens’ Assembly and Youth Assembly on Climate Change.
• Loren Hansi Gordon from TPXimpact gave a masterclass on co-design and storytelling methods.
• Kate Hainsworth from Leeds Community Foundation shared her experience of bringing businesses together to co-produce West Yorkshire’s Fair Work Charter.
• Citizens UK presented lessons from the South London Listens partnership with South London’s Integrated Care Systems, which saw local communities take charge of listening to residents and developing new interventions to address mental health.
• The Brilliant Club spoke about Parent Power – an innovative project to address educational disadvantage through community organising with parents.

From deliberation to devolution, co-design to community organising, there are lots of opportunities to work in a more collaborative and empowering way

What made these stories so interesting is that each of them took a different approach to how they empowered communities to achieve their goals. From deliberation to devolution, co-design to community organising, there are lots of opportunities to work in a more collaborative and empowering way with people. In my experience, many councils and organisations who want to involve communities more deeply in their decision making struggle to get started or are unsure of what is possible.

Being able to meet and learn from the people involved in these inspiring initiatives has hopefully given attendees a boost in confidence to get to work in building community power in their place.

A hunger for ideas and collaboration

We were struck by the engagement levels and positive feedback we received. Attendees said that the opportunity to hear about projects underway across the country was the most valuable aspect of the session. This shows how hungry people are to learn about community-powered approaches and how they can implement these ideas in their place.

Keeping the conversation about community power going is vital to creating better local areas and services. This is why events like Stronger Things are so important. They provide a platform for us all to come together, share ideas and learn and is why TPXimpact is a proud partner of New Local and sponsor of Stronger Things. We are very much looking forward to next year’s event and, in the meantime, seeing community power go from strength to strength.

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