Alastair McIntosh of the Centre for Human Ecology and GalGael Trust gave the opening keynote address on the nature of development and resilience. He said that the word “development” comes from the old French, de-enveloper, meaning to unfold the envelope. It conveys a sense of containing something special and undertaking the unfolding in a fitting manner. Too little development is destitution. Too much is a cancer. Our aim must be to seek development that is fitting to the people and place, and which has resilience to cope with the knocks that the future might bring.

To demonstrate the meaning of resilience he summarised a study that he has just submitted for publication with a former student, Lauren Eden from Canada. This interviewed some 30 key informants on the Isle of Lewis about how they survived during the 1966 National Union of Seamen’s strike. It had lasted for 6 weeks and forced Harold Wilson to call a national state of emergency. The research finds that three pillars of resilience were still intact in 1966. There was resilience of nature’s ecosystems, in that the land was still in good heart for agriculture, and the sea had not yet been overfished. There was resilience of know-how, in that people still knew how to butcher their own meat, to grow vegetables, and to make things. And there was resilience of Spirit, meaning that they cared deeply for one another and shared in the community when there were shortages.

In contrast, the study observed that today the Isle of Lewis is substantially dependent on just 2 supermarkets. When the ferry fails to sail there is panic buying because they are supplied on a just-in-time stocking basis, with only one or two days’ worth of stock. As one informant said, if the Seamen’s Strike happened today, “we’d be stumped.”

He argued that resilience of Spirit is especially important. This means working on identity and community cohesion at very deep levels. It needs to be the starting point for rebuilding community today. The cultural gap been locals and incomers must be mutually better understood. In some places the two groups are like oil and water, but this is not healthy where seeking to strong future communities. In concluding, he called for open discussion between both groups so that, where necessary, local ways can be better respected, and incomer energy more effectively harnessed for the common good. We may not all be native to a place, but there is a sense in which we can all become indigenous if we can relate to places in ways that grow naturally into their soil.

Open letter from Big Lottery 

As you may know the Big Lottery Fund has been working to revise and re-open our main funding programme in Scotland. And after a period of deliberation and re-design our new portfolio will open for business on 30 June this year. I thought you might appreciate an update on our plans.  

We will continue to help communities to have more control and influence over their own future through the ownership of assets and will still have an investment area called Growing Community Assets (GCA). While this sounds familiar, we have overhauled the outcomes we want to see in GCA to be much more specific and defined. This is because we want to be able to make a clear-cut impact with our funding and to reduce the amount of time and resources invested by applicants and us in applications which are ultimately unsuccessful. We have learned from consultation that we are at our best when we are clear about what we fund and are able to give early advice about what projects are likely to be successful.

GCA will continue to make communities stronger and more sustainable by helping them to acquire, manage and develop assets that provide quality services and amenities. Our experience of funding asset development tells us that community ownership of an asset is most likely to lead to the outcomes we want to achieve through GCA. By having complete control of the asset through ownership rather than leasehold, communities have the power to make the changes needed to benefit their community in the long term.  

However, in this next phase of GCA, we will place much greater emphasis on the need for assets to generate income streams that will support and secure the long term sustainability not only of the assets, but also of the communities in which they are located.  

And in addition to emphasising financial viability, this time around GCA will focus much more strongly on tackling need. We want to fund projects that tackle needs in communities. To do this we will expect applicants to show how they have identified needs through consultation with people in their communities, as well as how their projects are the best way for these communities to address their needs. The kinds of need we might expect applicants to identify include a lack of employment due to the closure of a major local employer, or a shrinking population due to the lack of opportunities for young people.

The sharper focus on financial viability and need is reflected in the outcomes we have set for GCA, all four of which we will expect all projects to achieve. The four outcomes are:
• Communities work together to own and develop local assets
• Communities are sustainable and improve their economic, environmental and social future through the ownership and development of local assets
• Communities develop skills and knowledge through the ownership and development of local assets
• Communities overcome disadvantage and inequality through the ownership and development of local assets.

We will launch the full details of our new approach to GCA on 30 June. I hope you will also be interested in the broader improvements to the way that we work including: more commitment to equalities, the environment and empowerment; more development support for applicants; greater contact with BIG staff; and a clearer approach to outcomes and tracking project success. And we plan to maintain the cornerstones of our funding approach that you and others endorsed: grants between £10,000 and £1 million, five year funding, and full-cost recovery.

Author: LPL

The challenge

The impact of the financial crisis on public services and in particular on the communities that are most dependent on these services will be compounded by another crisis that has evolved largely unnoticed over many years – that of widespread and enduring citizen inaction.  As the relationship between publicly provided services and the citizen has gradually become one of passive consumpton, the resilience of many communities –the capacity to withstand difficult times – has been seriously eroded by this general decline in active citizenship.   When public spending cuts result in a reduced level of public services, it is inevitable that where community resilience is lacking, the impact of these cuts will be most severe, placing even greater pressure on over-stretched public services.

The solution

But community resilience is not evenly distributed. Those communities that posess more resilience than others appear to have certain characteristics in common with one another. Of these, the most consistent feature is the presence of a particular type of  local organisation that fulfils a crucial local purpose. These organisations can take many different forms  such as a housing association, a development trust, a faith group, a credit union or some other form of community association. In this context, these organisations are increasingly referred to by the generic term ‘community anchor’.

Understanding the term ‘community anchor’

If a high street or shopping centre is thriving, more often than not you’ll find a large department store or supermarket at its heart – the property market calls them ‘anchor stores’ –  where lots of trading takes place but even more trading happens around them.   Now consider a neighbourhood as a kind of marketplace where lots of social activity, largely unseen, is constantly unfolding.  Sometimes, but not always, there exists in the middle of all of this a community based organization that operates as a social hub, drawing people in, and making things happen on behalf of others.  These organizations are the equivalent of the ‘anchor store’.  People look to these anchor organizations to provide a degree of local leadership, and community anchors engage with local people in ways that public service providers can only dream about and the private sector is uninterested in. Often community anchor organizations grow out of a community’s frustration with external agencies’ inability to deal with the issues on the ground.

An anchor, or more specifically a drag anchor, also has another meaning.  A drag anchor is put over the side of a boat in a storm. It does not go to the bottom. It hangs in the water.  The boat can rise and fall on the waves and it can weather the storm – and just as important – it is not blown all over the place. Community anchor organisations fulfill this purpose in communities buffeted by changes that are beyond their control.

The role of community anchors at a time of cuts on public sepending

Where an effective community anchor exists, the impact of cuts in public expenditure is likely to be experienced in fundamentally different ways. Firstly, the presence of strong informal networks and high levels of local resourcefulness will ameliorate the impact of these cuts because of the well founded traditions of self help and local self-determination. Secondly, many anchor organisations have already started to redefine the nature of the relationship with public service providers away from an ‘active provider- passive consumer’ model to one which is more alligned to that of ‘co-production’ with responsibilities being shared.  In both respects, not only are many of the hidden and long term costs of cutting services reduced, but it also offers a model of sustainable public service delivery which places active citizenship at its core.

Author: http://www.unltd.org.uk/

 A complete package of support
UnLtd’s Millennium Awards provide practical and financial support to social entrepreneurs in the UK; people with vision, passion, drive and commitment, who want to change the world for the better.

We know that there are thousands of people who have the ideas and the vision to make a real difference. We also know that many of them need encouragement and support, contact with others just like them, and access to training to help them grow and give their projects the best chance of success.

That’s why you don’t just get money from UnLtd. If you win an award you will get a complete package of support designed just for you, in addition to the financial support.
It is people who are important to UnLtd; which is why we only offer support to individuals. We do not support organisations.
Where the money comes from
UnLtd Millennium Awards are funded by the income from a legacy of £100 million granted by the Millennium Commission. This legacy is carefully invested so that the income can be obtained for awards for the future – this is what is called a permanent endowment.

The Millennium Commission is the only distributor of lottery funds to good causes who some time ago decided to provide awards to individuals. Around 25,000 of these have been made so far and they have been so successful that they decided to provide the legacy to UnLtd to carry on this work for the future.

Level 1 Awards are aimed at individuals or informal groups of people who have an idea which will change society for the better, and want help getting it off the ground. The money is to help with the running costs of the project. At Level 1 you can apply for an award of between £500 and £5,000, (with an average award size of £2,000). These awards are for people who:
• Have an idea which will benefit their community
• Have thought about how they will run their project
• Have some evidence that there is a need for their project
• Will learn a new skill from carrying out their project

Above all, UnLtd wants to support people who have the vision, drive, passion and commitment to develop their project and whilst doing it, will have the opportunity to increase their skills and vision.
The award can be used for the things you need to start or develop your project: materials, equipment, renting rooms for meetings and so on.

How Can I Apply for a Level 1 Award?
To apply for a Level 1 Award, please complete our Level 1 Eligibility Questionnaire. Or contact – your nearest UnLtd office to discuss your ideas.

Cabinet Office Minister Francis Maude, today called for a radical shift in the relationship between citizens and the state, when delivering his first keynote speech to leaders of charities, voluntary groups and social enterprises.

At the ‘Leading your charity through a time of change conference’ in Central Hall Westminster, the Minister spoke of the need for a ‘Big Society’ approach to overcome today’s economic challenges, social breakdown and deprivation.

Local communities are to have greater ownership of local problems, but also more power to change them, and public services to be answerable to those who use them.

Speaking at the conference Cabinet Office Minister, Francis Maude, said:

“We need a Big Society, that derives its strength and compassion from the energy and vigour of millions of active citizens, formal and informal organisations independent of the state, and neighbourhoods where neighbourliness touches every life.

“We want local communities not only to have greater ownership of local problems, but to have more power to change them. We want public services to be answerable to those who use them, so that it is parents, patients and community groups who shape how they work and what they do.

A more radical, new approach is needed, and The Big Society proposes just such a radical change. A radical shift in the relationship between citizen and state, moving from a presumption towards state control towards a presumption towards community action.

The Minister also spoke of integrating local services – bringing together resources, budgets, skills and ideas to address multiple challenges. He said developing more focused integrated local services can unlock the potential of communities and frontline workers to design and deliver a genuinely joined up approach to multiple challenges.

Mr Maude then set out his strong commitment to:
• National Centres of Community Organising to train a new generation of community organisers and measures to support the creation of neighbourhood groups, especially in the most deprived areas.
• Introduction of a National Citizenship Service to give 16 year olds the chance to develop the skills needed to be active and responsible citizens.
• Giving public sector workers a new right to form employee owned cooperatives and bid to take over the services they deliver.
• Making it easier to set up and run a charity, social enterprise or voluntary organisation. Working straight away to identify and reduce unnecessary red tape.
• Get resources into the sector by instituting a Big Society Bank, using money from dormant accounts to invest in social goals.
• Encouraging a social norm of volunteering and philanthropic giving and instituting a national day to celebrate and encourage social action.

Mr Maude ended his speech by saying:

“My commitment to you is that we are not looking to hand over our social problems to you and walk away, but to play our part in a broad partnership for change.  Partnerships of the sort that the sector is already expert in building, bringing businesses, communities, donors and investors together to make a real change, and put power back in the hands of those who understand local problems and have the biggest stake in overcoming them.”

A full copy of the speech is available

Summary of Promoting Asset Transfer programme
The programme is running over two years (2009-11) and has three main components:
I. a review of current local authority policy and practice in relation to asset transfer across Scotland.  In addition, this review aims to highlight examples of where local authorities have successfully transferred assets to community groups and provide illustrations of some of the key issues that can arise during the course of an asset transfer.
II. a series of seminars running through 2010/2011. The seminars will target different audiences – elected members, council officers and community groups. These seminars will explore aspects of the rationale for increasing community ownership of assets, highlight the benefits and risks that are inherent in asset transfer and in the community ownership of assets more generally. The seminars will also introduce some practical resources for those involved in the process – particularly in relation to assessing the benefits and risks involved.
III. a series of demonstration projects focusing on different parts of the country and different aspects of asset transfer.  The selected projects will be offered a range of specialist support in order to facilitate a successful outcome and will take the form of partnerships between local authorities and community groups who have agreed to engage in a transfer of assets in their area.   The scope of this phase will be broad and it is anticipated that it could range from consultancy support to assist in the development of a local authority-wide asset transfer strategy to the provision of a range of technical advice services with a focus on a specific transfer. The selected projects are :

                           In Highlands….Muir of Ord village hall
                           In Perth and Kinross…..Aberfeldy Town Hall
                           In Stirling Council area….Braeport Centre in Dunblane
                           In Edinburgh ……Portobello Community Centre
                           In Glasgow ……a former primary school in Govanhill
                           In North Lanarkshire….two  community centres in Bellshill and Coatbridge
                           In Dumfries and Galloway……Moffat Town Hall
                           In Argyll and Bute…..Campletown Town Hall

Time to decide – top down or bottom up
Our Place
The Bellsmyre area of Dumbarton in West Dunbartonshire, Moorpark in Renfrew, Renfrewshire, Newmains near Wishaw in North Lanarkshire, Roystonhill in North Glasgow and Greenock Central and East in Inverclyde are the five areas to benefit as the BIG Lottery Fund unveils a multi-million pound programme to help revive five communities in Scotland.
The Big Lottery Fund has today launched plans for a new targeted funding programme which will invest £9 million of Lottery funding in some of Scotland’s most deprived areas. The Our Place programme has been developed by Scotland’s largest lottery funder in order to make increased investment in five areas which have not seen the expected level of grants over the last three years. Our Place will also pilot a new way of working more closely with communities in Scotland to stimulate demand and ensure that the needs and aspirations of local people are reflected in the lottery funding they receive.
Launching the programme the Chair of the Big Lottery Fund Scotland, Alison Magee, said: “The Big Lottery Fund is committed to ensuring that we help the communities across Scotland which are facing the biggest challenges. We’ve now invested over £130 million pounds through our Investing in Communities programme, and Our Place is our way of ensuring a better spread of our funding while piloting new ways to make sure that it’s invested effectively.
“Our Place will target a number of communities which could particularly benefit from a closer working relationship with BIG. These areas have been identified in partnership with a range of local organisations, including the local authority and local voluntary organisations, in order to ensure that this significant investment can be delivered effectively with the biggest benefit. We’ve worked hard to make sure that we take a new approach which has the potential to shape the way we work in the future.”  

Stronger Communities
SCDC has been awarded over £400,000 from the BIG Lottery Fund to deliver the Achieving Community Empowerment (ACE) capacity building programme in Scotland. 
The programme aims to build the capacity of emerging community groups by providing mentoring support, developing learning materials, facilitating the sharing of knowledge, experience and learning between participating projects and communicating key lessons more widely.  The programme will run until September 2014 and will directly benefit 50 groups across Scotland.
We will work with 12-14 groups per year to support them to assess the motivations and capacities of their own organisation, and those they seek to influence or work with. We will encourage groups to build awareness and support in their community, and to build the evidence to support the case for change. 
Such change may involve establishing community-run services or facilities; working with public agencies through community planning processes, or advocating through other means. This will be done through a series of structured workshops that focuses on the four key considerations in effective community action: assessment, planning, doing and reviewing. 
We will also develop a toolkit which draws on a range of good practice materials and ensure shared learning takes place with and between participants so that lessons learned can be shared across the statutory, voluntary and community sectors.
We are now taking applications for the programme from community groups who require support to help them achieve improvements and changes in their local communities.  If you think you would benefit from this kind of support and would like to apply to the programme, please contact Aileen Skillen or Lee Goundry by telephoning 0141 248 1964 or by e-mailing either aileen@scdc.org.uk or lee@scdc.org.uk. 
Further information about the programme and how to apply is contained within the ACE programme guidance notes.  Click here for a copy
The BIG Lottery Fund is funding two other capacity building programmes with other partner organisations under the Dynamic Inclusive Communities Fund.  All three programmes of community support are brought together within ‘Stronger Communities’ which is a collaborative initiative between Forward Scotland, the Scottish Community Foundation,and the Scottish Community Development Centre. 
Our Community Our Future, delivered by the Scottish Community Foundation, is designed to provide support to a small number of new and emerging groups to develop their capacity to influence change within their community.  For more information, please visit http://www.scottishcf.org/ or register your interest with us and we will send you further details when available.

Forward Scotland will provide support to 150 new and existing groups under the ‘Sus It Out +’ programme to help them develop and become more sustainable.  For more information, please visit http://forward-scotland.org.uk/

Matthew Taylor The RSA June 7, 201

Having failed for years to persuade Labour’s bosses that the traditional hierarchical model of party organisation was bust I wrote positively last year about the attempt by the Conservative Party to turn its grass roots organisation outwards with the development of local social projects. Sadly, I later had to admit that the practice didn’t quite live up to the expectations.

So naturally I was interested in David Miliband’s weekend call for radical party reform. The bookies’ favourite to be the next leader of the opposition said:

‘ We have to rebuild the Labour movement as an organising, campaigning ‘movement for change’ – open, reaching out to local communities, more democratic. And it has to be bottom-up and not top-down.

This is in the best traditions of the Labour Party. It is where our movement started – trade unions, the co-op. Before working people had the vote they organised for change, to campaign against things like child labour and for things like decent working conditions. And it persists in some areas to this day – it is this tradition we saw in those seats that were held against the swing in the general election’.

I agree entirely with the sentiment. Society would be stronger and politics better if parties had deeper community roots. Sadly, it’s a lot easier said than done.

The biggest problem is reconciling local freedom and community organisation with party discipline. David Miliband quotes the success of Gisela Stuart’s campaign in Edgebaston as evidence of the power of strong community based organisation. But local activists have said that their ability to mobilise behind the MP was also related to her record of voting against the Government whip on controversial questions. This issue is even more difficult at council level. If a party runs the local authority but local branches then campaign against its unpopular decisions (and let’s face it there’s going to be plenty of them in the years to come) it undermines party unity and can confuse voters. Stewart campaigned against the decisions of the Tory Lib Dem coalition running Birmingham City Council but she will find it much more problematic if the council goes Labour again.

This is less of an issue if the local party is focusing on community self-help but the examples Miliband quotes – like London Citizens – tend to be campaigning organisations. The Conservative experience shows how hard it is to develop a social enterprise model. This takes us to the second issue – resources. Here at the RSA we have for several years been in the process of reforming Fellowship from the traditional membership model to one that focuses on collaboration and civic innovation. Most recently, for example, we have launched the Catalyst Fund which gives groups of Fellows small grants to develop social initiatives.  The far-from-complete process of Fellowship reform has up to now involved multiplying the budget spent on outreach and support many times over. Although David Miliband is to be commended for digging into his own campaign funds to fund training for community organisers, it is unclear whether the national Labour Party has the money to invest in community development or that  – when push comes to shove – this investment would be prioritised over more traditional campaign spending.

The third and possibly hardest challenge concerns organisational culture. Creative, committed people (the kinds you need for community self help) have a million and one options and distractions. It is hard to attract them and hard to retain them. Few community groups provide a good enough offer for such people. There is, in my opinion, one overriding reason. The grim reality of voluntary organisation is that bad behaviour drives out good more effectively than vice versa. It only takes one or two difficult people to make meetings unbearable and decision making impossible. The creative people quickly stop coming, leaving the wreckers free to complain that they are now the only activists. As part of a project we co-sponsored with the NCVO, I have discussed this dynamic with people from a whole range of membership organisations. After some initial flannelling, they all admit it is a huge problem. Indeed I once heard it described as ‘the inverse law of activism’ – the people you least want to be active are the ones most likely to become so.

Apart from election campaigning for friends I haven’t been active in the Labour Party for many years, so maybe it has already started to change. If not David Miliband faces a task of cultural transformation which – he needs to acknowledge more fully – will take many battles and many years to bear fruit.

Full report  can be accessed from here
There is a growing political consensus that the traditional model of public service delivery, predicated on people passively consuming services whenever they need them, is neither sustainable nor desirable (see HM Treasury 2009
and Conservative Party 2007). This is firstly because this approach puts the entire burden on the service provider, wasting the potential expertise and resources of the service user. For example, a teacher is less likely to improve literacy rates if children do not read with their parents at home. Secondly, it ignores the potential of resources that are not easily visible or measurable: a care service, for example, cannot help an older person overcome isolation without the use of informal friendships and networks. Thirdly, the approach fuels demand for services as they are only used when needs arise. For instance, doctors only help people once they become ill, rather than helping them to live a healthy lifestyle and prevent illness occurring in the first place. It is clear that on their own neither the Government nor citizens have access to all the  resources necessary to deliver public goods. As the everyday examples above  demonstrate, services work best when citizens are involved in producing them. The next wave of public service reform will therefore need to ensure that citizens are engaged as active partners in the process. There are many different forms of citizen participation in service design and delivery. For example, individuals can be empowered directly through being allocated personal budgets to choose between service providers. This is now beginning to happen in social care. Alternatively,  communities as a whole could be empowered to get more involved in delivering services: for example the Conservative Party has outlined its plans for a ‘post bureaucratic state’ in which communities can come together to run local services such as schools (Conservative Party 2007). Another option is to  change models of ownership,so citizens and communities actually have a stake in the way a service is run. Tessa Jowell recently launched a Commission on Ownership to see how business models such as the John Lewis Partnership and The Co-operative can be applied to schools, hospitals, housing and other services (Jowell 2009). These approaches have been developed into a philosophy of ‘co-production’, which aims to collapse the divide between service provider and service user even further: Co-production means delivering public services in an equal and reciprocal relationship between professionals, people using services, their families and their neighbourhoods. (Boyle and Harris 2009: 11) When citizens work in partnership with service providers there are a number of benefits, including:
Improved service outcomes for the citizen: co-production allows the resources that citizens can contribute (time, energy, social  networks, knowledge and skills) to be brought together with those resources that the Government can  provide (money, regulation, technical expertise, leadership and service professionals). This leads to better results for users. (Cabinet Office 2009a)
Empowered and more satisfied citizens: when citizens are involved in producing a service they are usually more satisfied with it. It also helps them to feel more confident, connected and able to influence decisions.
Better value for money: by mobilizing resources that do not cost the state, better outcomes can be produced for no extra cost.
Empowered Communities
Despite the small scale and informal nature of many experiments with ‘co-production’, there is a growing body of empirical evidence that shows the benefits of these programmes. The case studies below provide evidence of the benefits of co-production in two areas: health and justice. As well as delivering significant improvements in outcomes and cost reductions, engaging citizens and communities in producing services can help build social capital and a sense of empowerment. A recent review found strong evidence that it can ‘improve satisfaction with services, the degree to which residents feel they can influence decisions and their confidence and capacity’ (Young Foundation 2009:) Citizens and communities could therefore be considered the ‘missing link’ in public service reform
over recent decades. As a recent discussion paper urged the Government:… [C]o-production should be central to the government’s agenda for improving public services because of emerging evidence of its impact on outcomes and value for money, its potential economic and social value and its popularity. (Cabinet Office 2009)
Examples :
Self-care (Health) By training patients with chronic conditions to provide themselves with a certain level of care, the NHS can both save considerable resources and enable patients to fit in their care at more convenient times. For the cost of a handful of classes and a booklet, one self-care skills training course for adults with asthma saw significant improvements in lung function, inhaler technique, asthma knowledge, and patients’ self-rating of their asthma. It also led to a 69 per cent decline in GP visits (Department of Health 2007).
Youth courts (Justice) Youth courts are a way for communities to become more directly involved in justice. Instead of being tried in formal courts, young people committing non-violent offences for the first time appear before a panel of other young people who have a range of non-custodial sanctions at their disposal. In Washington DC, where the courts were first introduced, the recidivism rate of those ‘tried’ in a youth court is now 9 per cent, compared with 30 per cent for young people processed in the mainstream juvenile system (see www.tdyc.org). Similar schemes have recently been introduced in parts of the UK  (Rogers 2006).

Community Woodlands Association : Jon Hollingdale

As you might have heard, 2 more Community Woodland Groups have been turned down by the Big Lottery Fund’s Growing Community Assets – our commiserations go to both the Craignish and Nith Valley groups. Most if not all of the projects which do get funded by the Lottery are admirable examples of community asset acquisition or development, and we’re not going to criticise them, though we do question whether it’s the Lottery’s job to support projects which are demonstrably profitable without Lottery support, or might normally be seen as within the remit of Government core funding…however, it’s hard to escape the conclusion that the Lottery turned its back on land buyouts a long time ago; unfortunately they never had the guts to tell anybody, and they’ve been leading groups up the garden path ever since.
GCA is long-closed to new applicants, and the successor programmes are due to be launched at the end of June, with as yet, scant details of their coverage. Will they fund land acquisition? We really don’t know, probably the best we can hope for is that this time round the Lottery incorporate some honesty and transparency in their dealings with community land groups. Likewise, it’s always possible that the Scottish Government might do a U-turn and match rhetoric on community empowerment with some action – maybe they could divert some of those millions paid to farmers who don’t farm?

However, rather than sit around waiting for hell to freeeze over we think it’s probably best to at least try and explore the alternatives. Kilfinan have already succeded with a Lottery-free acquisition covering at least part of their forest, whilst Aigas are just setting out on their fundraising journey, and we’ll be doing what we can to help and ensure that ideas, lessons & successes are shared through the network. More formally, CWA is about to commission research* into new fundng models, looking for innovative ways to raise some or all of the finance needed for community asset and acquisition. Some of the ideas we’ll be exploring might challenge our fixed notions of community buyouts a bit, and I’m fairly sure none of them will be all that easy, but the silver lining might be that an asset funded by the community will be free of funders’ burdens, conditions and reporting requirements, and that really would mean community ownership and control.
Jon