The roots of our organisation go back to 2011 and the launch of the original programme that trained and hosted 500 full-time community organisers in neighbourhoods across England.
2011 – 2015: The original Community Organisers Programme
The Community Organisers Programme was a four-year national training programme that began in 2011, designed and run by Locality and funded by the Cabinet Office. The programme was run with several partners, including the key training partner, RE:generate.
The programme ended in summer 2015, but a legacy organisation – The Company of Community Organisers (COLtd) – was formed to support the ongoing training and development of community organisers.
2015 – 2016: Connecting with Community Rights
Between 2015 and 2016, COLtd supported 27 neighbourhood projects to connect with the Localism Act (including Neighbourhood Planning and the Community Right to Bid) helping thousands of residents to get involved in new ways in their communities.
Projects included community-led responses to housing, listing assets of community value and supporting local people to get involved for the first time in neighbourhood planning.
2017 – 2020: Delivering the Community Organisers Expansion Programme
In 2017, Community Organisers secured a major £4.2m contract from the Office for Civil Society – part of the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport – to expand the network of people involved with community organising from 6,500 to 10,000 by 2020. This ambitious expansion increased the numbers of people engaged in community organising across England and enabled people to take greater control of their neighbourhoods and create strong, resilient communities that work for everyone.
This programme trained nearly 4,000 people and created a network of Social Action Hubs that together form the National Academy of Community Organising.
2020-2021: Delivering through a pandemic funded by contracts and donations
2020
400+ people were introduced to community organising online and record figures attended the National Event with 509 people joining an online 3 day learning event.
15 Social Action hubs became affiliated to us and delivered our training. Many of these hubs became frontline responders during the pandemic setting up food banks and issuing laptops and data due to people lacking devices and data during lockdown.
As a result of this we began the #OperationWiFi campaign which saw 100+ organisations signed up to the alliance calling for a national databank with this call reaching over 10k people a month.
2021
2021 saw the Award in Community Organising move online with 32 enrolments and 75 hours of teaching online.
Across our network of Social Action Hubs we issued more than 350 certificates for the quality assured short courses in community organising. Each course is around 6 hours long, which equates to 2000 hours of learning.
Our membership recommitment saw 500 members recommit and a network of nearly 2000 people involved in the movement. We also held our second online annual event which saw over 140 people attend.
In July 2021, VirginMedia O2 launched the UK’s first National Databank following the ask of over 100 organisations that joined the #OperationWifi alliance campaign to end data poverty, the databank was launched with over £12.5m of mobile phone data to be gifted to those that need it in times of crisis.
We took part in the first ever Global Assembly helping to bring 100 people together from across the world to participate in COP26 in Glasgow.
At the end of the year we launched our Community Practitioner’s Network which brings together community practitioners from across the UK providing an informal space where people come together, reflect and listen to each other’s and gain personal and professional development.
Reigniting the power of the movement
Training and Support -2022-2023
In 2022 we carried out a listening campaign across our network listening to 400 people. Funded by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation the aim was to find out what mattered to communities. Alongside this we were hearing from our Community Organisers that they felt isolated and unsupported in their roles, which further developed our model of community organising focusing on what we believe are the three pillars; Training, Support and Action.
The support arm of our work was strengthened with the Community Practitioner’s Network providing personal and professional development, Framework Focus providing online learning through a series of videos and our consultancy offer that we developed at the end of 2023 supporting organisations.
We tested this with the RSWT where we provided 46 Wildlife Trusts with training through our Award in Community Organising and support through Framework Focus, the CPN and Train the Trainer helping them to realise their strategy of empowering 1 in 4 people to take action around nature.
We were also awarded funding by the National Lottery to explore community organising across Europe; hosting many webinars with our European partners, visiting 5 different countries and hosting visits to the UK so we could share learning with our Social Action Hubs.
Finally, due to the success of the #OperationWiFi campaign and the concerns that were raised in our listening campaign we launched the #CostofLivingAlliance bringing together over 100 organisations to tackle the cost of living crisis.
Taking Action – 2024-Present
Leading on from the work of the Cost of Living Alliance, where we convened over 114 organisations and held 4 local summits we are now co-convenors of Humanity Project alongside Clare Farrell (Co-Founder Extinction Rebellion) and Lee Jasper (Operation Black Vote). Humanity Project joins the dots between these movements to end racism, take action on climate and tackle the cost of living crisis.
Humanity Project came together by listening and building trust across the UK holding 46 Popular Assemblies across 34 neighbourhoods involving 1700 people. Over the next 2 years we are working with neighbourhoods to create a wave of joyful, bottom up Popular Assemblies that can change how decisions are made at any level. We will reach out and work with 20 areas over 2 years with each area running a Popular Assembly supported by a £7200 grant.
Our vision is to create a new kind of politics that is people led and based on an assembly culture so politics is fit to deal with the problems we face in the UK today.
Alongside this we have created a new Social Action Hub offer supporting more organisations to join the movement so that we can ensure the voices that are not often heard are amplified on a national level so we can make change for good.
