What’s Needed To Create Better Futures For Left Behind Places?
In the wake of 2020, so much of how we see and understand the world has changed.
As COVID-19 laid bare the vast inequities faced by left-behind communities, billionaires were leveraging lockdown gains to engage in a futile space race, and the push to return to “normal” life — as heatwaves, floods and droughts ripped through each and every continent — has made clear that how humans exist on earth can never be the same again.
In the face of such stark and often frightening global shifts, however, comes opportunity. A chance to leave behind the old systems that have engineered the challenges we collectively face, and open up space to create new structures, shift cultures and empower people to address social and environmental issues in new and expansive ways.
The global efforts needed to address rising poverty or the climate crisis can feel overwhelming. Yet, with poverty affecting people from Seoul to Detroit, and wildfires raging in Siberia and Greece, the impact of these collective crises are felt locally. While the urge to find a one-size-fits-all solution might be appealing, the unique context of each place needs to be taken into account.
Nowhere is this more evident than in Stoke-on-Trent, where UnLtd’s Resilient Community — a group of forward-thinking social enterprises — are looking to tap into the region’s culture of creativity and innovation to overcome the early years, educational and health challenges that post-industrial communities like theirs struggle with as a result of long-term economic decline.
Keen to explore how alternative systems might enable more equitable and sustainable solutions — whether addressing long-standing social mobility problems or emerging concerns around young people’s futures — it’s through enabling the untapped potential of Staffordshire’s people, historically influenced by the progressive attitude of the Wedgwood family.
Understanding the inextricable link between quality of life and socio-economic progress, Josiah Wedgwood worked collaboratively to create national infrastructure and government policies, sought new materials to underpin product innovations, and most importantly, shared the wealth with those living and working in the region, through investing in training and skill development.
In light of decades of stripped-back local government spending and scaling skill gaps impeding industry growth across the U.K., it’s hard to imagine how the public and private sector might enable inclusive growth, but with the U.K. government’s commitment to Levelling Up opening doors, and widespread devolution on the agenda, new ways of working might be possible.
New ways of working that, above and beyond providing civic infrastructure or investing in education and skills to drive economic growth, enables communities to be an integral part of addressing the issues and shaping solutions that lead to happier, healthier and wealthier lives. In the process, the dream is to make Stoke-on-Trent a brilliant place to live once more.
Here’s where the Invested Communities Model comes in. Through ensuring communities are as invested in their own futures as the local authorities that serve them and local businesses that rely on their talent and custom to grow, the intention is to bring everyone together, listen to what people want and need, and explore new possibilities for making it happen.
Helping bridge the lack of trust that has emerged between communities and local government, it’s through trusting that people have the capacity and understanding of what might best meet their needs that we can co-create more cost-effective and impactful solutions to social and environmental issues.
Inherently investing in people’s capabilities too, building on existing community strengths and investing in new skills along the way, the concerns businesses have about local talent, economic prosperity and young people’s futures in the city-region can be addressed too, meaning everyone mutually benefits.
To do that, however, requires understanding what success looks like, for local authorities and local businesses, plus the charities and social enterprises that currently provide social support and the communities that are most in need. Measuring social and environmental value as much as the economic, and shaping solutions that are beneficial for all.
Beneficial in ways that help cut public sector costs, help the private sector grow and allows people to live secure, connected and fulfilling lives. What these solutions might look like, UnLtd’s Resilient Community isn’t yet sure, but what is clear is that to enable them, we first need a new system.
A system that allows for investment in new ideas and an infrastructure that provides the skills, tools and resources to create them. A culture of collaboration cross-sector and in communities, that cuts across sector siloes and allow us to holistically listen to and understand. People who are willing to be open, creative and innovative in creating better futures.
So, what’s needed to help us shape this new system? In creating the Invested Communities Model, UnLtd’s Resilient Community in North Staffordshire will be exploring:
Project 1: Shared Value
Currently, we understand value in terms of economic growth, unemployment rates or health outcomes, and these things are important, as they speak to potential quality of life. Yet, they don’t speak to all of it.
What if we opened up the question of what value means, to local government, to businesses and communities too? What might we learn? How might that impact how we approach the creation of solutions that help people live the kinds of lives they want? Where might it more holistically and transparently measure the impact of new and old solutions?
Asking such questions, we’ll get to define and clarify what shared value looks like, by:
- Offering a safe space to discuss and listen to the community and cross-sector challenges and perspectives plus being prepared to get things wrong
- Understanding and aligning with local authority priorities as well as understanding what wider value means across sectors and within communities,
- Creating shared metrics to enable holistic value creation and establishing standards for impact measurement and benchmarking
- Ensuring procurement and commissioning frameworks are aligned with economic, social and environmental goals
What might shared value look like for you?
Project 2: Needs Data
When it comes to prioritising which community issues to address and determining how best to address them, it’s unclear which data and insights drive the design, commissioning and delivery of solutions to address community needs.
What if we took a wider perspective on the needs of communities. What might we see beyond a community’s ability to contribute economically or reduce government costs? How might understanding issues at root causes enable us to address them holistically? Where might cross-sector organisations and communities work collaboratively to address different needs?
Using such insights, combined with a better understanding of what shared value looks like, we’ll be able to optimise how community needs are met in a way that benefits everyone, through:
- Actively listening to the community through asking what’s needed over making assumptions
- Prioritising which big picture issues, specific challenges and differing communities require resource, support and infrastructure to address them
- Understanding which sector, organisation or community is best placed to meet needs and distribute resources accordingly
- Informing the design and delivery of targeted solutions that deliver shared value and sustainable impact for the city and region
How might better understanding needs help your community or organisation?
Trusted Programmes
While much-needed solutions around education, skills, employment and health are being explored to ensure places like Stoke-on-Trent become brilliant places to live, often they’re created through an economic lens, where driving growth or reducing costs are the key drivers.
What if we were to create programmes that simultaneously delivered economic, social and environmental value? What innovations might emerge if communities and cross-sector organisations brought their unique perspectives to create solutions? How might involving communities directly impact people’s lives? Where might the public and private sectors indirectly benefit from more impactful and sustainable solutions?
With a clear idea of what good value will look like, and in the insights needed to inform the creation of successful solutions, building trusted programmes might require:
- Trusting that people in communities have the skills, strengths and understanding to and adopting an asset-based community development approach in all work
- Involving wider stakeholders to shape briefs pertaining to local challenges and opening up the tender process to enable organisations to respond to need
- Building on existing community-led support programmes and ensuring community representation on all policy making or initiative development
- Breaking up service delivery contracts into smaller chunks to mitigate risk and open up opportunities for innovation and inclusive growth
How might creating trusted programmes benefit your city or region?
If you’d like to play a part in shaping the Invested Communities model get in touch with the team at Noisy Cricket on hello@noisycricket.org.uk.
