Listening and responding to communities
Strengthening people’s voices and shifting power to communities
We put listening and participation at the centre of our work, from participation in funding panels through to our place-based working alongside communities. Below, we’ve included just a few examples of how we have embedded participation and listening in our approach and work. We’re always keen to connect with others – drop us a message at hello@corra.scot if you’d like to chat about learning and participation.
Participatory grant making and community-led grant making
As part of our ten-year strategy, Corra seeks to share or give up power so that it’s rebalanced towards people who have not traditionally held it. We do this in our grant making by shifting the decision-making power to people with lived and learnt experience of the area that grants are made within. Through these approaches, those with lived and learnt experience have made funding decisions on millions of pounds of funding and sat on a variety of panels across our funds.Â
Participatory grant making activities
- Henry Duncan Grants 2021 – a group of young people aged 16-25 decided how to allocate almost £1 million of funding for projects to support young people.
- Promise Partnership – a panel of people with experience of care made decisions on funds totaling almost £7 million.
- A range of community-led grant making processes alongside People in Place communities through #ShiftThePower Comic Relief Fund.
- National Drugs Mission Funds – a lived and learnt expertise panel making decisions on funds for organisations working to reduce drug and alcohol harm.
Sharing our learning
As we shift power in grant making to people who have not traditionally held it, we share our learning, things we could do better, and gather feedback from those who have participated in the processes. You can view a selection of these below.
People in Place Programme
Corra believes that when people find their voice, they unlock the power to make change happen. We know funding has an important role to play in this process but recognise that supporting communities to make big changes requires a sustained and collective effort. Established in 2014, the People in Place programme develops and delivers long-term place-based work alongside local people and partners with a focus on collaboration, co-production and community leadership.
Corra’s two current place-based approaches are outlined below. Whilst operating at different scales, both approaches share key characteristics – including increasing participation, access to space, resources and skilled staff – and support communities to create the conditions and connections needed for bold change to happen.
Every One Every Day
Every One Every Day is an approach which encourages and supports people to get more involved in their communities. It began in Barking and Dagenham, pioneered by Participatory City Foundation. Corra Foundation are now developing the approach for Scottish places – we call this ‘Participatory Scotland’. The idea is to build the infrastructure – the spaces, resources and support – in a local area to enable people to try whatever their passionate about, in ways that make sense to their lives. It’s free, open to everyone, and designed to make it easy to get involved.
This approach puts residents at the heart of how a community works. We are developing this approach in Kirkcaldy and Renfrewshire. Throughout 2022 we opened two research spaces in Kirkcaldy and Paisley town centre and spent time talking to local people about their community project aspirations. We wanted to know what activities people were already involved in and what they would like to become involved in the future. The residents we spoke to had lots of wonderful community project ideas that they would want to develop with their friends, family and neighbours as well as skills they would like to share with others.
