Supporting community organisations

What this means 

Organisations that can start off as grassroots, and be cherished for their connections to their communities, can face challenges. Due to lack of funding, their work can be compromised or their very existence put at risk. They can also become managerial and professional in order to survive these challenging financial and bureaucratic climates. 

Greater partnership between local authorities and small organisations, for example supporting them with grant applications, can free up community organisations to concentrate on core work and help them remain profoundly connected to the communities they were created to serve. 

Commissioners, in particular, need to support innovation – and not just the type of innovation they approve of!

Thoughts on social enterprises

In this clip, Bob Jones shares his thoughts on social enterprises:

The research 

It is estimated that there are 13,000 grassroots organisations (GROs) in the UK, many providing services and activities that are not provided by anyone else (Hornung et al., 2020). GROs can be defined as a local and/or community organisation, where people are drawn together to address an issue, are usually led by local people, and which tend to have limited resources and/or low influence at policy level (Chowdry et al., 2021). 

Positively, GROs are perceived to possess ‘authenticity’ (Eliasoph, 2014), with local people seeing GROs as a ‘safe, understanding space that can provide immediate support which meets the social and cultural needs of different communities’ (People’s Health Trust, 2022, p. 4). Many specifically pride themselves on avoiding ‘bureaucratic, expert-driven, top-down decision-making’ (Eliasoph, 2014, p. 468). However, when a GRO receives funding from a statutory body, there are usually conditions attached to that funding – often demanding results against measurable targets and/or outcomes (Eliasoph, 2014). 

Chowdry et al. (2021) found a paradox in this. GROs generally wish the issues they are passionate about to receive greater exposure, and for their own work to be more financially stable – so they wish to gain a louder voice (or ‘legitimacy’, as the study put it). They will therefore become more pragmatic, and this may entail accepting funding with conditions that may not completely align with their core values (Eliasoph, 2014). This may also involve making their own operation more standardised, developing a more ‘top-down’ approach to their organisation, or forming alliances with organisations that do not completely align with their own values (Chowdry et al., 2021). 

GROs may easily feel overwhelmed with the scale of the issues they face. People’s Health Trust (2022) found that, in February 2022, 82% of all GRO project leaders feared staff burnout in the next six months – this was double the rate from November 2021. Reasons included an increased workload, a need to provide more intensive support, difficulties in maintaining work-life balance, an increased role in working with those who have experienced trauma, and a feeling of responsibility towards those people GROs worked with. 

What you can do 

If you are a commissioner: Think about the GROs that receive funding from you. What conditions are attached to the funding? How were the conditions arrived at? What practical support do you offer (if any?) 

Consider the power relationship between the local authority and each GRO. How can you open up a genuine conversation about: 

• How the GROs feel their values align (or not) with the outcomes sought by the local authority – and how working together can bring these values as close together as possible in the future? 
• The GRO feeling able to offer constructive critique to the local authority without worrying that their funding will be affected? 
• The GRO being able to innovate, responding to needs that they see in the community, without seeking ‘permission’ from the local authority – and in fact being seen as a positive source of fresh insight that can help the local authority? 
• Any help the local authority can provide in terms of applying for grants or smoothing the bureaucratic process? 
• Any help the local authority can give in terms of resilience, mental health support, and access to training (or example, Research in Practice partners offer a number of website logins to local authorities’ partner organisations)? 
• Any help the GRO can give the local authority in supporting co-production. 

Further information 

Watch  

The Parable of the Blobs and Squares is a six-minute animation that articulates how ‘squares’ (government agencies) and ‘blobs’ (people in the community) can struggle to understand one another, with the solution lying in co-production.

Engage  

The Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust offer regular rounds of funding to support the sustainability of grassroots organisations.