What is place-based change?
We believe in the power of
people and places
Where you live in the UK affects your health, wellbeing, and chances of prosperity. A place, whether an estate, a ward, a county or a city, can unify people and ambitions, and can allow us to work collectively toward a better place to live and work. Thinking about change in place means thinking about how a place works for everyone who lives there. We find place to be a really helpful way of thinking about change because:
It resonates
It is inclusive
It is holistic
It allows you to look at the interconnectedness of issues within a place, and focusses on sustaining relationships that enable change to last.
Combining place-based change with systems change approaches
Using a place-based systems change approach, we can use the boundary of a place to address complex issues. This enables us to listen, identify, and explore the root causes of a problem in a specific place or system, and begin to explore how these root causes can be challenged and changed.
Our team can support you in building the capacity to deliver, learn about or evaluate place-based and systemic change.
Evidence and learning for place
Place-based change is a long-term approach to understanding and addressing social issues. It uses a recognised area to draw in resources, expertise, and experience. Most importantly, it values everyone’s contribution and perspective, not just those who traditionally hold power. These factors give place-based work the potential to have an impact across different parts of a local system and create more sustainable change than other interventions might.
Using our learning from the 100 sites we’ve worked in for over 30 years, we have developed our tried-and-tested approach for learning and evaluating place-based change in a way that honours the complexity of systems change work. Our experience includes small and large-scale programmes such as Big Local’s Wick Award project in Hackney, the DCMS and Lottery-funded Place Based Social Action programme, Power to Change’s Empowering Places programme, and Youth Futures Foundation’s Connected Futures programme.
Our models: combining flexibility and rigour
The Arrow
The Cogs
Visualising all the moving parts that make up place based systems change
The Cube
Our model for learning from and evaluating complex, multisite, place-based initiatives.
The Rainbow
A framework for progressing place-based systemic change.
The Evaluation Wheel
How we combine developmental and realist evaluation methods.
The Cogs
The Arrow
The Rainbow
Measuring the impact of community
Example Model
Social change is more than statistics. It’s lived reality.
Our team brings a mix of lived and learned expertise. We believe we’re better at our jobs because of it.
Learn more about place-based change
Place
Knowledge Hub
Join our Place Community of Practice
A journey through systemic reform
