Our Work

Changemakers Greater Manchester

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"The energy created by the (participatory budgeting) events has been phenomenal, and has provided the opportunities to engage people around something which feels very positive to them. It has brought them in touch with others committed to the community and given everyone a sense of what is possible when communities get organised.”(Blog post, November 2011)

“I was delighted to hear about the other projects and meet so many great people. I made loads of good contacts. It felt like a massive step forward, and I’ve learnt some valuable lessons from the presentation experience.”(Moss Side resident)

The Neighbourhood Challenge in Manchester provided people in three distinct communities with a local budget to make their own choices about where money should be spent in their neighbourhoods. It began a process of encouraging local people to come together and organise around issues of local importance. The project offered a chance for people to lead and influence each stage of the work, drawing new people into community activity, creating a momentum for change, and delivering practical projects and action on wider issues, driven by local people.

The project combined two approaches to community led change; Participatory Budgeting, a process which offers decision making over a local budget to those living in a community, and Community Organising, which promotes the power of people acting together to understand and challenge issues affecting their communities.

Three communities were involved in the project. Old Trafford and Moss Side are neighbouring areas south of Manchester city centre; both are densely populated and culturally diverse. Moss Side has experienced a number of regeneration initiatives in recent times. Collyhurst lies to the north of the city. It is an area of social housing which has seen no investment for many decades. The area has very limited physical resources and little history of community involvement.

The project was led by Changemakers, a partner body of Church Action on Poverty. Changemakers is a coalition of Manchester people and organisations committed to collective action on issues raised by residents. Changemakers worked with committed partners in each of the three neighbourhoods, including social landlords (one of which doubled the Participatory Budget in Old Trafford by match funding the original sum), schools, churches and community organisations. The partners played important roles in each community, contributing to local Steering Groups, providing local knowledge, promoting the Participatory Budget events and providing access to local venues.

Some headline messages from the project

Offering ability to allocate local funds (Participatory Budgeting) created a high level of energy and involvement in each community. Many people became involved in community action for the first time. This was particularly significant in Collyhurst, where levels of engagement in community life were extremely low. Being chosen by neighbours and peers to deliver a local project motivated people to succeed. There has been a sharing of knowledge and support among those delivering the community projects, and a reluctance to let down other local people. The work has created potentially influential groups of people. A ground-up process, driven by ideas and concerns of local residents, has given those residents choice in how change can be delivered in their community, and a shared voice which is beginning to address issues and concerns.

About their approach

There were three main steps within the Manchester Neighbourhood Challenge approach. Firstly, local steering groups were formed, made up of known community leaders and organisations, in each of the three neighbourhoods. Secondly, the steering groups worked to design, promote and host a local event that was open to residents in each community. At this event residents were given a budget and asked to vote on project proposals drawn up by local people, groups or organisations. The Participatory Budget event, (which was given the name ‘Our Cash, Our Call’) was promoted widely in each area to encourage both participation at the event and proposals for projects.

Thirdly, the process of creating and delivering the events was also used to listen to and understand issues and concerns being raised by local people. Following each event, Changemakers brought those running the local projects back together to create mutual support and build connections, and to offer training in taking action around the issues identified by the process. This Community Organisingapproach was then used to begin a process of collective local action.

The combination of these approaches enabled the project to do three crucial things in each neighbourhood: 1) gather people and ideas together, 2) connect people and ideas and 3) turn ideas into action.

1. Gathering people and ideas together

“It (Participatory Budgeting) is easy to understand and get involved in – it’s not pitched too high to be inaccessible or too low to over simplify or trivialise issues.”(Trafford Housing Trust)

“I was amazed at how many people attended and the degree to which everyone listened to each other and respected the ideas being put forward. I was overwhelmed at how good it was.”(Old Trafford resident)

Involving people was critical to the success of the project, and the local Steering Groups were seen as an excellent way of ensuring that the message reached as many residents as possible in each community. Each Steering Group drew together those known to be active and involved in the life of the community, as their knowledge would be crucial in reaching those who were not active or involved. Each steering group worked hard to promote three things: the Participatory Budgeting event itself, the invitation to local people to propose a project or idea for consideration and, critically, that local people would choose which projects or ideas were funded.

Different approaches were used to engage with residents in each area; in Old Trafford, a local community newspaper and social media group put the word out into the community, and simple, colourful cartoon based flyers and leaflets were used; in Collyhurst, where community involvement was very sparse, time was spent speaking with people on the streets or where they gathered. To match the simple visual message, technical terms were dropped and a brand of “Our Cash, Our Call” was used to get the message of community choice across.

To support those who had an idea to pitch at the Our Cash, Our Call events, drop-in sessionswere held in local venues or visits made to people’s homes prior to the events, giving all who were proposing a project the chance to talk it through with members of the Steering Groups and with Changemakers staff. These sessions and visits were also important in beginning to gather knowledge about the issues of importance in each community, around which people might focus collective action.

Encouraging ownership was an important part of the project and each Our Cash, Our Call event was led by a local person, with support from Changemakers. Each project was presented by the person, group or organisation proposing it, and all those attending the event that were resident in that community, including children, voted for the projects of their choice. A voting system was used which meant that residents needed to think beyond the particular project they had come to support; each resident had a number of votes which all had to be used, and could not support simply one project. If someone used all their votes on one project, or only used some of their allocation, their voting paper was judged to be ‘spoilt’ and was discarded. This encouraged a wide base of support for all the projects selected.

2. Connecting people and ideas together

“There has been a degree of informal peer monitoring developing – people are more motivated to deliver knowing that their friends and neighbours voted for their idea. This is more powerful than a funder seeking a report or asking for feedback.”(Changemakers team)

“It has given the group an insight into the community they are a part of, but rarely come into contact with. It has made a big difference to our group. They have become very involved in what is really a very small project.”(Project Holder, Moss Side)

After the Our Cash, Our Call events, Changemakers hosted events that brought together the project holders from each community. The events provided chances for networking and for mutual support. Many connections were made between project holders, including three small groups in Moss Side who lived within streets of each other but who had never linked up. Project holders were also offered training in Community Organising, delivered by Changemakers. This gave people the opportunity to build on their experience and connect with others committed to wider change within their community.

3. Turning ideas into action

“We visited everyone last week. We found it invaluable in terms of getting to know people, understanding where their ideas have come from and getting a sense of some of the wider issues that people are concerned about in the community.”(Blog post, October 2011)

Listening and conversations took place before and during the Our Cash, Our Call events and as the training was delivered, helping to draw out issues. Links began to form and connections clicked into place, enabling people to come together around issues of common concern. In Old Trafford, an alliance of parent groups formed out of concerns about traffic problems near local schools and in Moss Side people chose to come together to address the issue of the disproportionate numbers of black boys being excluded by local schools. In Collyhurst, levels of confidence and involvement were low after many years of isolation and neglect. The local churches used the impetus from the Our Cash, Our Call event to begin conversations with local people about their neighbourhood – by taking a cake to every resident to break the ice and to listen to their concerns.

What's been changing?

Changemakers found that the practicalities of delivering three overlapping processes in three communities posed challenges in maintaining momentum and providing all the input and support they would have wished to offer. There was a risk of being too thinly spread at times.

There was a need to overcome a degree of cynicism or apathy within the communities, particularly in Collyhurst, which was addressed by spending time on the streets talking with local people, at places where people gathered, such as local schools. The project also encountered resistance from some ward councillors, who were not in favour of offering local people the power to choose where funds were spent.

Some challenges emerged in delivering the integrated model of Participatory Budgeting and Community Organising. In reviewing the process, Changemakers noted the need to be tighter and clearer around how the participatory budgets could be used (or not used) to encourage the maximum benefit for the widest number of people in each community, and to promote the community organising benefits more strongly within the overall package at the outset of the process.

As the project evolves, maintaining the impetus of the process while recognising that people move on at different paces will be a challenge; what one local leader noted as ‘the need to keep fanning the flames of interest’. The degree of ownership generated by working on issues of high importance to local people will help with this.

What's changed?

Local assets have been unlockedLarge numbers of people have become involved: 550 people attended the Participatory Budget events (130 in Collyhurst, which was seen as remarkable given the history of low attendance at community events in the area); 37 community projects have been delivered by local people; 50 people have been trained as Community Organisers. Local leaders are emerging from the process.

Creation of new networks, connections and collaborationsConnections have been made between local people and groups. People have discovered others in their neighbourhood who are committed to change. New alliances and collaborations are beginning to emerge to address local issues.

New opportunities to influence have been createdLocal people have made informed choices over investments in their communities. A social landlord invested matched funding to the Participatory Budget in Old Trafford, and has now adopted the method within its own Community Budgets. This will mean that tenants will get a direct say in how substantial sums of money are spent within their community.

Conditions and ambitions for change have been createdNew collective action is beginning to take place in Old Trafford and Moss Side.

Collyhurst is a small predominantly white working-class neighbourhood just to the north of Manchester City with a population of around 2000. Unlike other local areas in which there is a thriving voluntary sector, Collyhurst is very short of leadership and community based groups.

What's next?

“To move people on from participation in a grass roots process to considering being more directly active around wider issues in their neighbourhood is quite a jump for some. We have had to be sensitive to where people are at. It is very easy to take the process too fast and for people to feel they are being railroaded.”(Blog post, December 2011)

The Manchester Neighbourhood Challenge was about trying a new way of working by combining two established change processes. The project started with local people’s knowledge and commitment, and drew many people into new community activity. The connections between the two approaches have enabled a deeper level of engagement with local people that would not have been likely if either approach had been exclusively used.

Changemakers plan to build on the experience of delivering the Neighbourhood Challenge. New funds secured by the organisation will enable ongoing support to the work in Manchester and to begin to work in this way in Salford, while the partnership with Trafford Housing Trust has led to new opportunities for tenants in Trafford to choose how funds are spent and may lead to a staff secondment to Changemakers from the Trust.

At a local level, the networks and projects created through the Neighbourhood Challenge will continue to be supported, and the collective action initiated in Moss Side and Old Trafford will be taken forward with those involved. In Collyhurst, Changemakers have learnt that a long term approach will be needed to create a base on which community organising can be in an area of long standing neglect. Working through the local churches, visits to every household (with cakes!) will be the next step in this process.

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