Community power through connection

We’ve been able to be truly autonomous to what we believe in

 

By Gill Wright

 

 

The thing that really enabled us to do what we wanted in our community was trust.

 

The funding wasn’t micro-managed. Lankelly Chase ‘got’ what we wanted to do, and they trusted us to do that. 

 

And what we’ve done at Greater Manchester System Changers is phenomenal. 

 

Trust as the enabler 

 

Trust gave us power in our community and within our systems. 

 

We haven’t had to conform and play political games with the local council and with local grant funders. 

 

It’s meant that we’ve been able to be truly autonomous to what we believe in. 

 

We haven’t feared, like, ‘Oh, we better not say that, because they might not give us any money’. We’ve had freedom to be able to speak openly, and we’ve been able to challenge the system massively. 

 

It’s taken time – there’s been a journey with that. At the beginning, our relationship with the local authority wasn’t great. Whereas I just had a meeting the other day with the Director of Adult Social Care, and they were asking, “Where are you up to with your funding? We’d like to support this going forward.” 

 

That’s not all across the council, but we see the amount of changes that we know we’ve instigated because we’ve challenged continuously. The ripples of this work are absolutely huge.

 

The sustainability to change systems 

 

When we started as Greater Manchester System Changers, it was about changing systems! And when we look at some of the changes that are happening internally in the council, and some of the ways funding for communities has been coming into the borough for years, and the things that we’ve been challenging on … there’s stuff happening about it. 

 

We would have never, ever been able to do that had we not had two years of funding from Lankelly Chase. Money getting to grassroots communities… it just doesn’t happen. Even the ones that say they’re doing it, they don’t. 

 

So you can’t get anything off the ground, because there’s no sustainability to it – there’s no long term plan. You’re living hand-to-mouth all the time. 

 

So the two year funding that we’ve had, and the trust that we know our community and that we would do what we said we were going to do, has been absolutely phenomenal.

 

At first people thought we were mad 

 

It’s really easy in this sector to get sucked in, follow the money, shape-shift and become a bit of a chameleon because of where the money is. 

 

A lot of spaces that you go to you feel like they don’t really ‘get it’. They think they do, but they don’t. 

 

So, for us, it’s about the connection across Greater Manchester, meeting others who get it – and the ability to step into a brave space with others who are also trying to do different things. 

 

At the point we started, people thought we were mad, that we were trouble-makers. They used to just try and pacify us – meeting with us every six weeks and hoping that will keep us quiet and we’ll learn to toe the line.

 

Lankelly gave us the freedom and the power to say, ‘No, we don’t need to toe your line’. 

 

Just because a system functions doesn’t mean it’s right. 

 

The solidarity and connection with other people across Greater Manchester, who see the world in a similar way to you and who are also fighting against these unjust systems – because it does feel like a fight at times, and that’s exhausting – to know that you’re not a lone voice and to have support from others doing the same thing is massive. 

 

Consider class 

 

What’s been great about Lankelly is we haven’t had to worry or try to explain to other funders what it is we do and justify why somebody should invest. Because that’s draining and exhausting, and very often funders don’t speak the same language that we do. They think they do, but they don’t – they don’t get it, and it’s hard.

 

The philanthropic sector tends to be quite a middle class environment. You get a lot of people who are really well educated and have lived very comfortable lifestyles who think that they understand it, and you can’t. You can empathise with somebody, and you can support somebody, and you can walk alongside somebody who’s having different difficulties to you. But you can’t truly understand what it’s like to live anybody else’s life without experiencing it.

 

So I would like the philanthropic sector to be more diverse, and to consider class. 

 

Building community power through connection

 

The best thing that could happen would be that the most amount of money is given to communities to build connection so that they can build power. 

 

We have to give as much money as we possibly can to allow people to connect, so that these people feeling disenchanted, disempowered and disengaged from society can connect meaningfully to create alternatives that will be the antidote to what’s coming. 

 

Everybody seems to be saying the right thing about money getting to communities. If everything goes to plan then communities should be loaded in the next few years! Whether or not it actually trickles down will be the challenge.

 

There’s too much money and too many people making careers supporting the systems that are currently in place that are not fit for purpose. 

 

Until we divert enough resources to create these realities and support the people that are doing it – mentally, physically, socially, spiritually – they’re never going to have the strength to create the alternatives that are needed for whatever the future is going to bring. 

 

If we do that, we’ve got a chance. 

 

 

 

Story Weaving by Tchiyiwe Chihana and Jack Becher 

 

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