Recently, a head of a local VCFSE organisation asked me a question along the lines of: ‘if the Neighbourhood Networks were successful in their aim, wouldn’t it create more competition for the CICs and charities in our borough?’ In a landscape where charities and CICs already compete for limited funding, the idea of another organisation doing similar work on ‘their patch’ is a real concern.
The Neighbourhood Networks, a learning programme run by BD Collective as part of Barking and Dagenham’s Neighbourhood Working strategy, aim to establish ten hyper-local networks where residents, supported by local organisations, collaborate to create what they want to see in their area. Some initiatives may have specific goals, like improving health, but the main focus is on building a more robust community.
My friend’s question is understandable. If many charities and CICs exist to fill gaps, youth mentoring for example, but that need is met by residents who’ve created a volunteer run after-school club through their Neighbourhood Network, where does that leave the local youth mentoring charity?
I responded to my friend with a different question:
What if the Neighbourhood Network and the charity share a goal, not to create more services, but to create stronger communities?
I’m so grateful for the welfare state. I rely on it, and I believe in it. But it often treats people as recipients rather than contributors. Neighbourhood Networks offer a different way: one where everyone has something to give, and where we focus on building resilience and connection as a community.
Neighbourhood Networks are not about creating more services; they are about building community. They are designed to reduce the pressure on statutory services, and in doing so, they’re supporting the work of the charities.
They are about creating conditions where:
- problems are prevented earlier
- communities become more resilient
- specialist services can focus where they add the greatest value
By empowering residents who are able to meaningfully contribute – their skills, their passions, their time – individuals become more than service users. Everyone has something to give, and research shows that when people get involved in their local community, they can truly change how their area is run.
Neighbourhood Networks are the infrastructure for that reciprocity. They’re built around the idea that people know their own needs better than anyone else, so communities can support each other.
Let me paint a picture: Bob, who is good at gardening, creates a gardening club. James, who suffers with social anxiety, attends with his mum. The other residents who attend the gardening club get to know James to the point where James’ mum no longer needs to go with him, and instead gets a few well-needed hours to herself. Mohammed finds the gardening club helps him get exercise, and he and James soon start a walking club. This helps some of the walkers to keep their weight under control, reducing their need for pre-diabetic medication. Mohammed and James become friends, their social isolation decreases, and they both become happier. A few months later James realises that his social anxiety isn’t as much of a problem as it used to be.
Bob, who started the gardening club, is not a trained professional; he is simply someone with a passion for gardening, but sharing his passion and skill has gentle ripple effects that affect an ever-increasing group of people in his community.
In a world where community is the vision, and the heart of what we set out to achieve, the pressure on the welfare state is drastically reduced. Expertise will always be needed, specialist support called for, but what if it was needed for the few rather than the many? That support could be so much better.
The ‘charity mindset’ creates an ‘us and them’, a ‘haves and have-nots’, a wall, a divide, a hierarchy. A community mindset does not. It suggests that we’re all in this together. I have something to offer, and so do you – it’s mutual – and what we offer is unique, and complementary.
I shared a vision with my friend, the VCFSE lead: a world where charities focus less on saving people and more on creating the conditions for people to support one another. I’m not worried about competition between charitable organisations and the Neighbourhood Networks in Barking and Dagenham – I’m worried about a world where the need is becoming so great that, without building robust communities, we cannot meet it.
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