The Four Building Blocks of Place-Based Change

When people talk about place-based change, it is easy to focus on what is visible: a new partnership, a funding award, a community group getting involved, a project launch.

But none of these things happen in isolation. They depend on the relationships between people and organisations, on who gets to make decisions, on what resources are available, and on whether people share a sense of what they are trying to achieve.

Transforming Places Together describes these underlying conditions through four building blocks, drawing on the Four Keys to Unlock Systems Innovation framework: Purpose, Power, Relationships and Resource Flows. They overlap and shape one another, and a shift in one can open possibilities in the others. Whether you fund, lead, serve or live in a place, they offer a practical way to think about what needs to change.

Purpose: agreeing what matters

Lasting change needs a shared sense of direction. That does not mean everyone has to agree on everything. It means making room for people to work out what matters to them and what they want their place to become.

The starting point is listening, and listening often changes the question.

In Wixams, a fast-growing new community on the edge of Bedford, housing had outpaced investment in social infrastructure, and antisocial behaviour, including repeated arson, was escalating. Rather than assume what was needed, Bedford Giving asked. Young people described their home as “Bedford is Deadford”: there was nothing to do and nowhere to go.

That reframed the problem. Residents, young people, the Council, Police and Fire Services came together around a new shared aim: positive, accessible opportunities for young people that would benefit everyone.

They tested ideas, including a pop-up skate park and roller disco, and pooled funding for a free four-week summer programme. Antisocial behaviour fell sharply, and no fire incidents were reported in July or August 2025. Housing developers have since contributed, and the case for a permanent youth centre is now on the table.

A shared purpose rarely emerges from a single meeting. But, as Wixams shows, time spent finding it is not a delay to action. It is what can make the right action possible.

Whose priorities are shaping what we are doing?

Power: changing who gets to decide

Purpose leads straight to a harder question: who decides what matters in the first place?

Communities are often invited in after the important choices have been made. They are asked for views, consulted on options or involved in delivery, while the real decisions stay with institutions. Participation is not the same as power.

In Brent, earlier participatory approaches had left some residents mistrustful. So,Brent Giving changed both the language and the process. Drawing on itsDirector’s own experience as a Camden Giving panellist, it invited Camden Giving to train its first cohort.

Twelve residents took part in four weeks of training before making funding decisions, and shared meals and conversation were built into the process, because how decisions are made matters as much as the decisions themselves.

Those panel members have since become community ambassadors, sharing what they learned and helping others access funding. Brent Giving now plans to train a new group with every funding round.

For funders and other institutions, this means rethinking risk and control: sharing decisions, being comfortable with outcomes that cannot be fully predicted, and trusting people from the start rather than asking them to prove themselves first.

As Firsttine Pierre-Pacquette, who helped set up a resident-led funding panel on Lewisham’s Parkside Estate with Lewisham Local, put it: “To be trusted to make financial decisions on behalf of the community is an honour!”

Who gets to decide, and who is left out of that decision?

Relationships: making collaboration possible

Good intentions alone do not produce collaboration. People need relationships in which they can build trust, understand one another and work through disagreement.

This matters all the more because the people involved in a place bring very different experiences and very different levels of power. A resident, a small charity, a funder, a local business and a council officer may each see the same street differently. Strong relationships are what allow those views to meet.

Havering shows what it looks like to build relationships before building programmes. The borough is changing fast, with London’s fastest-growing population of young people, one of its highest proportions of older people, and more than half of residents income deprived. Partners across sectors agreed they needed to work differently.

Supported by seed funding, they spent time listening and building relationships before agreeing a shared vision focused on opportunities for young people and grassroots solutions. Jane Herbert, Chair of Havering Together, describes the journey as “deliberate and demanding, but that careful groundwork is its strength.”

Trust grows through repeated contact, through people keeping their word and through learning side by side. It seldom fits a project plan or a quarterly report, but that does not make it a nice-to-have.

Relationships are infrastructure. Money may spark action, but relationships influence where resources go, who they reach and how far they travel. Place-based change moves at the speed of trust.

What relationships do we need, and are we investing in them?

Resource Flows: looking beyond the money

Talk of resources usually means funding. Money matters, but it is only part of what a place has to draw on: knowledge, skills, time, networks, credibility and leadership all count.

So. the questionis not just how much exists, but where it goes, who controls it and who decides how it is used.

In Manchester, local parent Kerrie Rimmer-Chambers had an idea for a community cycle track, after the death of her son. Over five years, Step Up MCR helped her set up Max Trax as a community interest company, secure funding and pro bono expertise, and build relationships with local partners. Today around 300 people use the track every week, rising to around 700 in the summer holidays.

What made it work was a two-way exchange. Partners brought money, skills, time and connections. Kerrie brought the idea, the drive and the community knowledge that shaped how all of it was used. Neither would have been enough alone.

How resources are given matters too. Long-term, flexible funding lets people respond to what they see on the ground. Short-term or tightly restricted funding can make it harder to adapt, build relationships or invest in work that takes years to pay off.

Resources are never neutral: decisions about who controls them shape how power works in a place. When communities have more say over where resources go, they have more say over what happens around them.

How are resources moving through this place, and who do they strengthen?

How the four building blocks connect

None of the four building blocks works alone. Together they form a cycle.

A shared purpose prompts different choices about resources. Changing who controls resources can shift power. Greater community influence can deepen relationships and bring forward new leaders. Stronger relationships can surface fresh priorities and create a bigger sense of what is possible.

Take one away and the others weaken. A purpose loses momentum if the people who shaped it have no say in what follows. Power is hard to use well without the trust that enables people to act together. Resources can have limited impact if they do not reach the people and relationships that can put them to work.

That is why there is no blueprint. Every place has its own history, people and resources. But a way of looking at change can travel between places – through four questions worth asking anywhere.

• What are we trying to achieve together?
• Who gets to shape that ambition?
• What relationships do we need to make it possible?
• How are resources moving through the place?

These questions lift our focus from individual projects to the conditions that make change possible. That is what the four building blocks offer: not a model to follow, but a way to see the work differently.

Want to explore the wider learning?

Read our launch article for an introduction to Transforming Places Together and access the full report.