Pride of Place Learning Hub: Phase Three - Business in the Community

Pride of Place Learning Hub: Phase Three

Pride of Place Learning Hub: Phase Three

In Phase Three, you can explore building your partnership Board, recruiting an influential Chair, and beginning the vital work of engaging and supporting communities in your place. This Learning Hub is sponsored by Aviva, Strategic Partner of the Business in the Community (BITC) Pride of Place programme.

Building and Managing Your Board

Welcome to ‘Building and Managing Your Board’, the Pride of Place module designed to guide you through the process of identifying, selecting, appointing, and managing your partnership board.  

By this stage, you will have learnt a huge amount about your chosen place, and you will have built strong relationships with some really important stakeholders who make things happen locally and regionally.  

You are about to move from doing things independently, or as part of a small group of core, interested partners, to having a team of influential leaders on your side. This should bring clout and confidence to your efforts to secure funding that will help you fully launch your place.  

How an effective Board and Chair support Pride of Place in Coventry 

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BITC’s Coventry Place Lead, Heather Black, describes how important it has been to have an active and influential Chair, helping to drive change in Coventry. 

Building your Board and scoping your Chair 

Having progressed into phase three, you will probably be connecting back in with many of the organisations you have identified in your earlier stakeholder engagement, seeking to engage them to be part of the Pride of Place Board.  

The Pride of Place Board should be made up of senior representatives from each organisation, as these representatives can use their influence and resources to drive action in a place. You are likely to have greater success if invites come from your Chair, but you will need to draft these before a Chair is appointed.

The type of businessperson who is well-placed to become a Board Member is someone who:  

  • Cares about the place – this could be someone local, someone with local commercial interests, or someone born locally. 
  • Has influence over the resources within their own company – this could be the Chief Executive (CEO) of a medium-sized local business or a functional lead for a national business. 
  • Has a relevant, specialist skillset, such as digital understanding or marketing. 
  • Can take a strategic view on what is best for the town, aside from narrow commercial interests. 

Establishing a Pride of Place Board 

Throughout the stakeholder mapping, engagement, and needs-analysis process, you will have developed an understanding of the demographics and main players in the place. You may have already identified some key local leaders that you think will play a long-term role in the partnership. To ensure that long-term commitment and momentum are maintained, it is important to work towards goals and motivations that make sense for all partners.

BITC suggests that a Pride of Place Partnership Board be established as a steering group, which brings together these local leaders in a cross-sector-organised forum. This will ensure that the expertise, resources, and commitment of a range of organisations are secured, bringing together individuals with power and a passion for the key issues in the place. The Board should primarily be made up of CEOs and other business leaders – you should aim for around 70% of your Board to be made up of representatives from business – but can also include the following local leaders:

  • CEOs of local authority bodies/councils 
  • funder representatives 
  • CEOs of key public sector institutions (education, health, housing, etc.) 
  • CEOs of community organisations and charity umbrella organisations 
  • influential entrepreneurs and philanthropists 
  • community leaders and representatives 

Your Pride of Place partnership will grow and change over the course of the development of your place, but making a good start to building your Board involves recruiting diverse leaders from a range of different organisations who can collectively drive change. It is important that the Board reflects local strengths, and it should tap into key industries and sectors that can bring credibility, influence, and reach in your area.  

For a BITC-managed place, funding is sought from these Board Members in order to put resource on the ground. It is critical that there is a dedicated person who can ensure action is followed through between meetings. 

Example

Building a Pride of Place Partnership Board in Coventry 

In Coventry, the Place Partnership Board (known there as the Coventry Leaders’ Network) comprises colleagues from: 

  • large businesses with a big local footprint, such as Amazon Web Services, Capita, Coventry Building Society, Deloitte Digital, JLL, and Salesforce  
  • smaller local business success stories, such as Kaleida 
  • CEOs of key public sector institutions (education, health, housing, etc.) 
  • the local authority (Coventry City Council) 
  • housing and utilities providers, such as Orbit Housing and Severn Trent Water 
  • key charities, community organisations, and corporate foundations, such as Cadent Foundation and City & Guilds 

Benefits of a business-led Board 

When considering who should sit on the Place Board, it is important to remember the benefits the Board will bring: 

  • Establishment of shared ambition and transparency of objectives and motives. 
  • Insight into social, environmental, and economic factors in the place. 
  • Experts who have been working to address key issues in the area for a sustained period. 
  • Commercial acumen. 
  • Historical knowledge and long-term commitment to the location. 
  • Oversight and independence. 
  • Influential and able to make tough decisions. 
  • Willing to take accountability. 
  • Able to act and make things happen. 

The Board should have formal terms of reference in place that clarify the role and authority of the Board, how often it will meet, what will be discussed, and the roles of different members. In addition, the unique contributions of each Board Member should be acknowledged. 

Appointing a Chair 

Broadly, the role of a Chair includes the following duties:   

  • Lead the group in achieving its objectives by providing strategic oversight. 
  • Act as an ambassador for the project with key stakeholders, including growing the membership of the Board and identifying funding opportunities. 
  • Possess sensitivity to local need and drive understanding of local issues. 
  • Expertly navigate differences in opinion, achieving consensus between members. 
  • Recognise opportunities, while enthusing and empowering others to bring them to life. 
  • Leverage resources from their own organisation to collaboratively drive action. 

The core commitments are as follows:   

  • Chair meetings virtually/face-to-face quarterly. 
  • Have a pre-meet with the Strategic Partnership Managers prior to Board meetings to set the agenda for the meeting. 
  • Occasionally join the Strategic Partnership Manager/Place Director in meetings with key external stakeholders. 
  • Recruiting and engaging senior business leaders or other senior stakeholders. 

Essential steps to take before holding your first Board meeting  

Before bringing partners together to run the first Board meeting in a place, it is important to build on the foundations laid during the stakeholder engagement process. Doing this before you formalise a Board meeting helps to ensure that all parties who will be invited to be involved understand what is involved, have a chance to ask questions and voice any concerns discretely, and feel prepared for working collaboratively with organisations and partners they may not have previously engaged with. The key steps to take before setting up the Board formally include:  

  • Arranging an informal discussion with the relevant BITC Regional Leadership Board Chair can help to connect the ambitions you hold for your place with an established network of business leaders focused on improving lives in your region or nation. BITC’s Leadership Boards cover each region of England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland, and they hold a wealth of experience, connections, and learning that can support your place on its journey.
  • Working with the relevant BITC Regional Lead to help you establish introductory conversations with existing places will give you the opportunity to find out how other places work and to ask any early questions about the process of establishing your place. 
  • Organising further meetings with the relevant local authority or council can go a long way to ensuring that your place-based programme connects smoothly with existing activity in the place, and it is a crucial step to take to ensure your relationship with local government gets off to a good start. 
  • Holding an early business roundtable – perhaps inviting businesses who may be interested in joining the Board, those from your supply chains, or those who have a large presence in the place – can help all stakeholders to express early levels of interest and can help identify any gaps or concerns. 
  • Building some initial engagement with local voluntary service organisations and community membership bodies can help pave the way for future collaboration and can build additional credibility and good will with key local stakeholders. 

Holding your first Board meeting 

Offering to host the first meeting can be a great way of demonstrating your commitment to working in your place. However, in some instances, making use of a shared community or business venue can also help to establish commonality between respective place partners.

BITC’s experience of operating a range of place programmes across the UK means that there is a bedrock of experience and ways-of-working that can support you to hold a successful first Board meeting. Get in touch with your main BITC place contact before attempting to arrange your first Board meeting, so that you can receive relevant templates and guidance to help you get started. 

Resources

The resources below will support you in starting your placemaking journey and help provide an overview of best practice. More resources will be added to the modules as this Learning Hub is developed and improved, so keep in touch with your main BITC contact to learn more about the latest content as it launches:

  • BITC’s Partnerships in Place report captures a lot of information that can help you in thinking about what is required of your Pride of Place Board. 
  • You can find more information on current Board Members via BITC’s Pride of Place homepage. 
  • The National Council for Voluntary Organisations (NCVO) has published a range of guidance to help charitable organisations build effective boards. 

Building and Managing Your Board: FAQs

If you are struggling to find people based locally who would make effective Board Members – perhaps during early phases, you identified that the place in which you are working is lacking larger employers, and so you are finding it difficult to identify suitable candidates with large, available resource – it can help to widen your catchment area to include regional hubs and major cities that have an influence on economic activity in your place. Alternatively, local connections you have already built can be valuable as sources of introductions or recommendations for additional Board Members. You can also speak with BITC to uncover whether members of its Regional Leadership Boards, or colleagues of BITC members, may make or suggest suitable candidates for your Pride of Place Partnership Board.

It is important to work closely with BITC to help share the opportunity of your Pride of Place Board with potential Chairs or Board Members. Particularly at these initial stages, you should retain control over who sits on the Board, working with your key local stakeholders to gain introductions and suggestions. As such, do not share your Board opportunities via social media or press unless discussed and cleared with BITC.

As well as the information contained in this module, BITC’s Advisory Services Team may be able to help you think through your approach to building a Board. 

Next steps

If you are reading this page as an existing or potential Board Member, you might find it useful to check out ‘Being a Board Member’ for further guidance on expectations.  

If you have your Board in place, it is time to begin deepening your understanding of your place by planning some ‘Community Conversations and Business Roundtables.’ 

If your Board is ready to start delivering some tangible early successes to show your place that you are there to drive impact, then it could be a great time to start planning how you will go about ‘Securing Quick Wins.’  

Previous module: Finding and Energising Local Leaders Next module: Being a Board Member
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Being a Board Member

Welcome to ‘Being a Board Member’, the Pride of Place module designed to support you in considering, joining, and thriving as a Pride of Place Partnership Board Member in a place that matters to you.  

You may have been directed to this module by someone who is already involved in a Pride of Place partnership, or you might have come across this page in your own search for opportunities to contribute to local change.  

Either way, you are in the right place to learn more about whether joining a Pride of Place Board is right for you or for one of your contacts. You will also be able to gain an insight into what is expected, what is involved, and what is possible when you work alongside cross-sector leaders to drive place-based transformation.  

How the Pride of Place Chair and Board unlock opportunity in Newport 

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BITC’s Newport Place Lead, Alassim Mohamed, reflects on the additional value and support brought to communities by the actions and intentions of Chair Professor Simon Gibson CBE. 

Who can be a Board Member of a Pride of Place partnership?  

A Pride of Place Board should be made up of senior representatives from each organisation, as these representatives can use their influence and resources to drive action in a place. If already appointed, the Board Chair and other members may already be familiar to you. Partnerships thrive when Board Members are well connected, passionate about their place, and able to use their networks, influence, and resources to mobilise local partners.

A Pride of Place Board Member is someone who:

  • Cares about the place – this could be someone local, someone with local commercial interests, or someone born locally. 
  • Has influence over the resources within their own company or organisation – this could be the Chief Executive of a medium-sized local business, or a functional lead for a national business. 
  • Has a relevant, specialist skillset, such as digital understanding or marketing. 
  • Can take a strategic view on what is best for the place, aside from narrow commercial interests. 
  • Can provide access, credible advocacy, and leadership in supporting the place to work with diverse and reputable partners.  

While the composition of Pride of Place Boards differs depending on the local context and the duration of their operation, they generally consist of leaders representing: 

  • 6-10 large businesses with a big, local footprint
  • 2-6 smaller, local business success stories  
  • the local and combined authority  
  • 1-3 health, housing, social service, or utilities providers
  • 1-3 ‘umbrella organisations’ – key charities, community organisations, or corporate foundations who have reach into the community 

To enable the kind of sustained, sustainable, community-oriented activity required to build an effective partnership, there is an expectation that larger businesses joining a Board provide funding at an agreed level. BITC will work with you to convey how the financial contributions of other Board Members are used and to discuss an appropriate level of commitment for your business.  

What is expected of Board Members?  

As a Pride of Place Board Member, you would be expected to bring a blend of passion, skills, and commitment to the table. Your primary role is to provide strategic guidance, unlock resources, and open doors, helping your partnership deliver on the community’s needs and goals.  

Board Members are expected to be proactive, demonstrating leadership and strategic acumen in contributing to decision-making on the aims, actions, impact, and profile of place-based projects and partnerships. There will be regular meetings and other opportunities to connect and collaborate with other Board Members and key community leads, so you will need to be able to commit to giving time (at least 4-6 days per annum) to participate. 

You would also be an advocate for the project within the place, and further afield, helping to build broad support and engagement. This will involve networking, attending community events, and effectively communicating your partnership’s progress and impact. Financial and resource oversight is another key responsibility, requiring you to understand and contribute to the responsible management of plans and pipelines. 

Furthermore, you would be expected to uphold ethical standards and act in the best interests of the community. You will work closely with other Board Members, the appointed Place Lead, and BITC and its partners in your place. Place Partnership Board Members should see themselves as an enabling force: someone who can make things happen locally, someone who is able to step back and spot new opportunities and risks, and someone who suggests and facilitates more effective ways of working.

How can I add additional value to a Pride of Place Partnership Board?

There are several ways in which you and your business can maximise the potential of your Board position to support the objectives or your Pride of Place partnership:  

  • Act as a vocal advocate for your partnership by using your internal and external communication channels to share good news and key highlights. 
  • Your involvement in a partnership is a great opportunity to use and grow your professional networks, involving contacts and peers in exciting local activities. 
  • Think about how the resources – money, time, skills, and space – available to you and your business could help your partnership at different stages of its journey. This is a real opportunity for you to lead from the front in showing how much you care about your place.  
  • Pride of Place activities can be brilliant skilled volunteering opportunities for your colleagues and teams. Be ready to suggest ways in which your people could add additional value to local plans.  
  • Offer to represent your Pride of Place partnership in other contexts, such as via conferences, meetings, networking events, or other strategic groups or Boards you may sit on. 

Benefits of a business-led Board 

When considering who should sit on the Place Board, it is important to remember the benefits the Board will bring: 

  • Establishment of shared ambition and transparency of objectives and motives. 
  • Insight into social, environmental, and economic factors in the place. 
  • Experts who have been working to address key issues in the area for a sustained period. 
  • Commercial acumen. 
  • Historical knowledge and long-term commitment to the location. 
  • Oversight and independence. 
  • Influential and able to make tough decisions. 
  • Willing to take accountability. 
  • Able to act and make things happen. 

The Board should have formal terms of reference in place that clarify the role and authority of the Board, how often it will meet, what will be discussed, and the roles of different members. In addition, the unique contributions of each Board Member should be acknowledged. 

Resources

The resources below will support you in starting your placemaking journey and help provide an overview of best practice. More resources will be added to the modules as this Learning Hub is developed and improved, so keep in touch with your main BITC contact to learn more about the latest content as it launches:

  • BITC’s Partnerships in Place report captures a lot of information that can help you in thinking about what is required of your Pride of Place Board. 
  • You can find more information on current Board Members via BITC’s Pride of Place homepage. 
  • The National Council for Voluntary Organisations (NCVO) has published a range of guidance to support current and would-be Board Members. It is specific to charities but has good cross-over with the Pride of Place approach. 

Before you start: FAQs

It is a good idea to first arrange a meeting or call with the relevant Place Lead, or if the relevant Pride of Place Board is already functional, with the existing Chair. Get in touch with BITC’s Place Team to arrange an introductory conversation with the right people. If none of the existing places are the right fit for you, there may be an opportunity for BITC to bring you into a conversation with a new place or connect you with inspiring community organisations who would benefit from your support.  

If you have been invited to consider joining a Board but cannot commit at the moment, it may be appropriate for you to recommend a colleague or connection to take the position in your stead. You will need to chat with the Place Lead, or your main BITC contact, before sharing this opportunity to ensure due diligence, appropriate levels of control, and alignment with local priorities and needs.

Most businesses include a set number of days each year for volunteering in employment contracts, which you might want to use to support a Pride of Place partnership. However, it is always worth remembering that being a Board Member is designed to fit with your day-to-day professional engagements, with valuable outcomes and networks available as a result of your involvement. As such, in many cases, existing Pride of Place Board Members treat their attendance of meetings and support for their partnership as a business activity. 

Next steps

If you have been invited to join a Pride of Place Partnership Board and feel comfortable with what is involved, the next step is to spend time getting to know the other Board Members and set up a quick meeting with your Place Lead.  

You may also find it useful to explore the other modules in this Learning Hub to familiarise yourself with the placemaking process and what is involved.  

If you have not yet been involved or invited to participate in a Pride of Place Partnership Board but would like to learn more about where they currently operate around the UK, check out BITC’s Pride of Place homepage for further information.  

Previous module: Building and Managing Your Board Next module: Community Consultations and Business Roundtables
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Community Conversations and Business Roundtables

Welcome to ‘Community Conversations and Business Roundtables’, the Pride of Place module designed to support you through the process of building a deeper understanding of the needs, abilities, and goals of the people and organisations in your place.  

Connecting local leaders to shape a shared vision for their place, informed by real experience and practical insights into how things have and have not worked for local people, is central to the Pride of Place approach. 

Once you have established your place, appointed a Place Lead, and started to build your Board, it is time to develop and enrich your existing knowledge and networks to really get people on side to ensure your place fulfils its potential.  

The importance of listening to different voices in your place 

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BITC’s Yorkshire Place Director, Javed Kahn, talks about the importance of involving diverse community voices in helping to shape the approach of the Sheffield Pride of Place partnership. 

Why it is so important to connect, engage, and listen to communities and businesses 

Place-based approaches should be viewed as a long-term commitment, so effective stakeholder engagement at the early stages of your involvement is vital to starting well.  

Building strong connections with diverse communities and organisations in a place can reap continual dividends by enabling productive conversations and bringing to light new opportunities over many years. In the example from Newport below, many of the discussions held with stakeholders to understand need have since led to impactful partnership opportunities.  

There are many important reasons for consulting in an inclusive and effective way as part of the placemaking journey: 

  • Effective listening is vital to the success of a Pride of Place partnership, particularly in its early stages. Hosting sessions to gather input from diverse stakeholders forms the true basis of your local evidence collection. 
  • Showing local people and organisations that you, along with BITC, your funders, and Board, are available and keen to listen to them is also a vital step in building beneficial relationships. Convening stakeholders and seeking their views can really boost feelings of trust and validation among your communities and with key stakeholders, such as local government, funders, and businesses. 
  • Learning more about the priorities and challenges facing local people will help you to shape your place’s vision and strategy (Phase Four, coming soon) and can also unlock new opportunities for impactful projects and long-term partnerships (Phase Four, coming soon). 
  • The primary role of a Place Lead is to bring diverse cross-sector stakeholders together, so that they can co-create planned, local impact. Convening leaders via consultation-style gatherings will help ensure that you build the growing team of allies, advocates, and activists that will be critical to the long-term success of your partnership. 
  • Another advantage of consultative relationship development is that your actions in bringing different people and groups together may start to influence challenging attitudes and behaviours. Equally importantly, you can also help diverse stakeholders build relationships between them that can support positive change in your place.
CASE STUDY

Bringing communities together in Newport 

The Pride of Place partnership in Newport, South Wales, built on the wide local reach of its founding partners to engage community stakeholders in diverse ways. In 2023, the Newport Place Lead used support provided by Board Members and a wide range of local leaders to run a series of four community conversation events. These helped provide a growing network, and body of evidence, to help the programme refine its goals and objectives.  

Recognising that not everyone in the local community would be able, or feel comfortable, to attend a public event, the Newport team also held 86 one-to-one meetings with local community organisations, and the team publicised a survey that gathered 243 responses from local people. Findings from these different strands of engagement continue to give the programme a solid grounding in the lived experience of members of Newport’s community, informing decisions and activities on the ground. This early stage of deep relationship building also creates trust that enables the underserved within a community to engage. 

Working with your contacts to plan effective stakeholder engagement  

By this stage, your Pride of Place partnership should really be starting to take shape, with a Place Lead appointed, a Board established, and a growing list of people and organisations you have spoken to and learned from so far.  

When planning a public-facing consultation event in your place, it is beneficial to call on support from your existing stakeholders to help ensure you reach the right people: 

  • Your Pride of Place Board should provide a valuable source of credible connections and ‘door openers’, and you should be ready to ask for their support as vocal supporters of your consultation process. Some Board Members may even be able to offer in-kind support, such as venue hire, staff volunteers to help manage the event, catering, or marketing expertise to help you host a lively and engaging consultation.  
  • By now, you should have met multiple times with your local/combined authority, and you should have an influential local government colleague on your Pride of Place Board. It is important to bring them along with your consultation planning, as their teams will have lots of experience and lots of guidance on listening to and working with different members of your communities. 
  • Similarly, speaking with the community and voluntary organisations you have started to get to know, including when you were conducting research to assess your location’s viability against the Place Criteria, will help ensure your plans for consultation are grounded in local reality.  It is worth setting up a pre-meeting with your Community Voluntary Council or other key community partners to get a better grasp of existing knowledge and to learn more about previous efforts to convene and consult locally. 
  • Always bear in mind that BITC’s existing Pride of Place Partnership Boards and Regional Leadership Boards can provide valuable introductions and insights to help you make the most of opportunities to consult and engage.  

Top tips for running a business roundtable  

A ‘business roundtable’ is an opportunity to bring different businesses together to share learning, insights, and ideas around topics that are pertinent to your place. 

Just as with the network of community and voluntary organisations that operate in your place, the business ecosystem can vary widely between different locations. As such, it is important to consider existing strengths, and known gaps, when planning to bring businesses together for a formal discussion:  

  • Some businesses may take time to warm up: you may find you need to invite different contacts at different stages of the conversation to enable the best outcomes from business participation. Sometimes, it will take time to elevate your partnership to the attention of the right people within a business but inviting them to join other business leaders to discuss local challenges can be a great way of bringing them closer. 
  • Set out your progress to date to bring people along on the journey: by now, you will have done a lot of stakeholder research and will have built some solid relationships across your place. Businesses will be keen to know the context, so prepare to do some sharing to help get things started.  
  • Be clear about expectations and objectives: when working with senior business leaders, it is always a good idea to be as focused as you can on what you want them to consider and reflect on. Get these clear early and give people forewarning of key topics and questions.  
  • Make connections with other conversations and partners: offer reflections on shared challenges and common threads between the business roundtable discussions and other conversations you have had with the wider community. 
  • Map out how you will follow-up and what comes next: again, to establish trust and a sense of consistency, it is important to communicate any next steps and links to future activity clearly with your business audience.  

If you would like a bit more help in planning and running your first business roundtables, BITC’s Advisory Services Team can help. 

Business leaders from the kick-off roundtable initiating Business in the Community's Bristol Pride of Place programme.

Resources

  • BITC’s Pride of Place brochure captures some of the ways that partnerships engage with communities across the UK to drive collective change. 
  • Active Travel England has published a recent report containing detailed guides to engaging with communities to plan local activity. 
  • The charity YoungMinds has released a helpful guide outlining key considerations when planning and running public consultation events. 
  • The Development Trusts Association has written a useful primer on involving your community when planning local projects. 

Community Conversations and Business Roundtables: FAQs

There is no one correct size to aim for, but as a guide, business roundtables should be smaller and more focused (aimed at around 12–20 people), while community conversations could run well with anywhere from 20–80 guests. You will need to ensure you are able to effectively run the session, so be wary of making things too big on your first go. 

Absolutely. The beauty of the Pride of Place programme is that Place Leads across the country are continually trying new things and learning from them. Get in touch with your main BITC place contact to set up a call or meeting.  

Every place will have some pre-existing challenges or difficult relationships between partners that you might not know about. Always start from a position of openness and be ready to listen and learn. At this stage, you are not in a position to provide final answers to long-term challenges. It is more about creating an open environment where any issues and complexities can be heard and acknowledged.

Next steps

Having held your first community conversations and business roundtables, you have begun to take the next vital steps to gathering local knowledge and connections that can help your partnership drive necessary action.  

The next module provides more detail on the kinds of charities, voluntary organisations, and service providers that will be a major asset in your Pride of Place journey, and it gives tips on how to engage them. 

Once you have gathered findings, connections, and insights from communities and businesses, it is time to bring that information back to your Board to plan out some of the first on-the-ground activities that you can aim for to start making things happen locally. 
 

Previous module: Being a Board Member Next module: Working with Voluntary and Civic Organisations
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Working with Voluntary and Civic Organisations

Welcome to ‘Working with Voluntary and Civic Organisations’, the Pride of Place module written to help you understand the types of non-profit organisations that are crucial to making a Pride of Place partnership work effectively. 

While the Pride of Place approach requires business leadership, it is incredibly important to harness the knowledge, experience, skills, and reach of charities, community organisations, education, healthcare, and other social support providers.  

This module will introduce you to the different types of organisations that make places work, and it will offer tips and inspiration to help you build productive, effective relationships with them, so that your Pride of Place partnership can reach its full potential.  

Uniting diverse partners to make positive change in Bradford 

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BITC’s Bradford Place Lead, Farida Zaman, discusses how the Bradford Pride of Place partnership has worked with diverse community stakeholders and national partners to advance literacy skills for local people.

Why working with voluntary and civic organisations is essential to Pride of Place

At every stage of the Pride of Place process, enabling input from people and organisations that work every day to support people’s lives will be hugely important in ensuring your plans, actions, and overarching strategy are informed by, and aligned with, community need. By now, you should have identified and engaged with a good initial list of diverse community-facing organisations, and you may have already run a community conversation to hear their views, concerns, and aspirations.

Organisations in these sectors support partnerships by providing data, insights, and research to help you understand the challenges faced by local people. They will also be critical in helping you to build trust with meaningful and useful networks that are often ‘on the frontline’ of community life.  

Powered by business leadership and commitment, these organisations will be crucial delivery partners in making positive change locally. While business leadership and local authority endorsement are central components of a Pride of Place partnership, it is community-facing organisations and services that will really help you drive lasting impact with local people.  

It is useful to consider whether there are any ‘umbrella organisations’ you can invite to join the Pride of Place partnership in the initial stages. These organisations, such as Give Bradford, Norfolk Community Foundation, VOSCUR, GAVO, and Voluntary Action Coventry, represent multiple local charities and community organisations, so they have great reach into the community but are not aligned to a single issue, which may skew your strategy early on. 

Example

Why Pride of Place partnerships need to work with VCSE organisations

The charity UnLtd cited the following concerns as a barrier to business engagement in a place-based approach: “Repeatedly, the inquiry heard of place-based initiatives where the communities in the place were dubious of new arrivals coming to do good.” When asked what a barrier could be, UnLtd said, “Local communities not trusting or understanding the business and therefore not engaging.” Overcoming this doubt and resistance is a hurdle that should be anticipated by businesses engaging in a place.  

Building trust is an essential part of community engagement, and this ensures a partnership does not assume it knows what is best for the people it is trying to help. By engaging with and listening to the community, as well as analysing and understanding the data, partnerships can begin to grow their understanding of the key challenges, opportunities, and stakeholders in a place. This is a way to have the community working with a partnership, thus harvesting community capital. 

In Glasgow, Business in the Community connects with the Men Matter Hub, an organisation creating a safe space for men to access mental health support and supporting them to find employment. 
Example

How delivering early action can help gain community buy-in

A long-term perspective is necessary to have a transformative impact on a place, but the community also needs to see results delivered in a timely manner to ensure buy-in, and cooperation with, the partnership’s efforts. Early action involves an investment of time and energy that wins the trust of a community.  

The @one Alliance, led by Anglian Water, boosted council engagement efforts and rehabilitated a community centre in the town of Wisbech. Anglian Water alone contributed the time of 140 of their employees to this quick-win effort. This had the added benefit of the company personnel learning more about what a place-based approach means, increasing internal enthusiasm for the approach. In this case, the commitment to the long-term beyond the quick wins was clear. 

“We’re not coming in and painting a few things and going away – we’re going to be involved in Wisbech for the foreseeable future, so we’ll give you the commitment.” -Andy Brown, Group Head of Sustainability at Anglian Water

Top tips for working with charities and community groups  

The comparative strength of the UK’s charity and voluntary services sector means that every place will be home to a wide breadth of community groups and charities working to make life better for people.  

When making an approach to a charity or community group, it is always important to do your homework and to find out a bit more about what the organisation does, who is involved, how long it has been in operation, and where it works. It is also crucial that you check whether the charity is registered and filing appropriate accounts with the Charity Commission.  

While many people will be familiar with the major, nationwide charities that advertise on TV, bus stops, and social media, there are literally thousands of smaller, more local ‘hidden gems’ across the country.  

Often, these smaller organisations will have very few staff and may rely heavily on volunteers to support their work. As such, it pays to be patient and friendly, and to communicate clearly in your outreach with them. To help ensure you are reaching the right organisations, spend time building a strong relationship with your local community voluntary council or service. 

Key risks to be mindful of include overpromising and overwhelming either the people or a place. It can be common for charities to view an approach by a larger, business-backed operation as a potential threat or as a means of securing income and support. Whilst that may eventually be the case, it is a good idea to begin any relationship with open ears and an open mind, learning more about how you may work together before committing to big plans and potential outcomes.  

If you would like a bit more help in mapping out local charities and in preparing an approach to them, BITC’s Advisory Services Team can help. 

Resources

The resources below will support you in starting your placemaking journey and help provide an overview of best practice. More resources will be added to the modules as this Learning Hub is developed and improved, so keep in touch with your main BITC contact to learn more about the latest content as it launches:

  • BITC’s Pride of Place brochure captures some of the ways that partnerships engage with communities across the UK to drive collective change. 
  • BITC’s 2024 Impact Report showcases a wide range of collaborative efforts between businesses and community and voluntary organisations across the UK. 
  • You can find lots of examples of how partnerships are working with diverse organisations via the Pride of Place Home Page.  

Working with Voluntary and Civic Organisations: FAQs

Calmly inform the stakeholder that you will need to check in with BITC before approaching the organisation to ensure appropriate legal and risk-management processes are followed. The long-term reputation of your partnership, and its ability to create positive impacts, is predicated on careful, continual risk awareness.

Your local or combined authority or community voluntary council will be great sources of information, helping you to learn more about any publicly run services (such as schools or hospitals) or the charity and community group ecosystem in your place.  

In the immediate term, stop, listen, and respect their view. Most voluntary or civic organisations are feeling a considerable level of stretch and stress as they try to support local people through the aftermath of the COVID-19 years and the ensuing economic and health crises of recent years. There could be many reasons, unknown to you, why a particular organisation is not yet willing or ready to work with you. Turn your attention to building trust with one of the other potential partners in your area and revisit an approach to someone who has said no at another time when it has been indicated that it is appropriate to do so. 

Next steps

Now that you have identified some of the vital voluntary and civic organisations in your place and have begun to build planned relationships between them and your partnership, you are ready to start developing these further in pursuit of the vital quick wins that will deliver early indicators of your partnership’s impact.

You might also be ready to start making some more public announcements – assuming you have attained consent and sign-off from relevant stakeholders – about the impact your partnership is making. If so, ‘Storytelling to Demonstrate Impact’ provides some useful tips and guidelines. 

Previous module: Community Consultations and Business Roundtables Next module: Securing ‘Quick Wins’
Home » Place » Pride of Place Learning Hub » Pride of Place Learning Hub: Phase Three

Securing Quick Wins

Welcome to ‘Securing Quick Wins’, the Pride of Place module designed to help you identify and deliver some early successes to kick-start the impact of your partnership.     

By now, you should have enlisted the commitment of a growing network of cross-sector leaders, some of whom will have joined you for your first Board meetings or will have supported you in making important local connections.  

This module will help you to unlock the potential afforded by bringing diverse, and sometimes disparate, partners together. There are lots of ways you can make an early impact by matching the skills, resources, and ideas of your closest stakeholders with communities who need immediate support. 

How ‘small’ changes in Rochdale are delivering more green spaces for local people 

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BITC’s Rochdale Place Lead, Chris Minogue, talks about ways in which Rochdale’s businesses are working with community groups to improve the local environment. 

What is meant by ‘quick wins’ and why are they important?  

A ‘quick win’, in a Pride of Place context, is an activity that creates an immediate, tangible impact, usually involving a donation of goods, services, or cash from a business to a community group, charity, or community-facing service, such as a school or hospital. 

There are no expectations for quick wins to create lasting, long-term change. They are instead about making the most of things that are available and within reach for your key business stakeholders, and these could make a real difference to a local community.  

While you should be able to deliver them early in your journey, you will have many opportunities to continue delivering quick wins as your partnership develops.  Building ‘quick win’ activities into your plans can be really beneficial for your partnership in both the short- and longer-term, in numerous ways:  

  • A way to earn trust and to build productive relationships: making something possible through the generosity of one of your Board Members or other key business stakeholders can be a great way to show local people the levels of commitment, care, and compassion your partnership holds, and it can provide a solid grounding for more developed relationships. 
  • A way to learn more about local needs: identifying swift ways of making a positive local impact can help accelerate your understanding of the barriers and challenges facing local people. Keep your eyes and ears open in your conversations with the community to see whether they are facing frequent or recurring problems. 
  • A way to learn more about local capacity: making an ask of your Board or key business stakeholders can help you to formulate a clearer picture of the available resources, skills, expertise, space, and finance that your partnership is willing and able to contribute. 
  • A way to create smiles and positive stories in your place: delivering some early results for local people through your partnership can really set the tone and can deliver some good news to help change local perceptions and bring additional confidence to communities.  

How are ‘quick wins’ different from projects or longer-term partnerships? 

Quick wins: tangible, output-focused activities that usually involve the transferral of goods, services, or money from a business to a community group, resulting in immediate impact.  

Projects: more continual, ambitious activities that involve key stakeholders in your partnership committing to harnessing their expertise, skills, and resources to address persistent challenges in your place.

Long-term partnerships: more holistic, outcome-oriented initiatives involving multiple diverse partners, working together to drive longer-term, systemic, and strategic change. 

What kind of activity constitutes a ‘quick win’?  

There are many ways your Pride of Place partnership can achieve a quick win. Most of the time, quick wins are successful when they actively meet an existing and prevalent community need.

For charities, community organisations, and public services struggling for funding and unable to provide enough ‘things’ for local people, the donation of goods, services, money, or time can go a really long way.  

Across the existing 18 Pride of Place partnerships, there are many lovely examples of Place Leads working with their Board and other key business stakeholders to enable practical ways for them to provide quick support to people most in need in their local area. Below are some examples to help you get the ideas flowing, and you can find lots of examples from the BITC report covering The King’s Seeing is Believing visit programme in 2023:  

  • Donations to food banks and other providers. 
  • Provision of books, equipment, and toys to schools. 
  • Provision of equipment and support to tackle fuel poverty. 
  • Donations of products to support people experiencing hygiene poverty. 
  • Provision of skilled volunteering time by a business. 
  • Donation or fundraising campaigns to support local people. 

How can I make ‘quick wins’ happen? 

If you have been reading through these modules in sequence, you should have already started numerous conversations that can be incredibly useful touchpoints to help you get some ‘quick wins’ off the ground. Below are some of the key moments in your placemaking journey, which can act as catalysts for tangible local activity:  

How should I report on the impact made via ‘quick wins’?  

Even though the impact made by a ‘quick win’ may be small, it is really important that you measure the outputs you have achieved. Every success delivered by your partnership helps to build a convincing narrative that you can call upon to bring more support on board – and more funding to your cause.  

While you will not always be able to capture every impact you have made possible, it is useful to try to get a clear picture of how your activity has delivered in one or more of the following ways:  

  • When items have been donated, a simple thing to calculate is the ‘direct cost benefit’ of the ‘quick win’, from which you can work out the kind of value generated per pound spent. For example, if you managed to raise £5,000 to buy 5,000 books for a school library, you could safely say that for each £1 spent, a new book has been made available for local children, and their families, to enjoy. 
  • You should also track any volunteer hours provided by one of your supporters or stakeholders, showcasing the time given to help the community. With enough information, you could use this to start to work out how much value you have brough to local people. For example, a solicitor earning £1,200 per day has donated 2 days of their time to help a charity with its legal and contractual obligations, meaning £2,400 worth of value to the charity. 
  • Sometimes, you might also be able to capture some of the ‘softer’ secondary impacts of your ‘quick win’, such as improvements to people’s wellbeing, health, or overall mood. Small things can make a huge difference to people’s lives, so asking people to tell you how they felt before and after your ‘quick win’ can provide a clear picture of the power of positive local action. 

Resources

Securing Quick Wins: FAQs

Quick wins are integral to helping your partnership build a compelling narrative, populated with real stories of real positive change for real local people. It can be helpful to frame the need for quick wins amid a longer-term picture. Today’s donation of food can grow into a sustained partnership between local food businesses and relief charities, leading beyond food parcels to free training in health, safety, and food prep. Big things often start small, so try to emphasise what is possible when working with your Board, and check in with BITC if you need more help. 

In some ways, this provides you with the perfect excuse to ask your Board and key business stakeholders to provide more to meet the existing need. However, it is also worth having a friendly conversation with the community centre or other voluntary or civic organisation to reassure them of the long-term, sustained nature of the Pride of Place approach. One donation now does not mean there will never be any more. Perhaps welcome them to an upcoming meeting or event you are holding, so they can see the passion and commitment of your partnership first-hand. 

Sometimes, organisations may feel threatened by the presence of a (relatively) new cross-sector partnership that intends to make things better for people, even if its aims and objectives are similar to yours. It is always worth focusing on the strengths of your existing relationship, and being open to bringing in allies and advocates from your Board or other stakeholder groups to help with any tricky conversations.

Next steps

Now that you have delivered some quick wins, it is time to make some more public announcements about the change your partnership is making, assuming you have attained consent and sign-off from relevant stakeholders. The next module, ‘Storytelling to Demonstrate Impact’ provides some useful tips and guidelines.  

If you feel ready to build on your Quick Wins, you should take a look at ‘From Quick Wins to Projects’ (explore in Phase Four, coming soon) which can help you develop your ideas and make more of a sustained impact for local people and communities.

With all the evidence you’ve gained, relationships you’ve built, and activity you’ve started to deliver, now is the right time to go deeper into ‘Setting your Vision and Strategy’ (explore in Phase Four, coming soon) for your Place.

Previous module: Working with Voluntary and Civic Organisations Next module: Storytelling to Demonstrate Impact
Home » Place » Pride of Place Learning Hub » Pride of Place Learning Hub: Phase Three

Storytelling to Demonstrate Impact

Welcome to ‘Storytelling to Demonstrate Impact’, the Pride of Place module intended to help you find, capture, and tell positive stories about the differences being made by your partnership.

By now, you will have built strong connections with diverse business, community, and local government leaders, and you will have started to make things happen locally with your Board and stakeholders, perhaps delivering some tangible quick wins (see previous module) in support of local people.  

This module will help you to understand the importance of storytelling for adding momentum to your partnership, and it will provide you with tips and pointers to help showcase the achievements in your place.

Writing new stories in Keighley 

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BITC’s Bradford Place Lead, Farida Zaman, talks about the many ways that the Pride of Place partnership has worked with community organisations in Keighley to drive change. 

What kind of stories can a Pride of Place partnership tell?  

Some of the best ingredients for positive stories within your place will come from the activities you make happen by coordinating and inspiring your Board and key cross-sector stakeholders. Below is an overview of the different types of ‘source material’ that can generate a good story:  

  • Quick wins: capturing the impact of tangible, output-focused activities, such as the donation of goods, services, or money from a business to a community group, can be a quick and heartfelt way of communicating the difference your partnership is making.  
  • Community conversations and business roundtables: the very act of bringing diverse community groups or businesses together is a good story in itself. There should be plenty of good quotes, findings, and ideas generated to help add further depth and real-life detail.  
  • Board meetings: it can be a good idea to ask one of your Board Members to host your meetings, and this can also be a good opportunity to bring in diverse community voices to help your partnership understand its place better. Where appropriate, a photo and summary of the key points from a meeting can make for a good social media engagement tool.  
  • Projects: there may be plenty of stories of people involved in more continual, ambitious activities whereby key stakeholders in your partnership commit to harnessing their expertise, skills, and resources to address persistent challenges in your place.  
  • Long-term partnerships: these holistic, outcome-oriented initiatives involving multiple diverse partners can generate a wealth of good stories, showing how your partnership is working together to drive longer-term, systemic, and strategic change. 
  • Other events and outreach activities: as a Place Lead, you are likely to get more and more invites to events and activities. Each of them could make for a great opportunity to showcase good things happening in your place.  
  • General good news your stakeholders have been involved in: your Pride of Place partnership will benefit from amplifying the positive things your Board Members and other stakeholders do to make local lives better. Set-up social media alerts for the businesses involved in your partnership and do your bit to help share their efforts, building additional awareness of the collective will of the people and organisations in your place.  
  • Highlighting the best your place has to offer: every place has hidden gems and standout venues, facilities, outdoor spaces, or community hubs that you could celebrate, helping to draw attention to the people and places that make your place unique.

Why is it useful to tell good stories?  

Capturing and sharing good stories is crucial to helping your Pride of Place partnership thrive, and they will be even more important as you aim to secure more funding, more partners, and more ambitious plans as your partnership develops. As well as the obvious benefit of increasing awareness of your work, good stories can help in many other ways:  

  • Stories help enrich relationships by providing opportunities to reflect and celebrate shared successes. Sharing good news, and name-checking the people and organisations involved, is a great way to show your appreciation for their efforts and to connect more sincerely with local communities. 
  • Stories help to educate people about the challenges facing local people, which are sometimes hidden or not obvious to people living and working nearby. Informing and reminding people of the daily realities facing your communities is a worthwhile pursuit that can help you to convince more people to get involved. 
  • Stories inspire others to take action by making it clear how people can get involved and by helping people and organisations to understand that the things they may take for granted – their expertise, training, resources, spaces, and skills – can be incredibly useful and even lifechanging for disadvantaged or marginalised members of your communities. 
  • Stories can be useful now, and in the future, helping to build momentum for your partnership and providing a useful and growing resource of examples you can call upon when bidding for funding, making proposals to businesses, or seeking to convince someone to offer support. 

What information do I need to help me tell good stories?  

With the right ingredients, capturing and sharing a good story from your place can be simple. It is always a good idea to think about how you might eventually use any information, quotes, imagery, or video you capture, so that you can ensure you get the data you need in the right formats.  

The level of detail you might need will vary depending on whether you are planning to share a post on social media, bringing examples together to share with your Board via meeting slides or papers, or thinking about writing up a longer-form case study to include in a report to a funder. In each case, building your story using the below components will help you enrich the narrative surrounding your Pride of Place partnership:  

  • Data and statistics: helping to capture both the challenges and realities facing local people, and any specific outputs or changes made by the activity. 
  • Quotes from real people: amplifying local voices will demonstrate the inclusive nature of your partnership and will also bring additional credibility to the stories you tell. Never underestimate the power of making things real and ‘human’. 
  • References to local landmarks and organisations: anchoring your story to things local people know and recognise will support engagement and will also help to fly the flag for your place to readers from further afield. Remember to use the relevant social media handles when mentioning a person or organisation – this will be appreciated and will also help boost viewing figures. 
  • Engaging pictures and videos: not every story suits a video, but continually being on the lookout for opportunities to utilise or create visual content will really enhance your stories. 
  • Showing the impact made: good stories have a strong ‘why’ at their core. Remember to tell the reader or viewer why something has happened and what the results are.  

How can I ensure the stories I tell are appropriate and safe to share?  

While it is really important you tell authentic stories that put local people at the centre, it is equally vital to ensure your story’s subjects are comfortable and happy with what is being shared.  

A positive aspect of the Pride of Place approach is its ability to convene diverse organisations and people within a place, meaning that the impact made often reaches vulnerable individuals. That is why it is crucial to adopt an ‘if in doubt, leave it out’ approach when planning to make use of a quote, example, or picture that could identify an individual. If they (or a relevant guardian or caregiver) have not expressly signed off on your content, you must not use it, even if it could make for a great story. 

You should also ensure that you liaise directly with your contacts at BITC before planning any communications, marketing, or press activity in your place, so that you can be supported by the team to make sure you are doing the right things in terms of safeguarding, local sensitivities, and approvals.

If you feel like you would benefit from some additional support and advice about working safely with communities in your place, have a chat with the BITC Advisory Services Team, who can help you with tailored support.

Resources

The resources below will support you in starting your placemaking journey and help provide an overview of best practice. More resources will be added to the modules as this Learning Hub is developed and improved, so keep in touch with your main BITC contact to learn more about the latest content as it launches:

  • You can find examples of some impactful stories in the latest BITC Pride of Place brochure. 
  • Transport provider Greater Anglia shares insight into how its colleagues collected donations at stations to help ensure children from families experiencing poverty could receive a bit of festive cheer last year. 
  • The Alacrity Foundation teamed up with BITC to spearhead a Christmas toy campaign, helping to provide hundreds of local families with gifts for their children. 

Storytelling to Demonstrate Impact: FAQs

As mentioned above, ‘if in doubt, leave it out’. There can be myriad reasons why a person changes their mind about featuring in a story written and shared by another organisation, from life circumstances changing, to nervousness, to simply not feeling like they want their face or name to be out there at this moment. Learn from what they originally shared, and work with a trusted partner, business, or community organisation to find another willing participant. 

Absolutely, and you should always be thinking about the ways your key stakeholders can bring additional value to the partnership. Across Pride of Place, there are lots of examples of Boards and other businesses contributing expertise and resources to help Place Leads capture, tell, and share compelling stories. 

Depending on who you are talking to, it sometimes pays to start with the money. Good stories are essential to demonstrating the changes you are collectively making with your partnership. Without them, any bids to funders, proposals to businesses, or negotiations with government will not succeed. If you need to put things more gently, remind the stakeholder that the growth of your partnership, and its ability to meet local needs, is dependent on more of the right people knowing that it exists and why. 

Next steps

Now that you have gained more understanding about how your place works, have built productive relationships with local stakeholders, and have delivered and promoted some impactful activity, it is the right time to go deeper into Setting Your Vision and Strategy (explore in Phase Four, coming soon) for your place.

If you feel ready to build on the quick wins and early stories you have told, you should take a look at From Quick Wins to Projects (explore in Phase Four, coming soon), which can help you develop your ideas and make more of a sustained impact for local people and communities.

Telling some stories has hopefully made you think a bit more deeply about the change your partnership could make. If so, it could be time to work with your Board and key close connections to map out how you plan on Defining and Measuring Impact (explore in Phase Four, coming soon).

Previous module: Securing Quick Wins
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Our Pride of Place Partnership is made possible through partnering with Aviva

Aviva is the first Pride of Place Partner, working together with BITC, the partnership will build thriving communities by breaking down barriers that impact access to education and employment, improving housing and local facilities, and tackling wider inequalities facing individuals throughout the UK. The work will bring together key local stakeholders in places such as community groups, businesses and local councils to create a strategic vision for long-term change.