New support offer: measuring and understanding change

The COVID-19 pandemic has demonstrated how quickly partnerships can react to the needs of their community and respond to them. As we begin to move slowly out of lockdown, it’s a good time to take stock and understand your Big Local achievements during this time.  

Each Big Local area wants to make long lasting changes in their community. But these changes will look different for every area. The changes in your area might be: 

• How your community feels; people feeling more connected with each other and proud of their area.
• How your community looks; green spaces are tidier and high streets with newly painted store fronts.  
• How Big Local makes positive changes on individuals; do people have more skills and confidence as a result of being involved in Big Local.
• How your Big Local partnership works; the relationships you’re building with local organisations and/or the council, how you change your decision-making processes.

The new measuring change support offer can help your partnership identify the changes that you want to achieve by the end of Big Local and collect information to demonstrate that you’ve achieved them.

It’s an opportunity to set aside time to reflect on your plans and activities so you can understand what’s working, what’s not working and how to best allocate resources. It can also help demonstrate your achievements to show them to your community, put together a plan review or apply for additional funding 

Measuring change support available to areas 

Alongside the support that Local Trust offers to certain areas to measure and understand the changes brought about by their work in the community, we’re also offering a new menu of support available to all Big Local areas.   

You’ll be able to choose the support that is best suited to your area and partnerships will be in control of deciding the changes they want to measure and how this will be achieved. Depending on the support you need, we’ll match you with an appropriate measuring change provider who you’ll be able to meet (via Zoom for now) and work out a plan for the support – your Big Local will have the final say on what the plan looks like! More information about the support available can be found in the drop-down menu below.

If you would like to know more or are interested in signing your area up for support in measuring change, get in touch with us at research@localtrust.org.uk