Applications Open: Transforming Conflict as Community Practitioners
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Applications Open: Transforming Conflict as Community Practitioners *
● Programs
Living Networks & Movements
Living Networks & Movements is about connecting people who are already doing vital work in their places, often in isolation, and helping those efforts become stronger together.
We support the formation of networks, peer spaces, and shared learning environments where local practitioners, organisers, artists, landworkers, and community leaders can connect, reflect, and build collective capacity.
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In towns and villages everywhere, people are holding communities together with limited support, time, and resources. They are often stretched, isolated, and expected to navigate complex challenges alone.
Without strong networks, knowledge is lost, burnout increases, and change remains slow and uneven. By connecting people locally, regionally and across the UK, we create spaces for learning, mutual support and collaboration, helping those doing the work stay resourced and able to keep going.
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Our role is to connect people who are working to care for their places, so that learning, support and momentum can grow across communities rather than staying isolated.
This includes holding the Living Places Network, bringing together practitioners, organisers and organisations from across the UK, as well as supporting regional collaborations and local partnerships between neighbouring towns, projects and community hubs.
Through this work we:
convene people around shared questions and challenges
design spaces that feel welcoming, reflective and useful
support peer learning and honest exchange
help surface patterns, insights and shared needs
connect local work to wider regional and national conversations
We pay attention to power, access and care, and we design networks that are slow enough to be meaningful and flexible enough to evolve.
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We work with organisations, funders, and communities who want to strengthen connection, learning, and collaboration across places or sectors.
If you’re: supporting people who feel isolated in their work, holding a network that needs care, structure, or renewal, looking to connect local action into something bigger we’d love to explore whether working together could be useful.
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When networks are well supported over time, they become more than the sum of their parts.
Looking ahead, we can imagine a growing web of connected people and projects across Somerset, Dorset, and beyond, sharing learning, supporting one another through change, and influencing wider systems together. This kind of connective infrastructure helps local action travel further, last longer, and feel less lonely.
● The Living Places Network
Uniting place-based practitioners to unlock radical systemic change in the UK.
Since 2024, we’ve been growing a UK-wide peer learning and support network for practitioners working to lead social, economic and environmental change in their communities.
The network exists to reduce isolation, share learning, and strengthen the connective tissue between people doing this work.
Being part of the network includes:
regular peer gatherings and conversations
shared reflection and learning sessions
opportunities to explore each other’s work and places
informal support, connections, and collaboration
contributing to shared learning that feeds back into place-based practice
The network is for people who:
are actively working in or alongside communities
care about place, relationships, and long-term change
are curious, reflective, and willing to learn with others
value care, honesty, and shared responsibility
● Current Projects
See what we’ve already done
