● What We Do
We build the conditions for community-led change to happen.
This Living Place is a community-led organisation rooted in Somerset and Dorset, working locally while connecting with others across the UK.
At its simplest, our work has two parts:
● We Create
We create the conditions for communities to shape their own futures in place.
This means working locally to bring people together, understand what is happening, and build what is needed next.
We support:
community gatherings and shared sensemaking
local leaders and emerging ideas
the development of projects, roles and infrastructure
long-term place-based journeys through moments of change
This is slow, relational work that turns care and energy into something real.
● We connect
We connect people, projects and places so they don’t stay isolated.
Locally, this means linking up activity that would otherwise remain separate.
Nationally, it means contributing to and learning from a wider movement of place-based work.
We:
weave networks and relationships
share learning across places
connect grassroots work to wider systems and conversations
Mission
We design and nurture the conditions for deep systemic and relational change; weaving care, connection and agency into resilient, place-rooted pathways towards equitable and regenerative futures.
Vision
A reciprocal tapestry of joyful, creative and equitable rural places - where communities work collectively to steward thriving ecosystems, economies and cultures of care.
● What this means in practice
Our work moves across six core functions:
Listening: We listen to people, land, history, tensions and possibilities.
Convening: We bring neighbours, organisations and partners together around shared questions.
Designing: We shape gatherings, projects, networks and processes that respond to what is emerging.
Organising: We help turn ideas into coordinated action.
Resourcing: We connect work to funding, people, partners and support.
Building: We stay with the work as it becomes real, growing projects, networks and infrastructure over time.
And we measure and learn, tracking what is changing, what is working, and what needs to adapt.
What we are doing is not a collection of separate activities.
We are holding a connective role within a place. That means keeping a wider, systemic picture in view, understanding how different people, projects, resources and challenges relate to each other, and helping move them towards something more joined up, resilient and alive.
In a world where work is often siloed and fragmented, this kind of role is rare. But without it, ideas stay isolated, energy dissipates, and change struggles to take root.