Spring updates

Cultivating community resilience and seeding the future of regenerative change.

Greetings friends,

Thank you for opening our first newsletter! Many of you committed to hearing from us when This Living Place was a seed of potential. Now a seedling out in the world, we are grateful to you for showing the early-stage support which contributed to our gemination.

This Living Place is a non-profit dedicated to building the relationships, networks and systems that make place-based and community-led regeneration possible. We do this on the ground in the bioregion of south Somerset and north Dorset in the south of England. Rather than prioritising the activity of one organisation, we hold a lens to our place and community, and help what is already happening work better together in regenerative and resilient ways.

As a team, we’re a growing network of changemakers unified in our belief that the poly-crisis requires us to reconnect with our lands, strengthen community bonds, and utilise our skills and expertise locally. Recognising the systemic barriers stripping these opportunities from the majority of the population, we are dedicated to local action while simultaneously working together to eliminate these obstacles.

Here’s how we’ve moved forward since our germination in January 2024…

Organisational development: we incorporated as a CIC, shaped a strategy adaptable to the needs of our place and community, secured small grants and partnered with aligned organisations. As a network, we’re growing locally, nationally and globally.

Community consultation: In April and May we engaged with 65 organisations and community groups (over 130 individuals and teams) influencing the regeneration of our bioregion. From food, fibre and funders to conservation, repair cafes and councils. We introduced the concept of TLP and asked: what is hindering and actualising resilient community-led regeneration here? The answers revealed untapped areas of potential which informed the foundations of our approach and the direction of our next steps. Most importantly, the majority of folks we spoke with let out a sigh of relief when we told them our plans; they feel under-supported and recognise that our unique approach is so needed here and elsewhere.

Approach development: Based on what emerged from our community consultation, we developed our offering: a body of work that centres around building collective resilience; cultivating collaborative action; strengthening local networks and systems; and activating place-based change. Our north star is strengthening the collective resilience of community-led regeneration efforts in our place.

Putting approach into practice: Through local collaborations, we are already addressing untapped areas of potential and building the resilience of the communities within our bioregion.

Here are just a few examples of the work underway:

• With Sustainable Dorset we’re supporting the team to strengthen the connectivity between schools with sustainable ambitions so they can learn together and empower one another. We’re also working with them to build a platform to unite grassroots changemakers so that they can see they are not alone in what they’re doing and support one another easily.

• We’re growing the potential of local clothing cultures through local storytelling with the Somerset Spinners, Weavers and Dyers Guild and supporting Sustainable Dorset in developing a centralised hub to allow isolated producers and makers to see that they are part of a collective.

The number of people reached by our collaborative work so far is over 10,000. This work is supporting the resilience and amplification of grassroots change in our bioregion which increases awareness and access to involvement - because there’s a wider awareness of what is going on on our doorsteps, communities have more opportunities to come together and care for their places.

In the next six months…

We continue engaging, researching, collaborating and revealing opportunities for regeneration and resilience. We’ll form a community council to ensure our governance is community-led and together we’ll plan our first action-orientated projects to address more of the pressing challenges hindering regeneration in our bioregion. You’ll hear more about these soon!

Impact we are striving for…

Recognising that the majority of community-led change work is undersupported throughout the UK, our aim is that our pioneering approach forms self-sustaining local systems that support lasting regeneration. We recognise this as a vital stepping stone to shaping place-based cultures where community cohesion and caring for place is something we feel in our bones and do together because it’s part of who we are. This creates space for the worldview shifts we need to live regeneratively.

We are committed to sharing our lessons far and wide and supporting other changemakers to do this work in their places. Please reach out if you want to have a conversation.

A call for support…

We are looking for wealth holders committed to supporting grassroots change. We’ve already done so much on so little and grants can go a long way with the model of work we’ve developed. We’re looking for local funders interested in supporting action-orientated projects and core costs, and national funders interested in supporting the replication and knowledge-sharing of the work and core costs. Please contact laura@thislivingplace.co.uk if you’re interested in supporting and learning together.

The launch of our business retainer…

We recognise the regenerative potential of forward-thinking place-based businesses and our retainer is designed to provide consistent and ongoing support to businesses aiming to become beacons of positive change in their local community. This model offers you access to our expertise on a rolling monthly basis, building the change-making potential of both your day-to-day operations and project-specific work. Please get in touch if you’d like to hear more about it or know a business that’s interested in catalysing change.

Join our mailing list here and learn more on our website.