During the pandemic we saw in many places across the world that the answer to our problems was each other and that neighbours and grass roots groups found it easy to respond and organise mutual aid, looking out for and after each other. We also saw that organisations and institutions were able to trust local groups, remove red tape and let communities just get on with it. Communities remembered their natural functions and supported by furlough were able to get on with their work. Service and systems were able to to focus on those who might be missed.
One of those new mutual aid groups, Springfield, Beech Hill and Gidlow, supported by Northern Heart and Soul CiC, decided to carry on, with a dream of becoming a self organising and self renovating community that keeps hold of its people, land and wealth.
Realising that they couldn’t do this on their own they connected with lots of other groups that wanted to work in solidarity rather than charity from across the UK and the world and learned too about Greater Manchester System Changers.
Greater Manchester System Changers use resource from a philanthropic trust, Lankelly Trust Foundation, and redistribute the resource across Greater Manchester to grass root groups. Their mission is to support grass root communities to resist systems of oppression and exploitation and nurture alternative realities rooted in healing, justice and liberation. They invest in Northern Heart and Soul CiC, who in turn have invested in the growth of this network.
Northern Heart and Soul CiC realised that if their dream were to come true they needed to unite with other like minded groups across the borough and provide a space where groups could come together in unity. It wasn’t difficult to find like minded groups. Supported by some financial resource offered by Wigan and Leigh Community Charity Northern Heart and Soul CiC put out a call, asking groups to come together who might be interested in participatory budgeting. They reckoned that groups who were interested in shifting decision making as close to communities as possible, and sharing power and resource, might also be interested in working in solidarity and creating alternative futures.
Groups from six communities started the work and by the end of the year we had four women from several groups, Clare, Vicky, Gill and Angela. They saw the process through to the end and decided they quite liked sharing power, reducing red tape and cultivating community power. The four women are the founding members of GRoW.
Our vision of an alternative future for grass roots groups
It’s important to to be honest about the vision of an alternative future. If we nurture the growth of this network then it is possible to become more than a network for mutual support and growth. Northern Heart and Soul CiC have a been experimenting and redistributing resources to grass root groups in a trust and relationship centred way. Using and spreading their experience of trust based grant making with Lankelly Chase Foundation. They’ve also been practicing trust based small grant making in their local area, growing accountability to each other and trying out different ways of decision making that are more local, circular and involve more people across all ages.
At GRoW we’ve been doing the same, sharing small pots and making decisions together, using ways that are inclusive and shared. Returning to how we might once have made decisions in our towns, villages and public squares.
We know that there’s interest in this work, both from Greater Manchester Combined Authority and those who are thinking about how Lankelly Chase Foundation might redistribute its resources as part of the plan to close down. It feels like there’s a real opportunity to grow an alternative way of sharing resource that reaches the grass roots. And an opportunity to reduce red tape and reshape the way groups are resourced and even commissioned. Moving towards more trust based and relationship centred ways and away from people disconnected from communities, or, who are good at writing bids and talking the talk – making all the decisions and taking all the resource.
We aren’t looking to create another typical type of infrastructure organisation that maintains the charitable model of helping the needy. We believe the needy are needed. We aren’t looking to build an empire that employs lots of people. We want to grow a network who together learn how to share resource, taking what they need and leaving some for others.
An alternative network that relocates power and resource directly to communities and grass roots groups that want to work in solidarity towards a vision of collective liberation.
As Rosa Luxemburg wisely said, ‘Those who do not move do not notice their chains.’
If this speaks to you as member of a community, someone alone with a dream, an ally working within a system or a business wanting to invest for the common good – come join us and let’s create our shared future together.
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