Why Organising Matters

The Civic Power Fund was set up in 2021 to build lasting civic power through community organising. In our first annual report, we summarise our progress towards achieving this mission and the incredible organising work our partners have been doing across the UK.¹ We have also consolidated some of the evidence for the importance of organising as a theory of change to address injustice in this blog post.

Since the publication of Funding Justice 2 this evidence base has continued to grow. As the authors of Solidarity,² Astra Taylor and Leah Hunt-Hendrix, put it:

“People getting organised is what brought down slavery and Jim Crow, outlawed child labour in the U.S. and elsewhere, and overthrew the legal subjugation of women. If it wasn’t for people acting in concert, universal suffrage would not exist, and neither would the eight-hour workday or the weekend. There would be no entitlement to basic wages, unemployment insurance, or social services, including public education. It would still be a crime to be gay or trans. Women would still be under the thumb of their husbands and at the mercy of sexist employers, and abortion would never have been legalised, however tenuously. Disabled people would lack basic civil rights. The environment would be totally unprotected and even more polluted. Without collective action, colonised people would never have ousted their oppressors, Indigenous people would not have survived attacks from genocidal settlers, and apartheid would not have been overthrown.”³

In short, organising is an essential component of social change.

In other recent research, Marshall Ganz sets out the role of organising in democratic renewal;⁴ Deepak Bhargava and Stephanie Luce describe the way in which power-holders invest in structure organising in order to shore up their power and impede progress towards justice;⁵ Fozia Irfan makes the case for a Transformative Philanthropy which invests in the individuals and networks that have been at the forefront of successful social movements;⁶ and Rhodri Davies charts the importance of social justice to the founding fathers of UK philanthropy who were hands-on campaigners for social reform on issues including slavery and the penal system.⁷ We return to this later in the report.

And it is not just the historical examples that inspire us. Looking around the UK we see communities across the country securing wins after doing the vital work of building people power, often over many years. We have listed some examples below, many of which were set out in a recent blogpost from the Sheila McKechnie Foundation:⁸

• Organisations that have been campaigning and organising at the grassroots for years for greater security for renters celebrated an end to no-fault evictions with the Renters’ Rights Bill;⁹
• The organising and mobilising work of unions and campaign groups including RMT union, ACORN union, Campaign for Better Transport, Urban Transport Group, and We Own It are behind the moves to nationalise the railways, and legislation to improve local transport;¹⁰
• After 20 years of campaigning, strategic litigation, and community organising, the group Wards Corner CBS won its campaign to implement an alternative community plan for the Wards’ building and market;¹¹
• In 2024, an amendment to the National Minimum Wage Regulations was passed, entitling live-in domestic workers and au pairs to the National Minimum Wage. The Voice of Domestic Workers, along with other migrant worker organisations, played a big role in getting this over line;¹²
• The Labour government has committed to back all three of the reforms of the Centre for Progressive Change’s Safe Sick Pay campaign;¹³
• Sir Alan Bates’ organising and advocacy efforts for sub-postmasters, as showcased in ITV’s drama Mr Bates vs the Post Office, culminated in the Post Office (Horizon System) Compensation Bill being passed at the end of 2023, ensuring that all victims would receive compensation.

As well as these headline wins, grassroots groups across the country have achieved important milestones in building the power of their communities. Listed here are just a few of the Civic Power Fund’s partners:¹⁴

• All The Small Things, based in Stoke-on-Trent, has grown its network and tackled loneliness within the community using deep conversations and community events. It is providing community organising training to help its members engage and influence the local council;
• A network of volunteers and professionals supporting migrant communities in Tyne and Wear – Triangular CIO – has continued to strengthen its alliances with other refugee community organisations. They host monthly meetings between this growing network and local authorities to ensure the voices of asylum seekers, migrants and refugees across the region are heard;
• Parents for Future Scotland’s outreach efforts last year culminated in an assembly at Glasgow City Chambers in April where children, parents and local climate groups came together to petition officials and local politicians on the changes they wanted to see to help tackle the climate crisis. They are now in discussions with the Council about the implementation of these changes;
• Collaborative Women, based in Stretford, Manchester, supports women facing gender-based harm. In 2023, they launched the “Collaborative Voices Women’s Campaign”, bringing together 40 women to address shared challenges. Their efforts resulted in a meeting with the Mayor and invitations to join the local Women in Housing Group and Strategic Health Partnership;
• Coffee Afrik, an East London collective supporting women, young people, and marginalised groups, has run organising and campaigning workshops for their community. They have gone on to organise nine protests and secure progress on two key local public health policies.

These examples, and many others like them, remind us that when people come together to exercise their collective power, they drive progress towards a more just and equitable society.