The Carnegie UK Trust is working with the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust and the City Parochial Foundation to develop ways to unlock the potential of organisations to influence change on behalf of their communities.
The Carnegie UK Trust is using “power analysis” to help organisations in London and Yorkshire to build on what they are already achieving to ensure real change is achieved. The Trust will use a mix of workshops and mentoring to enable organisations working at the grassroots to understand where their strengths lie and then to examine ways to exercise that power.
Democracy Programme Director at Carnegie UK Trust, Raji Hunjan, says it’s about helping organisations working on behalf of marginalised communities to exercise power:
“Despite the big election promises of the political parties about empowering people, the reality for so many communities where there isn’t a lot of money or an historic voice is that they feel a bit powerless to influence anything locally or nationally.
“What we are seeking to do is show organisations that they really do have huge resources that they can use and skills that they can harness to exercise real power and influence.
“2009 was about doing the groundwork. This year we want to get more local groups involved and to develop and refine the methods and tools we have been using to help more and more groups examine their strengths and use them to drive forward the things that matter to them.”
