Enabling Conditions
Key foundations and qualities supporting community-led resilience, self-determination and sustainable futures.Why Enabling Conditions are Important for Community Self-Determination
Across many places, communities are repeatedly asked to participate in plans, consultations and projects — often with goodwill and effort — only to find that momentum fades, decisions stall, or nothing seems to change.
Our experience is that this is rarely because people do not care, or because ideas are lacking. More often it is because the conditions needed for collective understanding, decision-making and action were never properly in place, or are not fully established.
‘Enabling Conditions’ are the foundations that make it possible for communities to come together to understand their situation and Place, agree priorities, and act in ways that endure beyond a single project or funding cycle. In contexts shaped by volatility and fragmentation, these conditions do not arise automatically. They need to be deliberately created and protected.
What We Mean by ‘Enabling Conditions’
Through our work with communities, we have identified that ‘Enabling Conditions’ take two connected forms:
- Infrastructure, the practical foundations which support resident participation, local governance and greater self-sufficiency, and
- Qualities that must be present and maintained if collective action is to work in practice over time.
Our work supports residents to co-develop and strengthen both so that communities are better able to advance the collective aspirations of their Place with legitimacy, confidence and continuity.
Importantly, many of these conditions depend not only on what is put in place, but how collective action is organised. In particular, they require sufficient time and protection from premature decision-making for shared understanding to stabilise before putting things into action.
Infrastructure that Supports Community Agency and Self-Sufficiency
Our work has identified a set of practical foundations that support and anchor collective action. Many places already have elements of this infrastructure in place while others find it fragmented or fragile. Our role is often to help communities strengthen or reconnect what already exists, and to ensure that this infrastructure supports collective sensemaking and greater coherence, rather than accelerating fragmentation.
i. A Holistic (Place) Plan
A Holistic (Place) Plan provides a shared, community-wide plan and identity — grounded in lived experience and common priorities — and essential for coordinating action, avoiding duplication, and articulating a positive collectively held vision for the future. Developed through diverse, representative involvement of residents, a Holistic Plan serves as a shared vision and foundational definition of ‘Place’, democratic mandate, and a practical framework for regulation, governance and action.
When genuinely co-created, a Holistic Plan is not a static document but a living expression of shared understanding that can adapt as circumstances change. Its value lies as much in the process of building shared understanding as in the plan itself.
ii. Civic Infrastructure
Effective, representative governance structures are needed to steward fair decision-making, funding and delivery around a Holistic (Place) Plan.
Community-based civic infrastructure enables alignment of civic (including Community Development Trusts, Community Councils and other locally accountable community bodies), public and third-sector leadership around a shared agenda while holding the vision of the Holistic (Place) Plan.
Alongside formal governance, peer-to-peer communication networks are an important component of civic infrastructure. The erosion of informal social and civic connections have reduced the flow of ideas, which once enabled support, opportunities and knowledge to spread across communities. Rebuilding this “communication mycelium” helps ensure people are aware of what is happening and how they can be involved, without relying solely on formal channels.
iii. Community Spaces
Access to inclusive, accessible, affordable, safe and welcoming physical spaces is both a practical necessity and symbolically vital for healthy community functioning. Community meetings, planning, youth engagement, peer support, project development, activities (e.g. events, learning and recreation) and informal interaction all require space and are essential for building civic cohesion, identity, wellbeing and agency.
They also provide environments where collective sensemaking can take place — where people can slow down, explore complexity, build shared understanding and consider appropriate remedies to tackle local challenges. Many communities are experiencing the loss of public spaces due to divestment, the sale of assets, and increasingly unsustainable venue hire costs, all of which contribute to excluding certain demographics and fuels fragmentation.
iv. Resources and Support Towards Wealth-Building
Needless to say, communities require access to resources and expertise in order to lead their own development and progress. Income and assets help mobilise action towards priorities identified in the Holistic (Place) Plan, while also providing security for support systems that relieve local pressures. Many communities are witnessing increasing demands placed on overstretched services and greater community wealth can create the time, dignity and space needed for broader participation in civic life.
Community ownership models — including renewable energy — offer opportunities for locally controlled income that can resource transformational change where communities have collectively articulated a clear direction for their Place, through a Holistic (Place) Plan.
v. Locally-Grounded Education
Communities and schools have consistently highlighted the importance of integrating local priorities, enterprise, regenerative practice and intergenerational knowledge into the curriculum.
This is seen as essential for anchoring young people in place and cultivating the skills, confidence and mindset needed for future civic leadership and community renewal. While much work remains, we are encouraged by the strong leadership shown by schools and young people who are demonstrating ingenuity and commitment under challenging circumstances.
Supporting to Help Enabling Conditions Take Shape
Communities have also been clear about the kinds of support that help the Enabling Conditions to emerge and be sustained. This includes:
- Training in New Approaches better suited to complex, participatory and emergent community-led work, such as participatory governance, cooperative enterprise and working with uncertainty
- Facilitation to convene people, hold shared understanding and the Holistic (Place) Plan over time, and “join the dots” across ideas and sectors — particularly where civic capacity is stretched or absent
- Advocacy to create flexibility within local and national systems, including navigating regulatory and funding constraints, and supporting subsidiarity in decision-making
- Tailored expertise and support, recognising that standardised consultancy offers are often a poor fit for local rhythms and governance cultures
In an ideal world, these roles would be embedded in every community and accountable to local leadership. However, in reality local capacities are often significantly stretched and insecure, which is why we believe facilitation plays a key role in establishing the Enabling Conditions themselves.
Qualities that Enable and Sustain Collective Action
When the principles set out in Our Principles are applied well, they give rise to a set of 4 reinforcing qualities. These are not abstract values or one-off outcomes, but conditions that need to remain present if collective action is to be inclusive and sustained.
These qualities cannot be produced on demand but emerge through collective sensemaking, when people have the time and space to contribute meaningfully, see how their input shapes collective understanding, and build confidence and trust in a process of collective decision-making.
Inclusivity (in decision-making and action)
Inclusivity refers to who is involved in decision-making and action, and whether that involvement reflects the full diversity of the Place, rather than a narrow or self-selecting group.
Inclusivity is not defined by attendance alone but present when people from across a community are meaningfully involved in shaping priorities and acting together, and when those who are often absent or marginalised are able to design and shape outcomes rather than simply be consulted.
In practice, inclusivity depends on time: time for people to get involved, build confidence, enter the conversation, and speak without being rushed or overridden. In this way inclusivity is also about creating safe and convivial spaces for participation, involvement and deliberation. Without genuine inclusivity, engagement narrows and fragmentation deepens.
Consensus
Consensus refers to shared understanding and alignment around priorities and direction. It does not require unanimity, but indicates that people recognise their perspectives within a collectively developed picture of the Place, understand how and why decisions are made, and are able to move forward together despite differences.
Shared understanding and consensus develops through open exploration, challenge and reflection before decisions are fixed. Where these are absent, apparent agreement often unravels later in delivery.
Motivation
Motivation reflects whether people feel their involvement is worthwhile and whether they want to continue engaging.
Motivation is evidenced through sustained, voluntary participation and willingness to act — not through one-off engagement or compliance — and grows when people experience clarity, ownership and trust in the process, and when they can see how collective understanding is shaping direction over time.
Continuity
Continuity refers to the persistence of shared understanding, relationships and momentum beyond individual projects, funding cycles or moments of crisis. Continuity allows communities to build capability over time rather than repeatedly starting again.
Where early stages are rushed, continuity is fragile, however where understanding is allowed to stabilise before action, effort accumulates and progress becomes easier to sustain.
In practice, these 4 qualities reinforce one another: inclusivity enables consensus, consensus fuels motivation, and motivation sustains continuity.
Why This Approach Is Different
The enabling conditions described above are not theoretical ideals but practical foundations required for collective action to be coherent, legitimate and sustainable over time. Yet in many places, these conditions are fragile, unevenly distributed, or being eroded by wider social, economic and institutional pressures, which we outline on the page “why is community-led regeneration vital”. Where this happens, effort tends not to not accumulate, collaboration becomes harder to sustain, and well-intentioned action can inadvertently deepen fragmentation rather than creating the reinforcing dynamics that allow progress to build over time.
Click here to read more about How We’re Different? →
