Community Development Trust Research
Modelling successful trusts to guide strategy for a new development officer roleIn early 2021, the Strathard Community Trust (SCT) commissioned CCN to undertake a focused piece of research to guide decisions about creating a new Development Officer role. They believed that a clearer understanding of how other rural trusts structured similar posts — the challenges they faced, and the funding or governance conditions that underpinned success — would provide the insight needed to shape a role and strategy that genuinely served the community.
CCN carried out targeted interviews with key agency partners and conducted comprehensive case studies of four rural Community Development Trusts (CDTs) operating in relevant contexts and with proven track records. Each combined local income generation, community projects and differing organisational models, offering contrasting routes to sustainability.
Together, these activities produced a robust evidence-based model of what makes a CDT effective, what agencies expect, and what an ideal Officer role requires.
Findings highlighted the central importance of a clear community-led vision; financial self-sufficiency rooted in stable income; and a Development Officer with the right generalist skills, patience, political nous and ability to make things happen while keeping people aligned.
A small but highly effective project, it offered a low-cost way for the Trust to act clearly and confidently on organisational strategy and future priorities, ensuring that the Development Officer role was created on firm ground.
SCT appointed its first Officer shortly afterwards, and the role continues to support stronger relationships, improve organisational clarity and build long-term community resilience.
CCN’s research provided SCT with an evidence-based foundation for designing both the role and the wider strategy around it — anchoring it in local aspirations, setting clear long-term and short-term goals, defining Board–Officer boundaries, and prioritising role continuity and the income to sustain it.
Process
1. Start-Up & Scoping. The grant offer required a rapid turnaround. Following discussions with Trustees, we proposed the research design best able to inform their objectives. The approach combined ecological validity — case studies of successful organisations operating within comparable planning, geographical and economic contexts — with a 360-degree assessment from key stakeholders. This included both the top-down council perspective on CDT function and insider views from high-performing trusts. The priorities emerging from the Local Resident-Led Plans were then reviewed through this lens to identify opportunities that met the criteria.
2. Agency Partner Interviews. CCN conducted four semi-structured interviews with five representatives from key agencies, including Loch Lomond & the Trossachs National Park, LEADER, Stirling Council and Stirlingshire Voluntary Enterprise. These conversations clarified how agencies frame and evaluate CDTs, what constitutes effectiveness, and which future funding priorities — climate adaptation, placemaking, community wealth-building, empowerment and tackling poverty — trusts must be aligned with.
3. Comparative Case Studies of Rural CDTs. After broad consideration and shortlisting, four rural Community Development Trusts were selected for in-depth study. Rich organisational modelling combined in-depth interviews with Development Officers or Office Bearers and complementary desk research. The case studies examined organisational structure, income strategies, Officer roles, business planning, and common pitfalls such as project drift, representativeness issues and the absence of a cohesive vision. The goal was to give SCT a clear understanding of both successful models and recurrent challenges in rural contexts similar to their own.
4. Cross-Analysis & Recommendations. CCN synthesised findings into five core ingredients for success: aligning with a community-led vision; articulating a clear long-term strategy and short-mid-term priorities; employing and sustainably funding a Development Officer where continuity of the role was important; clarifying Board–Officer roles and boundaries; and maintaining visible, regular communication with the community, even when there was little to report.
A “sweet-spot” heuristic for selecting the right early projects was developed, presented in the main Figure in the previous section. All recommendations were explicitly linked to the Local Resident-Led Plans and wider engagement insights to ensure local legitimacy and practical relevance.
