To improve wellbeing and equity in local communities, United Way Australia and Mission Australia with other members of the Strengthening Communities Alliance, have joined forces to launch a Strengthening Communities Position Paper and call on the Federal Government to lead systemic responses that will scale up place-based community-led initiatives across Australia. 

“To address the entrenched disadvantage that exists in some locations, we’re calling for a systemic response to scaling place-based community-led work across Australia,” said Marion Bennett, Mission Australia Executive of Practice, Evidence and Impact. 

Place-based community-led initiatives are collaborative, long-term approaches to building thriving communities where many people and organisations work together towards a shared vision for their community.  

“Place-based approaches are fundamentally different to traditional top-down government-funded programs delivered in vulnerable communities,” said Clayton Noble, United Way CEO. 

The newly formed Strengthening Communities Alliance is a growing network of organisations that currently has eight members, committed to supporting this approach to creating positive social change. 

The Alliance says that these initiatives lead to positive outcomes in communities where traditional service delivery models have failed despite massive financial investment in support services of around $64 billion per year across the country. 

“At Mission Australia, we see what so many communities, governments, service providers and Trusts and Foundations already know and witness the immense value of place-based work for the communities we serve. But place-based work isn’t yet where it should be in Australia,” added Bennett. 

The new Paper reveals that postcodes often determine disadvantages, and a small number of communities experience complex, entrenched, persistent disadvantages. 

It notes that increasingly, community members, groups, services and governments are working together to understand the drivers of disadvantage and create long-term change. However, many disadvantaged communities miss out, on the opportunity to do this type of work. 

The Alliance’s paper shows what is preventing place-based community-led initiatives from expanding to more communities across Australia such as the way competitive funding processes discourage collaboration and restrictions on access and sharing of data that would help communities make decisions about priorities and solutions. 

The Alliance says six key opportunities, with national leadership and support, will build the needed infrastructure and ensure more people across more locations can work together to strengthen their local community.  

The Alliance’s key recommendations are for the Federal Government to develop: 

1. A national centre of excellence. 
2. A place-based investment framework. 
3. A national effort to improve outcomes measurement and evaluation approaches. 
4. A national clearinghouse. 
5. An audit, review and realignment of existing place-based programs. 
6. Guidelines to incorporate place- and community-focussed principles into all programs. 

The organisations note opportunities in the upcoming Federal Budget for greater Government focus on scaling up place-based community-led work. 

It comes with the backdrop of recent Federal Government recognition of the value of this type of work through its Stronger Places, Stronger People initiatives and investment in the National Centre for Place-Based Collaboration (Nexus Centre). 

“Creating long-term sustainable change is only achievable at a local level by addressing challenges important to a specific community, alongside or led-by, the people who live there,” added Noble.