LocalMotion's original funders, including Esmée, are continuing their involvement in the social justice network, ensuring six places in England and Wales can realise their long-term plans for change.
Social justice network, LocalMotion, this week announces it has secured a £18.4 million investment from within its original collaborative group of funders. The sustained investment of expertise and resources until 2031 will ensure LocalMotion’s six places can continue their work to realise the untapped, under-resourced potential of local people to influence what happens where they live.
Since its inception four years ago, LocalMotion has made significant progress devolving power to communities to tackle local social, environmental, and economic injustices. It started as the collective endeavour of six UK funders (City Bridge Foundation, Esmée Fairbairn Foundation, Lankelly Chase Foundation, Lloyds Bank Foundation, Paul Hamlyn Foundation and Tudor Trust), united by the goal of working in new ways to create community-led change and radically shift typical top-down power structures. Their focus was to bring people, organisations and institutions together, so that communities in six places (Carmarthen, Enfield, Lincoln, Middlesbrough, Oldham and Torbay) could benefit from joined up thinking, pooled resources and long-term collaboration and planning with the UK funding community.
While each place has unique visions for addressing the diverse social, environmental and economic challenges in their community, common themes, including tackling poverty, upskilling local people and devolving decision-making underpin their shared commitment to transformative change. After a four-year period of building relationships and listening to communities, their work will now be to act on the changes set out in their longer-term eight-year plans.
Kathleen Kelly, Director of Collaboration at LocalMotion said:
“LocalMotion is not about traditional grant making, it’s about changing people’s mindsets so they can shift power dynamics, more honestly learn from mistakes, and change deep-rooted structural challenges. Funders’ continued involvement recognises the power of working together and using strong community ties to help drive change. It’s an opportunity to celebrate how much we’ve learnt and to continue the steps each place has taken towards realising their vision. I’m looking forward excitedly to the next phase of work and how our plans develop.”
Charlotte Brooks from LocalMotion Lincoln said on behalf of the six places:
“We are thrilled to secure the next chapter of investment for our communities that puts our local people in the driving seat on a really exciting and collaborative journey. We are only just scratching the surface of what is possible and now with this long-term commitment to continue we, as a network of coordinators, are ready to take place-based community-led transformation to the next level.”
Dame Caroline Mason, CBE, CEO at Esmee Fairbairn and chair of the LocalMotion Sponsoring Group, which brings together the CEOs of the six funding foundations said:
“LocalMotion is challenging the funding system and exploring how we can collectively re-imagine place-based philanthropy. Over the past four years it’s been very energising to witness six very different places being proactive and clear about what they want and we’re delighted to continue collaborating so they can realise their roadmaps over the next few years.”
Learn more about LocalMotion
To find out more about LocalMotion visit www.localmotion.org.uk or view the LocalMotion Story, a film about the network below.
Notes to editors
To contact LocalMotion, please email Anna Parkinson or Leah Hughes at Barley Communications.
About LocalMotion
LocalMotion is a social, economic and environmental justice network, by communities, for communities. It seeks to understand local strengths in the places where people live and work and to challenge typical power structures and hierarchies that become barriers to a community’s progress and hold them back.
Established in 2020 through the start of our connection with local places, LocalMotion started as the collective endeavour of six UK funders: City Bridge Foundation, Esmée Fairbairn Foundation, Lankelly Chase Foundation, Lloyds Bank Foundation, Paul Hamlyn Foundation and Tudor Trust.
LocalMotion was created in response to funding squeezes and the increasing demand on charities and local grassroots organisations to plug the gap; people and communities who traditionally have little power, minimal resources and are often working in silo from one another.
The network comprises Carmarthen, Enfield, Lincoln, Oldham, Middlesbrough and Torbay.
