Digital Activism

Our Building Local Activism programme, funded as part of the Big Lottery Fund’s People Powered Change initiative, is supporting communities to develop their capability to instigate and sustain local activism – in order to gain power and influence over the decisions that affect them.

Our aim for the Digital Activism strand of the programme is to support communities across the country to use digital technology to build community activism and provide learning to others on how this can be done successfully.

We believe that digital technologies, ranging from social media like Facebook and Twitter through to smart phones and digital video, have the potential to galvanise local communities to take action on the issues that matter to them.

This could be through community campaigning, lobbying local institutions or business to act, or by encouraging local people to change their own attitudes or behaviours in order to improve local quality of life.

By practically supporting six communities across England, we hope to understand more about the role that technology can play in connecting and mobilising local communities to act, and to share good practice and lessons with other communities across the country.

We are working with five community organisations: Hackney Citizens Advice Bureau, Holloway Neighbourhood Group, Leeds Older People’s Forum, Women’s Networking Hub in Birmingham and Southwark Organising.

We are looking for one more community organisation to partner with on Digital Activism, so please get in touch for more information if you’re interested.