Community-building in Oldham: the UK’s first story of ABCD in action

An asset-based approach to community development is paying dividends in three areas of Greater Manchester, as Nick Massey explains.

Forever Manchester, the community foundation for Greater Manchester, has been tested recently in its mission – helping people do extraordinary things – not only because of funding pressures, but because of an idea; a challenge to the current ‘fund it, fix it’ prescription for so-called ‘deprived and troubled’ communities.

Over the past 15 years we’ve had the responsibility of attracting funding for communities in Greater Manchester, bringing in over £35m in that period.  With funding now ever more restrictive we started to look at other ways to support communities.  One of these was the asset-based community development (ABCD) approach, which was developed in the US by John McKnight of the Asset-Based Community Development Institute.

Eighteen months ago, we piloted the community building principle in three areas of Greater Manchester – Alt and St James’ in Oldham and Lostock in Trafford.  All are considered ‘deprived’ areas, however not untypical of most neighbourhoods that are disconnected because neighbours don’t know each other.

How does ABCD work?
We began by employing ‘community builders’ who initiate conversations with people outside the school gates, at the local shops, or the bus stop and then invite them along to a get-together or party or a gathering to talk about their neighbourhood, with the aim of connecting neighbours through their skills, passion and gifts.

Residents started talking about what was happening in their neighbourhood; about the things they like and what they want to improve. With the help of the community builders they listed what resources they already had and could access in the wider community.  Then they started to think about the possibilities and how to bring their ideas to life.

What happened?
In just eighteen months, all three communities have reported a dramatic increase in the levels of community activity, social networks and groups and connections between residents.  Overall, 50 community-led projects, including a green route to school, have emerged and some of these projects have secured Cash for Graft awards.

There have been no reports of anti-social behaviour in the last 10 months on the Alt estate, according to housing association First Choice Homes (FCHO).

Debra Cameron, customer involvement manager at FCHO says, ‘We are working in communities now that in the past we have failed to engage successfully with. We can measure the success through impact on personal health and wellbeing, confidence and aspiration.’ FCHO has since asked us to deliver five more community building workshops in the borough.

The challenges
Our greatest challenge with this approach relates to funding. We can’t predict outcomes, therefore the so-called ‘frameworks’ for measuring a successful project can’t be used, because we don’t have a set of objectives or specific ‘problems’ to address.

Helen Smith is Forever Manchester’s community builder for Alt in Oldham (pictured). She experienced some difficulties in the early days, such as residents’ disillusionment when things don’t happen. There isn’t a blueprint for what we do, to a certain extent we have to make it up as we go along – but it’s been a worthwhile learning experience.

A resident for 10 years on the Alt estate is Lyndsey, who was one of just five residents to buy into the idea at the start; ‘It took us about a year to get other residents to understand what this was about and to realise that it wasn’t just another empty promise.  We won them over eventually through perseverance, being positive and showing them what could be done – they saw us digging the green route to school in the rain!

‘Now I’d say we’ve got the interest and respect of people on the estate, as well as their support. I think they’ve realised that they can also have ideas and make things happen. Residents that were reluctant to get involved now help to maintain our green spaces, go to events and are setting up groups and networks. I don’t think we need outside help any more.’

Through this, Lyndsey feels her life has transformed, from being an isolated mum who was fearful of meeting people, to an active member of the community. We have now employed Lyndsey as one of our community builders who can bring to the role her first hand experience.

If a community can come together to identify its own strengths, needs and shortcomings and is committed to working together, it stands the best chance of success in achieving what it wants to.

We at Forever Manchester just facilitate that.  We’ve not only seen communities change, it’s also transformed the way we work as an organisation. It’s a significant shift, but quite simply defined in our recently revised mission, which is to ‘helping people do extraordinary things together‘.