Community Tech Discovery Fund – our reflections
Detail of an illustration by Elly Jahnz
Throughout 2023, Power to Change and Promising Trouble have been working together to grow the field of community tech, ensuring communities have access to and ownership of technology that meets their specific needs.
Funding is a vital element of our mission to nurture opportunities for community businesses to explore and embed community tech within their work, creating space for organisations to test things, try things and collaborate with others.
We’re thrilled that 20 community businesses have been successful in applying to Power To Change’s Community Tech Discovery Fund programme. Already, they are creating positive change in many places and spaces, and their aspirations for community tech will mean they can amplify their impact even further.
Making community tech more inclusive of and accessible to everyone
As a partnership, we and Power To Change are passionate about finding ways to make community tech more inclusive of and accessible to everyone.
Partly, this is because we know that the rapid growth of ‘big tech’ has created a winners and losers paradigm, often serving to deepen rather than address existing economic and societal inequalities. In many ways, community tech is the polar opposite of this, putting power in the hands of communities and serving to strengthen our social fabric.
But it’s also important because we know that much of community tech is
happening ‘in the margins’, led by projects and organisations that are
traditionally under-represented within funding, and have been historically under-funded. Our journey has been about developing how we practice diversity and inclusion to help redress this imbalance.
We are continually learning and recognise that many aspects of our approach are imperfect, but we hope that our reflections will help to prompt ideas and action among others, as well as open up conversations about how funders and others can act as a force for good in amplifying the voices of people and communities that may otherwise not be heard.
What we knew before we launched the Discovery Fund
Our previous funding round with Power To Change, Makers & Maintainers,
highlighted that community tech lacks some diversity in the individuals that are directly involved. Many community organisations have an explicit focus on serving a diverse community in their overall remit, and there was strong representation of women and disabled people in the successful applicants to the fund. However, the individuals involved in making and maintaining community tech tended to be white, often from more privileged socio-economic groups.
How we reached out to communities
Our learning from Makers & Maintainers consolidated our commitment to making the future rounds as accessible as possible, so we built this into our thinking about the Discovery Fund from the very start. We worked with an Inclusion Research Producer to think about the language we used, the relationships we
built, and the outreach we conducted – all with the aim of connecting with as many under-represented communities as possible. We found that alongside working to address potential bias within the funding process, the converse was also true - having a concrete offer of funding and support was enormously helpful
in allowing us to reach more people and galvanise interest in community tech.
By creating space for transparent conversations with community organisations, we were able to support them to explore their ideas and understand many of the practicalities, such as eligibility and likelihood of success. These honest discussions helped to build bridges and allowed us to warmly encourage people to apply, with respect and recognition of the amount of work for them that is involved.
Power To Change’s approach to the grants assessment process also sought to minimise bias and promote inclusion of people and communities from all backgrounds. You can find out more about the details of this approach here.
Where next?
We’re really pleased to have been part of this learning journey alongside Power To Change, which has been catalysing for all involved. We know there is more to do, but we hope that this important first step lays the foundations for how we think and act in future funding rounds.
Our commitment to diversity and inclusion extends beyond funding too.
For example, in the Community Tech community of practice we run alongside Power To Change, we are collaborating with members to embed cultures of care within the community and all aspects of our programme and network. This includes in-depth research about ‘decolonising community technology’ and community tech justice.
We’ll be sharing more about this work at our in-person Community Tech Autumn Gathering in Manchester on Wednesday 29th November 2023. Find out more and sign up here.
In the coming months, we’re focused on actively bringing new partners together, including funders, research organisations, community infrastructure organisations, policymakers and more. We’d love to hear from you as we shape this exciting, growing field, please get in touch on hello@promisingtrouble.net if you’d like to know more.
You can also read our reports and case studies, sign up to our newsletter, and register your interest in joining our community of practice.