Local Trust
Making the valuable lessons of the Big Local programme accessible to all
We created a digital platform for Local Trust to share what was learnt from the Big Local community-led funding programme.
What we did
- Content strategy
- Usability testing
- Website design and build
Impact measured against UN Sustainable Development Goals
The aim was to empower local communities and drive transformative change. The result is the Learning from Big Local website.
Big Local was a funding programme for 150 areas in England. Each area received at least £1m over 10 to 15 years. The programme was overseen by Local Trust, an independent organisation, set up with an endowment from the National Lottery Community Fund. Local Trust also provided training, networking, research, and other support.
A unique approach to empowering communities
In terms of scale and ethos, nothing like Big Local had ever existed. At its heart, Big Local had a vision of strong, dynamic communities.
With traditional funding, money is often top-down and for a set duration. Whereas with Big Local, each area was given funding to be spent at its own pace. These communities made their own decisions about what was best for their area and set their own plans and priorities. The work was led by volunteers with support from a community development professional.
Big, bold outcomes
The outcomes set for Big Local at its outset were deliberately broad.
- Communities will be better able to identify local needs and take action in response to them.
- People will have increased skills and confidence, so that they continue to identify and respond to needs in the future.
- The community will make a difference to the needs it prioritises.
- People will feel that their area is an even better place to live.
The programme is revolutionary. It fulfils the function and role left behind by the government. Big Local is a way to get money to where it’s needed and enable communities rather than holding them to account.
Head of local policy research
Creating maximum impact from the programme
Local Trust, its partners, and the Big Local communities have learned many lessons. Learning from Big Local is a dynamic interface that shows what each area has achieved and what they spent their funding on. It also tells the story of each area’s journey and the programme as a whole, as well the research findings related to the programme.
The platform is for a range of stakeholders, including:
- policy makers
- funders
- people who work in community-led change
- Big Local communities themselves
We interviewed these people throughout the project to find out what they would find most useful. We learned they were interested in what didn’t go to plan just as much as what did. They did not want purely positive stories or only celebratory case studies. Instead, they were keen to learn how partnerships overcame problems and dealt with unexpected events (like a global pandemic!).
Accessible long-form content
When creating content for specialists, there is a risk of only focusing on complex information. Our research showed that people often skimmed the content first. If anything caught their attention, they tended to return to the content that was relevant to them to digest it in more detail. This was true across all audiences, no matter how familiar they were with the programme.
This led us to design pages that could hold large amounts of information while being easy to navigate and skim-read.
Local Trust has also tended to keep reports in PDF documents. We worked with their team to make more of their content more digital-first, such as the resources section. This makes sure that everyone can access the information without any accessibility barriers.
Helping users to take information away with them
Across multiple rounds of content testing, we saw consistently that users wanted to store reports and information for their own use later.
For some that meant bookmarking, but for most it meant either downloading to save in their digital files or printing out the page. That includes data visualisations, but also lengthier research reports.
We developed an easy-print function that allows the user to either download the page as PDF or print the page.
I am supporting the practical delivery of resident ideas and activities. My aim is to empower residents to have a voice in local decision making. I need the website to ensure that the lessons of Big Local are shared and built upon by providing inspiration for changes we could make.
Community development consultant and testing participant
A visual timeline of the programme
A lot has happened in the 15 years since the Big Local programme launched. As part of the site, we created an interactive timeline to show those milestones. It illustrates each of the phases, across significant points of support, research and wider context.
The timeline was developed by reviewing sources across the length of the programme and by learning from the experiences of those involved from the start. It features the most important milestones; often the culmination of years of work, development and learning.
Flexible, future-proof content types
While a huge number of lessons and research have already emerged from the programme, many of the areas will not finish spending their money until 2026. This means that we have developed a content-led product, which is still evolving.
By building the site in Craft content management system (CMS), a flexible editor-centric platform we can ensure that future content will still create a connected user experience. The site is built using responsive, cross-site blocks which mean that page templates can flex to whatever content they need to hold.
Craft’s Live Preview also allows content creators to see the actual changes they’re making in the system represented on the page. This makes editing even long-form content much more efficient.
The outcomes
This project has given Local Trust a digital space to share the valuable lessons and research findings from the Big Local programme.
By creating a flexible, user-focused website, we have helped to ensure that these insights are available to everyone. The site will help other organisations and communities learn from this unique approach to funding and community-led change.