ABOUT COMMON PURPOSE COLLECTIVE
Common Purpose Collective is a participation agency with expertise in how to transform organisations to create sustainable and lasting change.
The mission is to help organisations move beyond surface level engagement with service users to creating equitable partnerships with the communities they exist to support. We work to embed co-production and meaningful participation within organisational culture. This could be by setting up the correct internal organisational processes and systems to share decision making power with communities, upskilling and training staff to understand how to create truly participatory environments or designing models to support co-production.
The approach CPC brings is rooted in partnership working, power sharing and dismantling barriers to participation.
A VISION FOR CHANGE
Organisations today face complex challenges when it comes to meaningful community participation. Despite best intentions, the pressures of time, resources, and competing priorities can make it difficult to truly work in partnership with communities to deliver the solutions they so desperately need. We understand that short-term solutions, while valuable in the immediate term, often don't create the lasting relationships or sustainable impact that they aspire to achieve.
Many organisations recognise that they want to do more than periodic engagement, but building embedded participation requires new skills, different approaches, and organisational change. Teams are often eager to engage more authentically with their communities but need additional support, tools, and frameworks to make this possible.
THE CHALLENGE
THE BARRIERS COMMUNITIES FACE
Communities have grown weary of engagement processes that promise much but deliver little. Time and again, they share their experiences and insights, only to see no tangible changes in the services and systems that affect their lives. This creates a deep-seated consultation fatigue, where communities are repeatedly asked similar questions by different organisations, yet rarely see their input reflected in final decisions. The expertise that communities bring is often undervalued, with participation processes failing to provide adequate support or resources for meaningful engagement. This cycle erodes trust and makes it increasingly difficult for organisations to build authentic relationships with the communities they support.
THE SOLUTIONS WE CAN CREATE
Through genuine partnership, we can transform how you and your communities work together. At the heart of this transformation is embedded participation – a fundamental shift from treating community participation as a special project to making it central to how organisations operate and make decisions. This means creating sustainable models that become part of organisational culture, outlasting individual initiatives or leadership changes.
Common Purpose Collective believes in building authentic engagement practices that genuinely value community expertise. This requires a thoughtful approach to using resources, ensuring that participation is properly supported and leads to meaningful outcomes. By developing consistent, transparent participation processes, organisations can rebuild trust with their communities and create the foundation for lasting partnership.