The Coalition for Impact programme has been commissioned through Birmingham City Council’s Community Pillar of the UK Shared Prosperity Fund (UK SPF) and runs from September 2024 to April 2025. It focuses on three development quarters identified in the East Birmingham Inclusive Growth Strategy - Green Innovation Quarter, Sports Quarter, and Knowledge Quarter - where three community hub organisations (CHOs) in each have been granted aid to participate in a collaborative learning programme. Through this programme, they will develop community economic maps of their local areas and produce investable propositions that can attract investment for new services or assets. Loconomy Community Benefit Society; serves as the lead facilitator, working alongside the East Birmingham Inclusive Growth Team, with each CHO receiving support from Loconomy associates and senior associates who engage wider stakeholders and partners. Social Life, a community consultancy, has provided specialised support on mapping—incorporating input from 500 residents—while Co-op Futures; delivers specialised business support in funding, governance, asset management, and business planning.
There are two cohorts of participants. The first cohort comprises nine CHOs operating in the three development quarters. These locally based organisations hold an asset that brings together networks of community users, offering crucial “glue” for community activity, local services, and enterprise, while also bridging relationships with institutions, stakeholders, and businesses. The participating CHOs in this cohort are:
- Green Innovation Quarter: Acocks Greener, Hay Mills Foundation Trust, Ashiana Community Project
- Sports Quarter: Birmingham City Foundation, Dream Chaser Youth Club, Saheli Hub
- Knowledge Quarter: Legacy Centre of Excellence, free@last, Initiative for Social Enterprise (iSE)
The second cohort consists of four CHOs - Grand Union, Arts in the Yard, Go-woman Alliance, and Open Door Community Foundation - who participated in the Ready2Level programme in 2023/24. They have undertaken a self-directed inquiry into the potential for a women’s led economy in East Birmingham, using a similar community mapping approach to explore socio-economic dynamics through a women’s lens and developing an investable proposition to spark women-led economic activity.
