Community organising has no long-term core-funding vehicle
The UK organising field remains subscale and precariously financed. Citizens UK (19 chapters, 100+ staff) relies on member dues plus project grants and one large Lottery Solidarity Fund award (~£5m over nine years); ACORN's dues-funded model sustains branches in only ~10 cities; Community Organisers Ltd trains but cannot fund organisers' salaries. The state's Community Organisers Programme (500 trained, 2011–15) and its expansion ended without succession. Foundations fund organising through short project grants that conflict with the model's need for patient, independent core money; organising wins (living wage, housing campaigns) take 5–10 years. No UK equivalent exists of the US's dedicated organising philanthropy intermediaries.
Organising is the proven method for rebuilding associational power among people institutions have stopped reaching: the exact populations where volunteering, membership and trust have fallen furthest. Fifty organisers cost less than one regeneration scheme, yet the field cannot plan beyond eighteen months anywhere outside its strongest chapters.
A pooled ten-year Community Organising Fund (foundations + dormant assets, deliberately not government-controlled to protect independence) paying core salaries for organisers in 50+ places, with a common training standard via the National Academy of Community Organising and published measures of membership and leadership development.
// Build now: First artefact: pooled ten-year funder commitment paying organiser salaries in a first cohort of places; NACO training standard exists.
Organising rebuilds associational power among the least-reached, yet the field cannot plan past eighteen months; a pooled fund is achievable but faces no acute deadline forcing action now.
One gap, several dossiers: entries folded into this one (1)
The research pass surfaced this gap independently in more than one domain. Those entries are merged here so the map counts it once: the same pooled core-funding vehicle for community organising; the 0.3%-of-grantmaking statistic is its headline evidence.
№ 151 · Community organising receives 0.3% of UK foundation giving (Funding (lens))
Civic Power Fund analysis found just 0.3% of UK grantmaking (2021/22) supports community organising: the discipline of building durable local leadership and power. CPF, the UK's first pooled donor fund for organising, remains small and concentrates on three pilot geographies (North Manchester, North Wales, Hampshire/Surrey). There is no UK equivalent of the US's layered organising funders, and the Community Wealth Fund will buy social infrastructure, not organisers.
Its fill: Scale the Civic Power Fund to £10m+/yr through foundation and high-net-worth commitments, funding multi-year organiser salaries, plus a national organiser training institute: the workforce pipeline the field currently lacks.