Here’s the latest news, and the latest views about community investment across the UK.

We wrapped up our tour of Centre for Excellence Roadshows in Bristol last week, at the rather brilliant Armada Rooms. The conversation was lively with attendees coming from as far apart as Plymouth and Newcastle, and it was nice to see a few familiar faces. 

Yesterday I was invited to a workshop in Cardiff being run by Barry and Adam from HACT to develop the Centre for Excellence in Community Investment. I wasn’t exactly sure what to expect… 

Following the budget announcements last week we welcomed the top level announcement on the additional support and funding for Universal Credit roll out. With 61% of customers in receipt of Universal Credit in arrears, Orbit have been actively looking at how we support customers and are successfully reducing levels of arrears.

As we continue our journey around the UK to talk with community investment colleagues to shape the Centre for Excellence, some of our intended outcomes are already being realised (albeit in a small way!).

We’re making our way around the UK and visiting seven cities to develop the Centre for Excellence in Community Investment. On Monday we hosted our third roadshow and got the view from London. 

As we develop the Centre for Excellence in Community Investment, we’re hosting a series of roadshows around the UK. On Thursday, we were in Belfast and I had two key takeaways from this session. 

In this blog, I’m focusing on the fourth pillar of the Centre: inspire. 

Building evidence that drives insight and demonstrates the impact of community investment, is the third pillar of the Centre. By focusing on evidence and research, we believe we can support community investment to be perceived as a robust area of business, rather than a nice add-on. 

To encourage and promote innovation, we will curate a programme of thought leadership for the Centre, as well as developing ways of identifying and promoting best practice across the community investment sector. 

By using the UK social value bank and using its recommended questions to understand of the impact of financial circumstances on wellbeing, we may then be able to get to the source of a problem

Sport and physical activity plays a key role in people’s lives: you only have to look at the frenzy surrounding the World Cup in Russia to see the significance people place on sporting activity and the events surrounding them.

Two years ago, at the end of the empty homes community grants programme, we brokered a number of discussions about community-led housing with some of the leading proponents in the sector. One issue that cropped up repeatedly was the need for one central resource hub.