This document is the final accountability report for a Lottery Community Sector Research Fund grant for Inspiring Communities to contribute to “understanding and accelerating community-led development in Aotearoa/New Zealand”. This grant was the primary funding for research with eight community-led development (CLD) initiatives from across Aotearoa New Zealand over a period from January 2010 to October 2012 to find out more about community-led development in Aotearoa New Zealand with respect to:
• why community-led approaches were being used;
• what they were intended to contribute to and change;
• how they were used; and
• to notice the differences working in CLD ways has made over the 2010-2012 period.
What emerged from this work is that CLD makes an active and substantial contribution towards the ways in which people work as well as the outputs and outcomes they achieve together. These contributions to the ways in which people work vary over time and place, and are interconnected. Findings are grouped in the following way:
• motivations
• solving complex problems and learning together
• what contributes to effectiveness
– the development of both capacities and capabilities
– the scale of focus
– the roles of both leaders and joiners
– the roles of coordination and convening
– community readiness, local culture and flexible timelines
• how challenges and opportunities are addressed and responded to
• identified changes and outcomes, and understanding how these have occurred
– ‘what’ has changed as a result of CLD approaches
– ‘how’ CLD approaches have worked
– being intentional
– contribution
– collaboration, variation and working to our strengths together
– securing flexible funding
– developing new kinds of partnerships
– necessary skills
– regular reflection and review