32 Steps to Togetherness is all about building connections within and between communities

32 Steps To Togetherness by Civil Society Consulting

Read the manual

Why?

What?

Over the last four and a half years, our team of non-profit consultants has supported over 250 organisations advancing health, equality and social cohesion, through providing affordable or free support.

We have come to realise that all the issues we work on have a shared root cause: lack of social connection and loss of community. Isolation and loneliness has a detrimental effect on individuals. What’s more, widespread loneliness leads to social fragmentation, which inhibits democracy. Therefore, without connection and community, we are unhappy, unhealthy, divided, and disempowered.

We’ve come up with 32 practical actions that we can all take as individuals and as community leaders to build connections - first within and then between communities.

We want to support, celebrate and inspire people and organisations who are bringing people together in their respective communities across the UK; we aim to bring them together in a community of community leaders, which is united behind the 32 Steps vision.

How?

Over the next two years, Civil Society Consulting CIC has Bringing People Together funding from the National Lottery Community Fund to:

  • Provide free support to grassroots organisations.

  • Run events (in-person conferences and online discussions).

  • Coalesce an online community on our Instagram channel sharing stories of togetherness from diverse communities across the UK.

  • Run a national poetry challenge in partnership with the National Poetry Library.

What we have achieved so far …

32 Steps to Togetherness Explained by Civil Society Consulting

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“Our lives are happier, healthier and safer if we get to know people in our communities who might seem different to us. Just spending time together builds trust and makes our country stronger. This manual provides the basis for doing exactly that.”

- Jon Yates, Author of Fractured: Why Our Societies are Coming Apart and how We Put Them Back Together Again

Celebrating Togetherness Conference in Peterborough

We are running a national poetry challenge!

32 Steps to Togetherness Films

Meet our lived experience advisory board

We have set up a Lived Experience Reference Panel to shape and develop our grant-funded projects. The panel comprises faith-inspired and social action leaders - who have participated in earlier support programmes we have delivered, like Kinder Communities: Steps to Sustainability.

Meet our Togetherness Advocates

To help us reach as many people with 32 Steps to Togetherness over the next two years, we’re delighted to be working with a team of 'Togetherness Advocates’. Togetherness Advocates are working pro-bono to bring 32 Steps to Togetherness to their different fields and geographies, running events and initiatives that they believe to be the most impactful and valuable.

Here’s a video capturing our in-person Togetherness conferences

On October 11 2023, we held a workshop in our offices in London in collaboration with our long-term partners at the European Network on Religion and Belief, in the occasion of the European Network Against Racism’s #MakeRacismHistoryFestival.

We discussed key areas of the manual and brainstormed ideas to build stronger and more resilient communities with over 40 community organisers and social action leaders.

Watch the video of our launch event!

Follow us for stories of togetherness

Steps to Togetherness

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