By Wilf Wright
One year ago, I took on the role of Research, Listening and Learning Coordinator for LocalMotion Lincoln. I took this role after working for The Network, who I had first started volunteering with in January 2024 whilst I was unemployed.
Thinking back to that time two years ago, LocalMotion was mentioned to me as something I might be interested in as a volunteering opportunity. A quick glance at the website left me a bit confused about its purpose, what it does and how it works. How things have changed!
I am a trained researcher. Over the last 12 months I have led on two research projects: “State of the sector in Lincoln” and “Community Spaces”, been tasked with coordinating activities to empower young people (aged 15-25 years, living, working and and studying in Lincoln) and with our community researchers.
Today, 12 months into this work deeply rooted in community, I am focussing on the following question:
How do I/we engage with people who do not want to engage?
From my experience, this is the fundamental question of our time. When damaging systems are actively reinforced by creeping authoritarianism on individuals and institutions, and populist rhetoric is becoming commonplace, the importance of “engaging the disengaged” effectively is paramount.
Both for LocalMotion to achieve its vision of social, economic and environmental justice, and also me fulfilling the promise to my core values as part of this quest.
The disengaged can be at any part of the system – which leads me to other questions from my own discomfort in learning while attempting to get to grips with LocalMotion:
Is our purpose to influence power directly, or build the conditions that eventually reshape power?
I have tried to uncover some common learnings and themes from all the work I have been involved in and the experiences I have been offered in the last year.
The core learnings are:
- Systems are constraining and self-reinforcing
- Organisations and communities are often “just getting by”, creating a constant tension between survival and systems transformation
- There is inequity and tension around whose voices are valued
- “Trust” is key to meaningful and authentic buy-in
- People’s capacity to engage with systems change work on a mass scale rarely aligns with people’s realities
- Well-meaning improvements can often exacerbate flaws in systems, due to not addressing root causes of problems
- Community needs vary significantly at a micro level, and solutions must reflect this complexity rather than assume one-size-fits-all approaches
- Encouraging communities to think differently about the future is difficult when their basic needs are consistently not met
- Learning is ongoing, unstable and challenging.
Across those themes, a consistent picture emerges of systems that are deeply resistant to change and often reproduce harm, even when their flaws are widely recognised. This forces individuals and organisations into a “survival mode”, where immediate pressures limit the capacity for long-term, transformational thinking.
This creates a vicious circle.
Despite no shortage of good ideas, systemic barriers, inconsistent buy-in, and delivery challenges often stall momentum, while unmet basic needs limit people’s ability to imagine or invest in different futures. Underpinning all of this is the recognition that knowledge is never fixed, and meaningful understanding requires continuous reflection and adaptation as systems and communities evolve in rapidly changing neighbourhoods, cities and the UK as a whole.
People want change,have ideas for change, and are even working towards it, but are constrained by systems, survival pressures, and power dynamics that make deep transformation difficult.