Centring community needs is part of our mission. But what does it mean in practice? How will we be putting communities more at the centre of our work? Includes examples.
This resource is for anyone wanting to understand more what centring community needs actually means.
Community needs are “what people, families and communities want for themselves”. - KA Mercher
The problem
Big tech companies:
- put profit and their shareholders’ needs above everything (and everyone) else
- don’t value diversity in their design teams enough, so often create biased products and services
- ignore the harm and distress caused by their inaccessible and discriminatory products
- profit from our data, invade our privacy and threaten our personal freedom
- destroy our democracies.
People deserve so much more than this. We need tech that’s safe, equitable, and positive addition to their lives. Tech that people, communities and organisations use in ways that help free people from oppression. And tech that’s designed and owned by the communities using it. As Virginia Eubanks, a Professor of Political Science, recognises in Digital Dead End, “the people closest to the problems, probably have the best information about them… to build solutions that will last”.
What is a community?
Communities can be geographical. But as well as communities of place, there are other communities based on:
- interest: people with a shared interest. For example, gardening, gaming or reading romance novels.
- action: people working together to create change. For example, a climate emergency action group or a lobbying group for trans people.
- practice: people connected through doing the same work or activities. For example, a nursing or teacher’s union.
- circumstance: people brought together by shared experiences, external events or external situations. For example, people claiming Universal Credit, or people who’ve experienced gender-based violence.
Communities can overlap, so individuals may fit into more than one category.
Communities Catalyst is working with
Catalyst will be working with communities of circumstance. Especially those that are most negatively impacted by technology. For example:
- disabled people who find digital services inaccessible
- marginalised communities affected by algorithmic bias.
This work may also include communities of practice. For example, agencies working with charities or people working in non-profit organisations.
We hope that our activities will support communities to identify, or develop, the tech that’s right for them.
What centring community needs means
Community needs are needs pinpointed by community members. They are not based on the priorities of, or assumptions made by, external organisations or individuals. As KA McKercher (a writer, designer and public sector innovator) says, community needs are “what people, families and communities want for themselves”.
People who are part of communities have a wealth of knowledge and skills. They’re experts on their experiences. So they’re in the best position to identify the issues that are important for them, and how tech could help.
When we talk about centring community needs, we mean making them the focus of our work. KA McKercher’s 4 principles that support effective co-design are also practical ways of helping to centre community needs:
- sharing power throughout the process or project
- prioritising relationships: taking the the time to build trust
- using participatory means by giving people different ways to take part
- building capacity by allowing everyone involved to build new knowledge and skills.
Making communities’ needs the priority leads to positive changes in people’s lives. And more just futures.
Tech projects that centre community needs
According to the Community Tech report, community tech is:
“...any hardware or software that delivers benefit to a community group, and which that community group has the authority to influence or control. A community group may create a piece of technology for their own use or use by other groups, or to be governed or adapted by other groups.”
Community tech is a great example of centring community needs. Here are some examples.
Equal Care Coop
The Equal Care Co-op provides care and support at home and in the community. Its aim is to increase the power of care givers and receivers in Calderdale, West Yorkshire. The co-op has created a care platform to help it achieve this. The platform:
- prioritises the relationship between care givers and receivers
- helps power sharing
- means people get the care and support they need.
Equal Care is run as a cooperative. It’s made up of people who give and receive care, families and community investors. Cooperative members have a say in developing the platform.
The Bristol Cable
The Bristol Cable describes itself as “Bristol’s independent, investigative newsroom.” Its online and print journalism is created by and for people who live in the city. The Cable is run as a worker’s co-operative. It involves marginalised communities. It lifts up voices that are often ignored in mainstream journalism.
Off-the-shelf software was expensive and didn’t meet The Cable’s needs. So it’s been building its own membership management and democratic participation systems. Doing this means they can protect members’ privacy. Because their data is kept in-house, instead of on third-party platforms.
As well as being sustainable, Bristol Cable’s bespoke customer-relationship management system is:
- sustainable
- community-driven
- accountable to its members.
Knowle West Media Centre (KWMC)
KWMC is an arts and technology collective based in Knowle West in South Bristol. Its creative projects contribute to creating a fairer future. It now has a growing body of community tech infrastructure including:
- KWMC Cloud: a local secure private network. KWMC can use it to create privacy and sharing protocols decided by community agreement. It’s meant that KWMC can set up high-quality internet connections between different local and city buildings.
- An AI hub: a place where local people can get practical experience with machine-learning algorithms and processes. Getting hands-on experience helps make theoretical concepts clearer. And it gives people opportunities to create their own chatbots and code.
Why centring community needs is important for Catalyst
If we don’t make communities our focus, then we won’t understand their needs and we’ll fail in our mission.
Because we’re all interconnected.
As writer, poet and activist Alice Walker says:
“whatever has happened to humanity, whatever is currently happening to humanity, it is happening to all of us. No matter how hidden the cruelty, no matter how far off the screams of pain and terror, we live in one world. We are one people.”
Centring communities most impacted by tech injustice, and codesigning with them, is essential if we are to create and model a liberatory vision of technology.
How Catalyst centres community needs
As a value-based organisation, we centre community needs by:
- paying participation and reciprocity fees as a way to recognise the time and effort people contribute to Catalyst’s activities.
- working on decolonising evaluation. This means reflecting on how the ways we evaluate our projects can devalue different kinds of knowledge. They can discount and discredit the world views, practices and experiences of people who were colonised. So we’re identifying how we can change this.
- working with partners who centre the lived experience of communities traditionally underrepresented in the sector. Or who are systemically marginalised. For example, Passion4Social is a community-driven communications agency. It’s led by disabled people and people from a range of backgrounds. So they’re well-placed to advise us on things like the accessibility and inclusiveness of our comms, tone of voice and website design.
- connecting community-embedded organisations to people in our wider network, so they can learn and share together. For example, linking Camden Giving with Siana Bangura (author of our tech justice report). Siana will be talking about tech justice as part of the organisation’s people's assembly on structural racism.
What Catalyst will be doing to centre community needs in the future
The Catalyst funded Charity Digital Skills Report’s remit will be widening to include more grassroots and groups led by minoritised people.
We’re creating a set of Shared Digital Guides that focus on ways organisations are using digital tools to:
- shift power (for example from institutions to communities)
- create justice or liberation for oppressed groups
- centre impacted people's needs in the design and delivery of their work.
These Guides will share examples of community needs being centred in technology choices and development.
A discovery project led by Agencies for Good is looking at how well its members centre minoritised groups’ needs.
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Image credit: Ian Sane. Published under a CC2.0 license.
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