Following a competitive tendering process, Positive About Inclusion were selected by Local Trust to support their development of an EDI strategy. Local Trust enables residents in 150 Big Local areas to transform and improve their lives and the places where they live, and their focus on delivering this within their ‘life span’ i.e. by 2025 means that they operate within a unique context.
The project, which was delivered over a number of months, was structured across three key phases:
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Listening – using 1-2-1 interviews and workshops to gather feedback from a number of key stakeholders including Trustees, members of the Executive Team, EDI Working Group members and others. This allowed us to understand the unique Local Trust context and their current approach to EDI as well as what would add value in their new EDI strategy.
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Visioning – identifying key themes and trends within the feedback gathered, and exploring these through facilitated in-person and online workshops with the Project Team and key stakeholders to establish shared objectives and common ground. Comparing and contrasting the Local Trust position against our cross-sector expertise enabled us to identify a number of areas where existing best practice could be expanded upon or the current approach improved.
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Reporting – providing a summary report of our findings and recommendations which reflected a desktop review of best practice within other place-based grant funding agencies. This culminated in the drafting of an EDI Strategy which was fully endorsed by the Local Trust Board of Trustees and a supporting Action Plan which was adopted in full by the EDI Working Group.
