Local Trust: story audit and strategic guidance

  • For Local Trust we audited of over 450 stories and delivered data analysis in 13 key areas, a narrative commentary and strategic recommendations for future priorities.

Local Trust was established in 2012 to deliver Big Local, a National Lottery Community Fund-funded programme which committed £1m each to 150 neighbourhoods across England. Residents are empowered to transform and improve their lives and the places where they live. It is the largest single-purpose Lottery-funded endowment ever made, and the biggest ever investment by a non-state funder in resident-led change. In terms of scale, time horizon and ethos, nothing like Big Local has ever existed.

With a project of this scale and reach the stories to tell are numerous, diverse and complex. With the programme scheduled to come to end in 2026 Local Trust needed an in-depth story audit to establish what stories had been told and from where, what were the most commonly used themes and where the gaps.

Our granular audit reviewed over 450 stories and delivered data in 13 key areas. Alongside the data file which could be searched and sorted in multiple ways, we delivered a narrative report drawing out key observations and making strategic recommendations for the final years of the programme.