Communities in their Places: A review of example social action across the Yorkshire region

Uncategorized Friday 12 June 2026

This report presents a comparative review of 112 social action initiatives in the Yorkshire and Humber region.

The review sought to:

1. understand the rich landscape of social action in the region and;
2. draw learning for how researchers, policymakers and practitioners can better support community-partnered and community-led initiatives.

Using co-defined terms, we explored a range of initiatives where community members were involved in addressing issues that mattered to them. We did this by conducting a desk-based review, supported by conversations with VCFS and public sector partners in the region.

The report shares our learnings about how and why people come together around ideas and how they organise their priorities. We found that many initiatives formed in response to a perceived lack of support from other structures. People involved saw communities as having the knowledge and skills to address issues by building on collective local voice. The report describes a range of approaches, structures and relationships underpinning social action, detailing the distinct types of support different initiatives need from public sector or VCFS bodies. It concludes by outlining a number of benefits of social action: the next stage of the Communities in Their Places work will build on this by working with a small number of community-led social action initiatives to better evidence their impacts.

Read the full report here – Communities in their Places A review of example social action across the Yorkshire region.

Check out the other work and activities being delivered under our cross-cutting theme of Communities in their Places.