United Kingdom
A global movement uniting changemakers to build fair, sustainable systems tackling climate and inequality through shared power, collective action, and a new fund that directs resources to grassroots communities.
Design & Implementation
Less than 1 month
Last update: October 05, 2023
The world stands at a crossroads. We are witnessing an unprecedented convergence of crises—social, economic, environmental, and political—that threaten not only our collective wellbeing but the very systems that sustain life on Earth. Conflict has displaced over 120 million people worldwide; 700 million live in extreme poverty; and global wealth continues to concentrate among a powerful few. Meanwhile, climate breakdown accelerates, fuelling food insecurity, mass migration, and economic instability. These interlocking crises are symptoms of a deeper systemic failure—a global order built to maximise profit and preserve control for the few, rather than deliver justice, equity, and sustainability for the many.
Across the world, civic space is shrinking. Authoritarianism and corporate influence are undermining democracy, silencing dissent, and weakening accountability. Communities who dare to demand change—women, young people, Indigenous peoples, and those defending land and human rights—face violence, censorship, and repression. These pressures are fracturing societies and fuelling polarisation, fear, and mistrust.
At the same time, we face a profound failure of imagination: traditional systems of governance, philanthropy, and economics are unable—or unwilling—to respond with the speed and scale required. Incremental reform no longer meets the urgency of our moment. Structural inequality, extractive economics, and the erosion of democratic norms continue to reinforce one another in a self-perpetuating cycle.
The impact of this interconnected crisis is staggering. Entire generations are growing up without faith in institutions or hope for the future. Communities most affected by climate change, inequality, and conflict are excluded from decision-making processes that directly shape their lives. Activists and civil society organisations operate in silos, competing for limited resources rather than collaborating across causes and geographies. This fragmentation dilutes impact and perpetuates the very inequities we seek to end.
We are now the last generation with a real chance to transform this trajectory. To survive and thrive, humanity must move beyond fragmented, issue-based solutions and embrace deep systems change—a coordinated global response that is intersectional, equitable, and driven by collective power.
The challenge we address is not simply one of resource scarcity or policy failure—it is a crisis of power. The current global system concentrates wealth, voice, and influence in the hands of the few, leaving billions disempowered. Yet within this imbalance lies an extraordinary opportunity: people everywhere are organising, innovating, and reimagining a better world. What’s missing is connection, collaboration, and the infrastructure to unify and amplify these efforts.
Our project responds directly to this gap by building The Collective—a bold new movement and connective tissue for global collaboration. It seeks to realign power, resources, and narratives around shared purpose and collective action. The Collective exists to make visible and accelerate what is already working in communities worldwide, while connecting movements to each other across borders, sectors, and issues.
Economic Inequality: The richest 1% now own more than twice as much wealth as 6.9 billion people combined. Current economic models reward extraction, exploitation, and consumption, deepening social divisions and environmental damage.
Climate Breakdown: The world is on track to exceed 1.5°C of warming, disproportionately impacting those least responsible for emissions. Communities in the Global South face climate-related displacement, health crises, and loss of livelihoods.
Democratic Erosion: Over 80% of the global population lives in countries where civic space is restricted or closed. Rising authoritarianism and disinformation are undermining participation and trust in democracy.
Social Fragmentation: Hate speech, xenophobia, and polarisation are rising worldwide, often manipulated by those in power to maintain control and prevent collective action.
These realities are interconnected and self-reinforcing. Inequality drives instability; instability fuels conflict; and conflict deepens inequality. Without systemic transformation, we risk cascading collapse—ecological, economic, and social.
If these trends continue, the consequences will be catastrophic. Billions will face worsening poverty and displacement. Climate impacts will multiply. Authoritarian governance will tighten its grip. Hope and trust—essential ingredients for social cohesion and innovation—will erode. Humanity will lose not only material wellbeing but also the moral imagination required to build a just and sustainable world.
Despite the enormity of the challenge, there is reason for hope. Across the globe, powerful movements for climate justice, gender equality, racial equity, and democratic renewal are gaining momentum. Social innovators, youth leaders, and local communities are demonstrating that transformative change is possible when people are resourced, connected, and empowered. Yet these efforts remain scattered and underfunded. The missing piece is collaboration at scale—a global mechanism to connect, coordinate, and catalyse collective action across boundaries.
Our approach is built around five interconnected pillars that together address the structural nature of the challenge:
Go Grassroots – Strengthening people power through deep community participation, supporting local leaders and movements who are already creating change on the ground.
Go Collaborative – Convening a Global Gathering in 2026 to co-create shared strategies for collective impact, breaking down silos across issues, movements, and geographies.
Go Big – Establishing a People’s Fund to redistribute wealth rapidly and equitably to grassroots movements and community-led innovations, reforming how change is resourced.
Go Narrative – Launching a global narrative agency to challenge division and hate, bridge communities, and co-create a hopeful vision for humanity’s next chapter.
Go Cooperative – Building the next economies through new models such as a meta-cooperative, where goods and services are owned by people and designed for social and environmental justice.
The context and scale of the global crisis demand nothing short of a paradigm shift. Incremental change cannot repair systems built on extraction and inequality. Our project tackles the root cause: the imbalance of power and the fragmentation of collective action. By connecting movements, redistributing resources, and transforming narratives, we aim to unlock the potential of billions of people to co-create a just, equitable, and sustainable future.
This is not a single project—it is a global movement infrastructure for systemic change. It responds to the intertwined crises of our age with the same scale, ambition, and urgency they demand. The cost of inaction is unthinkable; the opportunity before us is historic.
The Collective is a bold, interconnected global initiative designed to tackle the root causes of inequality, climate breakdown, and democratic decline by shifting power, resources, and narratives toward the people most affected by injustice. Our approach is systemic and participatory — built on the belief that real, lasting transformation can only emerge when people act together, across borders and silos, as equal partners in shaping their own futures.
At its heart, The Collective is a new global infrastructure for collaboration and shared action. It operates through four interdependent pillars — Go Grassroots, Go Big, Go Collective, and Go Visionary — each addressing a key barrier to change: disempowerment, inequitable funding, fragmentation, and destructive narratives. Together, they form a coherent, multi-layered methodology that builds people power, strengthens movements, and reimagines systems for justice and sustainability.
Our first pillar focuses on strengthening people power and enabling those most affected by inequality and oppression to drive change on their own terms. We are building a global movement infrastructure that unites activists, communities, and changemakers to confront root causes — not as isolated campaigns, but through shared strategies and solidarity across geographies.
Our methodology is grounded in participatory action and long-term capacity building. We will:
Support Frontline Leadership: Provide sustained, flexible support to grassroots leaders, especially across the Global South, to scale their solutions and safeguard their work.
Elevate Community Knowledge: Develop The People’s Charter — a global platform to showcase community-generated research, innovation, and visions for a just and sustainable future.
Act as Connective Tissue: Map existing ecosystems and strengthen coordination between movements, avoiding duplication and amplifying what works.
Convene for Collective Strength: Create inclusive learning and accountability spaces that connect civil society, activists, and citizens for shared strategy and trust-building.
Protect Frontline Defenders: Develop robust safeguarding and emergency support for activists and human rights defenders in repressive contexts.
Engage the Unengaged: Reach people beyond traditional NGO spaces — those excluded from civic participation due to class, race, gender, or geography.
Move from Apathy to Agency: Inspire and equip ordinary citizens to take action through an “Action Menu” of tangible, localised pathways to engagement.
Support Strategic Campaigning: Partner with existing networks to design and scale collective advocacy, mobilising citizens globally toward systemic reform.
This pillar ensures that transformation begins and remains with the people most impacted — amplifying their leadership, strengthening their resilience, and connecting their efforts into a global ecosystem of solidarity and mutual support.
The second pillar, Go Big, addresses one of the most entrenched barriers to systemic change: unequal access to resources. Traditional philanthropy and aid systems often reinforce colonial dynamics, concentrating decision-making in the Global North while restricting funding for grassroots leadership. To reverse this, we are launching The People’s Fund — a radical new funding mechanism designed to democratise wealth, redistribute power, and provide long-term, unrestricted funding directly to those driving change.
Our approach is participatory, ethical, and scalable. We will:
Create The People’s Fund: A community-governed, ethically invested global fund channelling resources to human rights defenders, grassroots movements, and civic actors.
Embed Participatory Governance: Governance led by those with lived experience of injustice, diverse geographic representation, and expertise in participatory grantmaking.
Build a Transparent Ecosystem: Ensure integrity, accountability, and shared ownership through open data, accessible reporting, and community oversight.
Catalyse System Reform: Convene philanthropy networks, grassroots funders, and social investors to co-design decolonial, redistributive funding models that shift how change is resourced.
Recognise and Match Informal Giving: Quantify the impact of community-based and informal giving, recognising it as the real foundation of survival and solidarity, and develop mechanisms to match it with institutional funds.
Enable Direct Giving: Establish digital platforms that allow donors to connect directly with and fund Southern organisations, fostering transparency and mutual trust.
By reimagining philanthropy as a tool of justice rather than charity, The People’s Fund will channel wealth at pace and scale to where it is most needed — building financial autonomy and long-term resilience for communities around the world.
The third pillar tackles the fragmentation that weakens global civil society. Competition for scarce resources, duplication of effort, and lack of cross-movement coordination have long prevented systemic progress. Go Collective provides the connective infrastructure for collaboration, co-creation, and collective power.
Our methodology centres on deep partnership, co-design, and decentralisation. We will:
Bridge the Gap: Connect grassroots movements, Indigenous communities, and marginalised groups with formal decision-making spaces through regional hubs rooted in lived experience.
Host The Global Gathering (2026): A catalytic convening of changemakers to co-create shared strategies, confront systemic challenges, and form long-term alliances across sectors and regions.
Map What’s Missing: Identify blockages and gaps in current systems, then coordinate responses through shared planning and resource alignment.
Launch a Global Platform for Campaigners: Facilitate cross-border collaboration, amplify underrepresented voices, and build advocacy capacity through digital and in-person networks.
Build Long-Term Collective Power: Create an enduring, trust-based ecosystem — light-touch, non-hierarchical, and adaptive — to sustain solidarity and joint action.
Redefine Success: Shift away from individualism and short-termism, centring care, dignity, and interdependence as measures of collective wellbeing and progress.
Through Go Collective, we will transform competition into collaboration, building the connective tissue civil society needs to address global crises with unity, creativity, and courage.
Every movement for justice needs a story that unites, uplifts, and inspires. The fourth pillar, Go Visionary, is about reclaiming the narrative. Around the world, regressive forces are investing heavily in disinformation and hate, while progressive voices are fragmented and underfunded. To counter this, we will establish a global narrative agency — a creative powerhouse dedicated to amplifying stories of hope, justice, and collective possibility.
Our methodology fuses cultural strategy, communications, and technology. We will:
Co-create New Narratives: Partner with communities, creatives, and movements to tell values-driven stories rooted in real experience and shared human dignity.
Centre Frontline Voices: Fund and amplify storytelling by those facing injustice — especially Indigenous peoples, women, and young leaders — to elevate their agency and vision.
Build Storytelling Ecosystems: Support networks of local and global storytellers, campaigners, and cultural producers to shift norms and beliefs through coordinated storytelling.
Disrupt Harmful Narratives: Monitor and counter hate, division, and misinformation while promoting empathy, connection, and collective resilience.
Harness Tech for Good: Collaborate with ethical tech partners to transform digital spaces, democratise reach, and build new modes of narrative activism.
Launch Global “Thunderclaps”: Coordinate mass storytelling moments that synchronise positive messages worldwide, subverting algorithms and uniting people around shared values.
Create a Self-Sustaining Agency: Build an enduring “Narratives for Good” platform to fund, train, and connect global storytellers and movements for long-term cultural change.
Narratives shape perception, and perception drives action. By transforming the story of who we are and what is possible, we will rebuild hope and collective agency at a global scale.
Our overall methodology is systems-based and participatory. Each pillar interlocks to form a holistic framework for transformation:
People Power (Go Grassroots) → builds agency and local leadership.
Resource Redistribution (Go Big) → provides equitable, long-term funding to sustain that leadership.
Collaboration Infrastructure (Go Collective) → connects movements and amplifies collective impact.
Narrative Transformation (Go Visionary) → shifts public consciousness and cultural norms to sustain progress.
This ecosystem approach combines local action with global solidarity, ensuring that solutions are co-created, inclusive, and scalable. It will be governed by a diverse global board of movement leaders and systems thinkers, ensuring accountability, transparency, and authenticity.
The Collective offers not just a project, but a new paradigm for how global change happens — one that replaces fragmentation with unity, charity with justice, and despair with shared purpose. It harnesses the creativity, courage, and compassion already alive in communities everywhere, connecting them through infrastructure, funding, and storytelling powerful enough to match the scale of the crises we face.
This is the architecture of hope — a living, breathing, global movement built not for the few, but for the many, by the many.
To date we have convened a global networks of changemakers from grassroots and established civil society organisations to take this work forward and co-design our strategy.
Outcomes
This project will achieve transformational change across four interconnected pillars — strengthening people power, revolutionising funding, enabling radical collaboration, and reshaping global narratives. Together, these outcomes will build a bold, global movement for justice — one rooted in community leadership, shared learning, and sustained action for systemic change.
We will strengthen the capacity, confidence, and collective power of grassroots leaders, communities, and movements — particularly those most affected by inequality, injustice, and climate breakdown.
Frontline leadership empowered: Thousands of grassroots activists and human rights defenders will receive direct, long-term support to lead change on their own terms. These leaders will develop locally owned solutions, mobilise communities, and influence decision-making at multiple levels.
Cross-border collaboration established: We will build partnerships and solidarity networks that cross borders and issues, connecting movements for climate justice, gender equality, democracy, and human rights.
Community knowledge elevated: We will co-create The People’s Charter — a living framework capturing community visions for the fair, sustainable world they want to build. The Charter will inform advocacy, campaigns, and policy dialogues globally.
Civic engagement expanded: People who have previously lacked time, access, or opportunity to take part in civic life will be supported to move from apathy to agency. Through accessible “Action Menus,” community learning, and inclusive mobilisation, we will reach beyond the usual 5% already engaged in traditional NGO spaces.
Safety and solidarity strengthened: We will enhance safeguarding and wellbeing mechanisms for those on the front lines — including protesters, organisers, and defenders — enabling them to continue their work safely and sustainably.
Through these actions, people and communities will no longer be treated as beneficiaries but as active architects of the transformations shaping their own futures.
We will catalyse a fundamental shift in how funding for justice, rights, and climate action flows — moving from top-down philanthropy to participatory, community-led resourcing.
Launch The People’s Fund: We will establish a global, ethically invested fund designed to redistribute wealth directly to grassroots movements and community organisations. Governance will be shared between those with lived experience of injustice and experts in participatory funding.
Mobilise and redistribute resources: The fund will mobilise contributions from individuals, foundations, corporations, and philanthropists, channelling unrestricted, long-term support to Southern and community-based organisations most in need.
Embed participatory grantmaking: Communities themselves will determine funding priorities, ensuring that resources are allocated according to lived realities rather than institutional agendas.
Reform the funding ecosystem: Through mapping, dialogue, and co-design, we will identify the barriers and inequities in the current system and work collaboratively to remove them. This process will engage progressive philanthropies, grassroots funds, and social movements to develop practical reforms.
Recognise and match informal giving: We will make visible the informal systems of giving that sustain communities and create mechanisms to match and amplify this people-to-people generosity.
Build fundraising infrastructure: A dedicated unit will secure legacies, one-off gifts, and long-term investments, while offering direct donation pathways to grassroots organisations.
The outcome will be a just, participatory, and redistributive funding model — one that shifts both wealth and power to those driving change from the ground up.
We will transform the way civil society collaborates — replacing competition with cooperation and fragmentation with collective strength.
Regional hubs established: We will create decentralised hubs rooted in local realities that connect activists, Indigenous peoples, community groups, and civic leaders to decision-making spaces.
Global convening hosted: We will hold The Gathering — an in-person meeting of changemakers from across sectors and continents — to co-create strategies, share learning, and build deep, sustained partnerships for systemic change.
Ecosystem mapping completed: Together with partners, we will map existing networks and identify key gaps in civic infrastructure and collaboration, using this evidence to focus resources where they can have the greatest impact.
Shared learning and trust built: Through inclusive and healing spaces, we will nurture a culture of cooperation, care, and co-creation that bridges sectors and movements.
Global platform launched: A digital platform will connect campaigners and defenders worldwide, amplifying frontline voices, facilitating south-to-south collaboration, and promoting shared advocacy.
Culture shift embedded: By demonstrating non-hierarchical, participatory leadership and collective decision-making, we will model a new way of working that others can replicate.
This will result in a more connected, resilient, and collaborative civil society ecosystem — one capable of tackling the interconnected crises of our time.
We will reshape the global story — replacing narratives of division, fear, and individualism with messages of hope, solidarity, and justice.
Establish a Narratives for Good agency: We will create a global agency dedicated to producing and amplifying powerful, values-driven stories that inspire collective action and systemic change.
Amplify frontline voices: Storytellers, creators, and communities facing injustice will be funded and supported to share their own narratives in locally relevant ways.
Deliver global narrative ‘thunderclaps’: Coordinated storytelling moments will connect millions of people around shared values of dignity, equality, and environmental stewardship.
Transform digital spaces: Through partnerships with ethical technology companies and media platforms, we will counter misinformation, promote empathy, and drive civic participation.
Strengthen local storytelling ecosystems: We will build capacity among grassroots creators, community journalists, and cultural organisations to ensure that narrative change is sustainable and locally led.
Celebrate the people’s history of progress: By showcasing the movements and strategies that have created real change, we will build collective confidence in what people power can achieve.
These efforts will create a global narrative ecosystem that unites, humanises, and mobilises people toward shared purpose and possibility.
By integrating these four pillars, the project will deliver far-reaching, interconnected outcomes:
Shift power: Decision-making will move from institutions to communities, from the Global North to the Global South, and from elites to those with lived experience.
Build resilience: Civil society infrastructure will be strengthened, equipped to withstand repression and crisis while nurturing collective wellbeing.
Bridge global and local action: Grassroots leaders will influence global policy and advocacy, while global actors ground their strategies in local realities.
Model new systems: The People’s Fund, community hubs, participatory governance frameworks, and narrative agency will serve as replicable models for others to adopt.
Inspire agency and hope: People worldwide will rediscover belief in their collective capacity to create change — transforming isolation and apathy into active participation and shared purpose.
This project will achieve a generational shift in how change happens — from fragmented, top-down interventions to connected, community-led transformation. By strengthening people power, revolutionising funding, enabling radical collaboration, and reimagining the stories we tell, we will lay the foundations for a truly global movement for justice — one capable of meeting the crises of our time with courage, creativity, and hope.
