Commission professionals to help you deliver your project: A community action plan
Have a project in mind but need new energy, skill or capacity to deliver it? Download this action plan on how to commission professionals to help you make it happen.
Commissioning is a fantastic way to bring new energy, experience, expertise and support to your project or community.
It involves contracting people who have expertise in specific areas to collaborate on and help deliver your community’s ideas. They can deliver the work and free up capacity for you to be more strategic, or to focus on other areas of your community work. For example, you might not have time to do an evaluation, so you could commission someone else to do it for you.
If you have a project in mind for your community – from setting up a new youth service to creating a community allotment, developing a community festival, building new seating in your local park, or starting a new service for older people – you can use commissioning to bring in the capacity and expertise you need, without having to directly deliver the work yourself.
This action plan has been written by our support partner Take a Part, an arts organisation who are experts in commissioning creative projects for communities. It will help you learn:
- how to write a good commissioning brief
- how to attract quality responses
- how to set up and manage a contract
- and finally, how to evaluate the commission.
How Sompting Big Local commissioned local youth services to engage with young people
Sompting Big Local is based just outside Worthing, on the south east coast of England.
They wanted to get young people involved in their work, but never had the time or headspace
to do it properly.
They decided to take a commissioning approach as they had limited capacity and knowledge to run the youth engagement programme themselves. They approached two local organisations who were experts in youth provision – Sid Youth (who they’d worked with before) and Audio Active. After talking and planning together, they commissioned them to put on a large summer event and then a term of youth group type activities, with the aim of finding out what young people want in Sompting.
Sompting youth event (Photos: Sompting Big Local/ Mike Henderson)
It was slow initially, while we tried to figure out what we wanted and who to get involved with. But once we sat down for a couple of meetings with the two organisations, the ideas and plan came together quickly. After we commissioned it, Sid Youth took the lead and organised the event in a matter of weeks.
Sompting Big Local partnership member
Sompting Big Local was supported by Take a Part. They helped the partnership to avoid pitfalls and made sure everyone knew what they were doing and who was responsible for what.
Would your Big Local partnership like bespoke, hands-on support with commissioning?
Get in touch with us at support@localtrust.org.uk or speak to your area advisor or area coordinator about getting support from Take a Part.
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