Focusing on Cohesion

At the time of writing, the UK is struggling in a climate of scattered, but persistent unrest. The reach and depth of hate-filled protest and violence has been steadily rising, culminating most recently in the horrific attack and loss of life at a Synagogue in Manchester. This devastating event has shocked and saddened our communities, intensifying fear and risking further polarisation, which we know only stokes more violence, impacting multiple groups and identities.

We know that geo-political factors underpin this attack, and that separate, anti-immigration sentiment was central to the racist riots of Summer 2024, and to the far right demonstrations of 2025.  Both, however, point to community fracture – an issue that requires action from multiple perspectives. As an independent funding organisation with connections into a range of communities, the OCT has been looking at if and how it can have a role in bringing about positive change.

Belong’s foundational report of July this year found that risk factors for polarisation include economic hardship, lack of quality places to go, and within this, a lack of opportunity to meet a diverse range of people; all risks being more intense in areas of deprivation. Living in a multi-cultural society appears, from the research, not to be enough – communities need to have the opportunity to work, live and play together if barriers are to be broken down. 

As a broad-based funder, the OCT works alongside organisations that are specialists in: tackling poverty and its impacts; working with multi-cultural groups; and providing community-based creative, leisure, training and employability opportunities. 

Our proposition now is that by viewing all of this work through a cohesion lens – asking ‘who is not in the room’ – we might begin to spot opportunities for greater connectedness.  Some services are designed specifically for a particular demographic group, where it would not be appropriate or desirable to broaden the target group in any way. Other services may present invisible but removable barriers for certain communities; or, there may be places with which a whole range of communities do engage, but don’t meet each other, for reasons of programming or organisational structure. Either way,  we are hoping to begin some good conversations about cohesion – the successes and the barriers – and to learn from them.

In summary, our approach will be adjusted as below:

1. All funding applications will feature a question about how the organisation or the work might foster social and cultural connections across divides. There’s no expectation that organisations will have a fully developed plan for this – it’s more about raising the subject and looking at what’s possible.
2. We will share guidance to organisations on how their projects can achieve reach and engagement across communities and audiences. For example, Belong has already created an extensive set of resources for building cohesion into volunteering programmes.
3. We will highlight examples of successful cross-cultural work that shows increased community cohesion through our newsletter and website. 

We appreciate that there is a huge distance between the prospect of joining dots between groups, and the conflict and violence we have seen on our streets. But as a funding organisation, the OCT has the opportunity to trial ‘cohesion thinking’ within its community and, critically, across sectors. We don’t expect the impact to be immediate, but the hope is that it might help to create greater local connectedness at a time of fracture. As is the case with all seemingly intractable problems, the important thing is to make a start.