Roots Before Results: Re-defining ‘success’ in community work
Host: CAG Oxfordshire
What happens when the things that matter most in community work are the hardest to measure? And what gets lost when success is defined long before a project meets the people, the place, or the seasons?
This interactive discussion draws on community gardening projects developed during 2024–25 in Blackbird Leys, Littlemore, East Oxford and Berinsfield, delivered through a partnership between CAG Oxfordshire, Oxfordshire County Council and a wide network of local community organisations. These projects are showcased not as models to replicate, but as sites of learning, where funding expectations, lived realities and community aspirations existed in tension, generating rich, grounded learning about what it takes to deliver genuinely community-embedded initiatives that can last beyond a grant.
The session begins from a position of unfinished learning. Rather than offering solutions, participants are invited to sit with uncomfortable questions: why do funders privilege what is easy to measure over what communities say they need? What work becomes invisible when outputs take precedence over trust, care and relationships? Who carries the risk when projects are required to “deliver” before they have had time to take root?
Through facilitated conversation and small-group activities, participants explore how focusing on results can obscure the importance of foundational work which is relational, embodied, seasonal and enduring. The discussion also highlights the importance of early investment in coordinator and community leader capacity, peer learning, trust-building activities and a timeframe of at least one full cycle of seasons to understand local conditions and avoid approaches that fail once funding ends.
To close, we will work in small groups around the question: if quantifiable outputs are not telling the full story, what ‘success’ measures would we like to see instead? Drawing on their own practice, groups will identify alternative indicators - relational, qualitative, narrative or process-based - and reflect on what these might make visible. We will use what emerges from this exercise to draft a collective manifesto, offered as a shared reflection and invitation to dialogue, rather than a set of recommendations or solutions.
Speakers include the Project Coordinator from CAG Oxfordshire and community garden organisers from partner organisations.
This venue has a capacity of 40.