Dharmendra Kanani has some big ideas for change. People Powered Change. The director of England for the Big Lottery Fund talks to Celina Ribeiro about the new philosophy that will underpin how the lottery distributor devises and delivers funding in the future.

Is it a programme? Is it a philosophy? Yes. To both.

‘People Powered Change’ is BIG England’s new way of doing things and Dharmendra Kanani, England director since last October, is very, very excited about it.

What it is, is both a programme and an ethos which will underpin BIG’s future grantmaking behaviour and from which specific funding opportunities may arise.

People Powered Change can be summarised thus: an emphasis on new and local solutions to local problems, with a particular focus on the hardest to work with communities in the areas of the greatest need in England. It will involve often small amounts of money, distributed to build capacity or incentivise community groups and individuals to affect change in their areas across a whole range of need, from environment to elder care.

“We are trying to find ways in which you can seed, motivate, support and galvanise ways in which, increasingly at a local level people are – and have done – find solutions for their problems,” says Kanani.

He criticises the pessimistic view of English communities in social policy that has dominated public debate, he says, for too long.

“I felt it was time for us to be quite public about the fact that we have a view in this territory. That view is one which is entirely focused on a community of people as glass half-full, rather than glass half-empty. I think that’s quite powerful.”

“People Powered Change is also about recognising that for far too long social policy has been based on a model which is ‘one-to-many’, whereas what we’re trying to do is effect a many-to-many model, where it enables people to come up with their own solutions to their own problems,” he says.

This approach is evident in the recent series of ‘Big Insight’ events in which BIG England has brought together stakeholders – from national charities to ‘beneficiaries’ - in a number of programme areas such as elder care to discuss what the priorities and shape of funding streams should be.

People Powered Change has also been kicked off in a £5.86m programme, involving four partners: Nesta, UnLtd, the Young Foundation and Your Square Mile (see box for details). In the spirit of People Powered Change, the four partners must work together to identify and encourage social action in the most deprived communities in England.

For much of this, BIG will be letting local communities set their own funding agenda. “Priorities at a local level are for folk to decide,” he says. “Who are we to say to an area in the harshest part of Newcastle that we know what you want? That would be the wrong way of doing it.”

“I’m hoping what we can do is poke received wisdom in the eye. Try and think about the fact that what will make People Powered Change work at a local level is not only the urge to go ‘do’, but the ability to connect to that and enable people to exploit technology to the maximum.”