Community centres

Why we are funding this work

The Where People Meet programme is guided by the belief that people, wherever they are born or live, have the right to a good life. We know through our research and connecting with a wide range of cross sector people and organisations, including many inspiring local leaders, that the presence of social infrastructure in places is a key factor in their ability to thrive – and this is especially important in some of the poorest and most overlooked communities in the country.

We believe that community centres and spaces play an important role in building social capital, particularly in those areas that lack other social infrastructure. However, many of these vital assets have faced closures or underfunding in recent years, as part of the decline in community focused assets. Meanwhile, major challenges – from the cost-of-living crisis to the climate emergency – highlight the urgent need for resilient, multifunctional spaces that support local leadership and adapt to changing community needs.

Therefore, we aspire to support community focused spaces that enable people in their communities to lead good, healthy lives. Community spaces should be a source of local pride, enable social connection, a thriving civil society and contribute to positive economic and environmental outcomes.

To achieve this, a long-term approach based on collective investment of resources to improve the prospects of communities, particularly those facing the most severe challenges, is required from across sectors and organisations.

The Rayne Trust

Where People Meet is grounded in both the heritage of the Rayne family’s business and philanthropic activity. We know that the physical fabric of our places has profound influence on our social, economic and environmental prospects. Whether the monumental effort to rebuild our cities in the wake of the second world war, or the need to reverse the contemporary erosion of our public spaces and community buildings, reimagining them fit for an increasingly uncertain future.

Advancing population health and wellbeing has been at the heart of the Rayne charities’ mission and impact through support for the health system, medical research, primary care and a broad range of community organisations.

This programme seeks to establish a clearer partnership between the fabric of our communities, the people within them, and the broader local institutions and infrastructure in creating healthy places to live. In this respect, it draws on the Rayne family’s business and charitable achievements as inspiration. Read this blog from the Trust’s Chair to learn more about the motivation behind the Where People Meet programme. More information on the Rayne Trust can be found here.

Learning and influencing

Research

In May 2025, we published the Where People Meet research report. New Local was commissioned by the Trust to deliver a research project exploring the heritage, value and possible future for community centres as part of broader neighbourhood regeneration. This report is intended to contribute to the broader national discussion on how we support our vital social infrastructure and the people and community groups that drive their success. It also continues to influence and inform our approach as an organisation in this space.

The report, which can be read here, includes a series of recommendations centred on:

• Providing new funding to community centres now and in the future, through a broad mix of funding sources
• Policy makers and funders recognising their strategic and delivery value, especially in relation to preventative health
• Enabling greater support for community leaders and organisations to take on and manage community assets in future

Rayne Trust Director, Crispin Truman, contributed to a podcast exploring the issues raised with colleagues from New Local and leaders from several community centres that took part in the research (click here to listen) and has written this blog reflecting on our journey so far.

Anthropy 2025

In March 2025, we came together with partners New Local, Platform Places and London Youth to run a session on the future of community assets at the Anthropy 2025 Gathering. Held at the Eden Project, the session challenged attendees to understand community assets, devolved decision making, power and funding as an essential aspect of our future national regeneration, and in the words of Anthropy, ‘rebooting Britain’.

We were delighted with the interest and connections made through the event, with standing room only, and it offered an opportunity to trail some of the early findings from our research with New Local. The session closed with a call to action around the need of community assets, and community centres in particular, to receive a funding commensurate to the vital role they play now, and can in the future, especially for some of the most challenging places to live in the UK.

Programme Launch

In September 2025, we officially launched the Where People Meet programme at St Luke’s Community Centre in Islington.

More than 70 colleagues attended, representing funding, policy and community sectors. Inspiring key note speeches were given by Hannah Sloggett from Nudge Community Builders and Matt Leach from the Independent Commission on Neighbourhoods, bringing into focus why now is the time to invest in community centres with flexible and long-term funding.

A panel made up of sector and community champions then explored why community space is vital for thriving communities, and how best to take the New Local report recommendations forward.

Click here to read the summary report.

Learning Partner

We are delighted to announce our partnership with The Young Foundation as our learning and capacity building partner on the ‘Where People Meet’ programme. The Young Foundation is a not-for-profit organisation driving community research and social innovation. It brings communities, organisations, and policymakers together, shaping a fairer future through collective action to improve people’s lives. They are a learning and capacity building partner with significant experience demonstrating the value of community-led social infrastructure.

Grant Funding

Where People Meet Open Call

An open call for Expressions of Interest was live between 8 August and 6 October 2025 and we have now allocated or £2m designated fund across 18 inspiring organisations (a write up on the projects will be available on the site shortly).

We used what we learned from our New Local research about the creation and development of community spaces that are most effective in supporting people to lead good, healthy lives. We sought to make grants to a diverse group of projects that will provide rich learning individually and collectively, and will support us to bring other funding and investment together to enable community spaces to thrive into the future.

The grants criteria was shaped by the principles and issues highlighted by the communities, policy makers and funders we heard from across the country. We thank everyone who took the time to share their knowledge and insight into the issues affecting these spaces and the communities they serve.

We used the following priorities to assess applications and decide how to distribute the grants:

How local leadership is developed 

• Potential for wider application and influence – in all the work we fund, we look for organisations and projects that are doing things differently from which others can learn and that have lessons beyond the local. Those individuals and organisations leading the project will be engaged and influencing policy and commissioning to improve financial flows to community spaces, or have clear ambition to do so.
• Local leadership and accountability – the project is driven and led by local people and organisations at all stages and creates opportunities for a broader group of local people to influence and make decisions.
• Partnership – partnership working is embedded in the design and delivery of the project, and health, civil society, local businesses, statutory and other relevant partners are actively engaged in delivery where appropriate.

 How local people benefit 

• Inclusive – the primary purpose of the project is to create and/or enhance a multi-use physical community space to deliver positive benefits to the widest range of people in the community, including those that experience the most disadvantage and marginalisation. 
• Wellbeing – the wellbeing of local people is at the heart of the work and projects are preventative in a way that averts crises and gets to problems before they take over people’s lives.
• Quality – projects are working to create community spaces that are well-designed, accessible to all, welcoming and warm, and maximising the potential of inside and outside environments, creating with local people a place they feel they belong.   

 How projects are sustained 

• Deliverable – the project will have already developed a clear approach to planning, resource and delivery. Funding from the Trust will enhance and amplify existing work and the project will be delivered within an 18-24 month timeframe. 
• Sustainable – projects will demonstrate progress towards environmental sustainability and have secured or are able to lever additional funding to support and sustain activities. 

 We also considered the following factors in our decision-making: 

• The potential for greatest positive impact based on the social and economic challenges of the local area, using data from Local Insight.  
• Achieving a mix of projects in terms of geography, urban and rural settings, and approaches to supporting health and wellbeing. 

 

RSA Spark – student design mission

We partnered with the RSA on their next generation student design awards, RSA Spark, which asked students from across the world ‘how might we reimagine and create community spaces of the future where people are connected, places are healthy, and everyone is leading a good life?’

The brief generated a range of inspiring and exciting ideas from young people around local placemaking, design and regeneration. Winning submissions were agreed and celebrated in September 2025. Visit the Where People Meet Showcase to learn more.