Empowering Communities: The Citizen First Model

Discover how James Green, founder of Public Life, is reshaping social entrepreneurship with the Citizen First Incubator Model. This approach empowers residents to tackle challenges in their communities through innovation, collaboration, and grassroots engagement. Here are the key takeaways: 

• Citizen First Incubator Model: 

• Offers 12 months of support with a real living wage to budding social entrepreneurs. 

• Focuses on financial security, inclusive opportunities, and intensive mentorship. 

• Recruitment is based on lived experience and passion, not CVs. 

• Impact Highlights: 

• Karen and Jessica’s Trusted Money Confidence programme saved their community £150,000, using peer-to-peer financial coaching. 

• Invisible Creations, inspired by lived experience, redesigned assistive products, now stocked at B&Q and developed with the Royal College of Art. 

• Challenges and Innovations: 

• Breaking the cycle of social inequalities by giving power to those with lived experience. 

• Encouraging authentic engagement and trust-building to reshape governance and service delivery. 

• Bold Call to Action: 

• James proposes a nationwide Citizen Incubator led by a coalition of housing providers to drive scalable, community-led solutions. 

Learn More: 

• Visit Public Life for resources. 

• Explore the University of Essex’s evaluation report highlighting a £6.26 social return for every £1 invested. 

How can you empower your community today?