Our Approach

Love Cities is a collective impact approach to community-led transformation that focuses on empowering communities to use a collaborative, positive, asset-based framework to tackle complex, systemic social problems. Through activating shared agency and applying holistic, proven, and organized solutions to localized community problems, we aim to affect long term, sustainable, and measurable change in South Africa.

Our four-fold approach, ‘Investigate, Innovate, Incorporate, Invite’, aims to deliver on this promise.

Investigate

‘If I had an hour to solve a problem, I’d spend 55 minutes thinking about the problem and 5 minutes thinking about the solution’ (Albert Einstein)

Key Objectives

Understand the key aspirations, needs and root cause of problems in a community.

Draw key stakeholders together to facilitate discussions that focus on active listening, enquiry-based learning, and building trust.

Identify the dominant narrative and key influencers in shaping a community’s shared beliefs.

Gather data to drive collective decision making and community action plans.

Identify key assets in communities that can be leveraged for community development.

Connect people and cultivate a shared desire for change.

Key Elements

Research

  • Greenlight Poverty Measurement Tool
  • Community Surveys & Dialogues
  • Focus Groups

Narrative Change

  • Multistakeholder Story Mapping Workshops
  • Co-ordinated Communications Strategy

Community Asset Mapping

  • Asset Based Community Development (ABCD): Mapping in all 6 Domains of ABCD
  • Organized Communities – subregions organized around geographical areas and key leadership spheres identified to enable multi-sector collaboration

Innovate

‘If you have always done it that way, its probably wrong’ (Charles Kettering)

Key Objectives

Initiate community agency and asset-based design thinking.

Co-develop focused, collaborative action plans that leverage existing assets to solve identified community problems.

Test ideas and measure change, with continued feedback structures to ensure agile strategies are developed.

Key Elements

Innovate Hubs

Community Forums: Community members with lived experience of poverty, local business/NGO/local government/faith organizations gather to challenge assumptions, create ideas and develop a prototype action plan that links assets to identified problems.

Test Phase: Project teams trial ideas and measure impact

Host roundtable discussions, representative of key influencers across different sectors in/around a community, that aim to mobilize assets in support of community prototype plans

Incorporate

‘Innovation means replacing the best practices of today with those of tomorrow’ (Paul Sloane)

Key Objectives

Incorporate support structures, resources and proven models of development into community led action plans.

Build on findings from prototype testing with research, shared knowledge, skills, networks.

Mobilize resources to accelerate impact and momentum.

Ongoing measurement and evaluation of programs to ensure we meet our goal of thriving communities.

Support project teams and organizations in the implementation of coordinated strategic plans.

Key Elements

Best Practice
Models

  • Evidence-based project implementation in the following key areas:
  • Narrative Development
  • Place Development
  • Social Development
  • Skills Development
  • Economic Development

Training & Capacity Building

  • Leveraging the experience of thought leaders and proven development models in Impact Sector
  • Knowledge sharing and co-creation of viable solutions

Governance

  • Promote accountability, transparency and reputational excellence

Brand Equity

  • Local startups able to build trust quickly based on reputation of national brand
  • Co-ordinated applications and distribution of social investment funding
  • Website listing and increased exposure

Systems & Backbone Infrastructure

  • Love Cities App (platform of community partnership, mobilization, positive narrative, service delivery)
  • Love Cities Toolkits (how-to guides for all projects)
  • Love Cities Support Services & Product Offering to enable scaling of impact
  • Monitoring and evaluation tools to help assess effectiveness and efficiency of programs

Invite

‘If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.’ (African Proverb)

Key Objectives

Build National partnerships for the sake of local change. This includes engaging with all stakeholders: business, government, faith organizations, non-profits, academia, media and active citizens.

Advocacy work on behalf of partners to affect change on a larger scale.

Collaborative efforts across Nation.

Manage social investment and volunteer involvement to ensure maximum impact and sustainability.

Key Elements

Community of Best Practice

  • Impact Sector Online Leadership Development Academy
  • Gatherings for mutual support, learning and relationship buildin
  • Hosting Regional & National Dialogues to share knowledge and build collaborative knowledge, with the purpose of accelerating the city rejuvenation agenda across our Nation

Social Investment

  • Provide services that enhance the flow of information and advice needed by local and international donors when making investment decisions in South Africa and Africa
  • Act as platform for scaled investments in social changes across partners’ network

Advocacy Group

  • Influence public policy and resource allocation decisions within political, economic, and social systems and institutions
  • Inform, leverage, voice, organize and assess for the sake of driving social change

Our Allies

Find Out More
Find Out More
Find Out More
Find Out More
Find Out More
Find Out More