Five ways large charities can shift power to communities

As calls grow for large charities to hand more power to communities, here are five practical ways they can start making that shift today.

May 15, 2025
Five ways large charities can shift power to communities
Photo by John Cameron / Unsplash.

Large charities are under growing pressure to rethink how they work with local communities. Matt Hyde, chief executive of Lloyds Bank Foundation, recently urged sector leaders to stop acting like “big, monolithic machines” and instead operate “more like a movement and more like a network”.

Hyde pointed to organisations like Macmillan and Mencap as examples of charities moving toward more community-led models — a shift he believes is key to remaining relevant in the years ahead.

But what does it actually look like to shift power in practice? Here are five approaches that large charities can adopt to start turning principle into action: