The Community Development Foundation (CDF) has launched the report of an Independent Expert Panel on Community Development. Findings include:

• Learn from experience. The Big Society cannot just be about new activity. It must also be about learning from and building on what has and hasn’t worked in the past.
• Evidence the impact of work with communities. Demonstrating the wide-ranging and far-reaching impact of work with communities, through compelling evidence, will only become more crucial in the current economic and political context.
• Diversify funding. Community development must learn to diversify its sources and forms of support – for itself and the communities it seeks to help.

CDF issued an open letter which is s a call to the government, the voluntary and community sector and for communities themselves to prepare for the changes that are coming. We must recognise the depth of resource that there is out there – paid workers in the voluntary and community sector, community organisers, activists, housing officers even simply our neighbours – all vital if communities are to flourish in the face of adversity.