Say Yes To Community Power With Together Culture

Aim

Help us to secure a new home for our community and ensure Together Culture continues to exist: for Change, Choice, and Community Power.

Change. 

Choice. 

Community Power. 

These are the reasons that Together Culture exists. 

Together Culture creates inclusive innovation processes and the purpose driven communities that use them to deliver transformational culture change.  

Togetherness is not the objective that drive our society or economy today. 

If we can develop a culture that prioritises behaviours that enable us to:

• Turn Up with openness and curiosity
• Collaborate
• Experiment with Purpose
• Help Each Other

We can shape a much more inclusive and ecological economy. Because the purpose of the economy will shift to be about actively enabling one another's wellbeing (and, by extension, the wellbeing of the rest of life on Earth). 

But, this is only possible if we can hit our £30,000 target by November.

Together Culture members developing new ideas through our annual co-creative Citizens' Studios.

Heather Thomas, our Founder and CEO, introduces Together Culture.

Why we need help raising funds

After two years of occupying meanwhile space on Fitzroy Street with the support of The Grafton / Pioneer Development, we closed our space at 15 Fitzroy Street at the end of August. The primary motivation for this decision was financial. 

We began 2025 with a six-month run rate and a goal to secure £800k in capital to subsidise a three year period in which we projected achieving financial sustainability driven by revenue. This forecast was based on what we achieved in the previous year and a half of trading.

However, despite the fact that year to year we realised a 40% increase in revenue, a 69% increase in activity participation, a 65% increase in use of space and a 96% membership retention rate we couldn't keep pace with an increase in costs and decrease in investment beyond our control.  

A combination of unexpectedly high costs triggered by an unplanned move from meanwhile space to meanwhile space in January (140% increase in energy,  business rates, and the Cambridge BID levy compared to the previous year) and significant reduction in the rate of funding success (60% decrease in grant funding and investment compared to the previous year) left us with no option but to dramatically reduce our costs and shift our business model.

Yet, given how far our community has come, we refuse to give up. 

Reflections from Together Culture members as we closed 15 Fitzroy Street

This has only fuelled our fire for transformational social change more. The Together Culture community has already had an impact, why would we reign in our potential?

Daniel Zeichner MP showing his support for Together Culture at the launch of our Kite neighbourhood heritage project. Photo by Rajen Mistry

What has the Together Culture community achieved in 2 years?

• We developed the concept for the Department Store of Regeneration - our vision for our we scale Together Culture. A way to transform why and how we gather on the high street, and a beacon for shaping a locally-powered economy based on acts of sharing, caring, learning, and happening. 
• We uncovered and shared the change-making heritage of The Kite neighbourhood in Cambridge, commonly known today as the Grafton area. 
• We held our first Kite Festival! From tough Town & Gown conversations to flying our Kites on Midsummer Common, it felt like magic.
• We started bringing our community heritage to life by replanting the market garden that fed Cambridge in the 1800s. 
• We created 42 freelance meaningful work jobs for members in service to other members.
• We developed a Sharebank and started collecting Togs (Together Culture time credits) so that we have an organised means of swapping skills with one another.
• Members of Together Culture have held more than 400 events, varying from yoga to website design, and from dabkeh folk dance to fashion pop-up shops.

Heather Thomas talks us through the impact of Together Culture so far.

Sharing plants to get our neighbourhood planting for biodiversity. Photo by Izabel Meo

Our Impact Survey shows that more than 80% of members who responded:

• Felt heightened wellbeing since becoming part of the Together Culture community.
• Felt more optimistic about the future, despite the state of the world.
• Felt more motivated to take action and believe they have something to offer in the wider community. 

Caroline at her pop-up shop, Amayi Rose. Caroline says, "Being in an...environment among like-minded and genuinely supportive people is helping keep me motivated and steadily progressing towards my goals." Meet more of our members here. 

Ellie Breeze, our Community Director, talks us through the Community Design.

What's Possible if our Crowdfunder Succeeds?

The Together Culture membership is determined to maintain a home on the ground in Cambridge. We are having positive conversations about a variety of local spaces.

If we hit our £30,000 target by 7 November, we could have a new home for Together Culture by the end of this year. 

Together Culture members turning up in full force for the launch of our Kite heritage project, a partnership with Anglia Ruskin University’s StoryLab and the Cambridge Room. Photo by Rajen Mistry

More amazing news - Non Executive Directors, Community Development Team, and Members who are Angel Investors have built a £30,000 match-fund to encourage Crowdfunder success. 

This means every pound you give will be doubled by the match fund if we hit our target. 

A member-led event: Makani Cambridge's Maté  Lounge. Photo by Izabel Meo

Our Plan for Together Culture

If we reach our £30,000 crowdfunding target, we will:

• Build our New Home

  Move into our new home before the end of 2025, providing space for our Cambridgeshire-based members to connect and collaborate
  
  

• Replant our Permaculture Garden 

  Working with The Free Press Pub and the Brandon Court assisted living community on Prospect Row, we'll replant our permaculture garden and develop a multigenerational green skills and ecosystem thinking programme.
  
  

• Grow our Community

  Continue to offer Together Culture Membership: a community of change-makers collaborating to experiment and expand our purposeful community design and deeply embed the skills needed to be Community Power catalysts.
  
  

• Share Prosperity

  We'll develop Barnwell Community Power, a five year partnership with Abbey People and Anglia Ruskin University to test and develop our inclusive innovation processes to build and share prosperity at neighbourhood scale.
  
  

• Share our Learnings

  Share our action-based learnings to connect change-makers across the world through our Digital Co-learning Community. Live co-learning courses will be provided digitally to enable people to develop the skills of inclusive innovation and community design to put their ideas into action. We’re gathering a digital community of change-makers who work together to build community power in their corner of the world, step by step.  Courses will include: Developing an Inclusive Innovation Mindset, Developing the Skills to Build Collaborative Teams, Facilitating Co-Creation Sessions, and Designing Purpose Driven Communities. 

Ellie Breeze explains what Together Culture's membership will look like. 

Why Does This Matter?

As a society, we keep doing the same things and expect different results. That is unrealistic. Some might call it madness. Folks around the world are asking for a systems’ change to deliver a more equitable and ecological economy. But that system was developed to maintain a ‘power over’ status quo.  

To drive more equitable results, we have to start setting a new table and render the old system obsolete. That requires starting differently. We have to develop new ways of thinking, relating to one another and developing new knowledge.  

The root of a more inclusive and equitable world is cultural change:

From Transactional, to Relational.

From Extractive, to Regenerative.

From Competitive, to Collaborative.

From Power Over, to Power With.

From 'All about Me', to TOGETHER CULTURE.

Over the past two years, we've shown that we're building a new system. 

Another world is possible. 

To make our vision a reality, we need to work together to raise £30,000.

Unless we hit this target, we cannot move forward with our plans. None of this can happen without the funds to create financial security for Together Culture. 

This truly is a now or never moment for Together Culture. 

Please help us urgently raise £30,000 to make our a vision reality. Thank You.

Photo by Rajen Mistry.

This project successfully funded on 7th November 2025