Strengthening Cumbria's civil society: a report of findings and recommendations

This report presents the findings of a collaborative action research and knowledge exchange project aimed at understanding what is most needed for a more thriving and equitable community life in Cumbria. The project brought together The Office of the Lord Lieutenant of Cumbria, University of Cumbria, Cumbria Development Education Centre (CDEC) and Thinking Philanthropy. Since July 2023, the partners have been working together on various activities in support of this process – developing an online directory of Cumbrian civil society groups and organisations, undertaking desk-based research, and designing a Q Method study for online and face-to-face provision which Q enables with relatively small samples (see more in Methodology section. We subsequently engaged various representatives of Cumbria’s civil society via a series of workshops across the county from March-July 2024 – in Ambleside, Carlisle, Workington, and Barrow-in-Furness. The findings from these workshops and the online version of the Q study have enabled us to gain a bottom-up, influenced view of what mattered most to our 92 study participants to empower Cumbrian communities to be more thriving and equitable. By exploring diverse perspectives across the county, we uncovered four distinct viewpoints from Cumbria’s civil society. Our report describes the key learnings and presents recommendations for a strategic understanding of the aims and values of the Cumbrian Lieutenancy, offering potential pathways for integrating this understanding into a strategic approach for strengthening Cumbria’s civil society.