What are the characteristics of organisations that are able to meet need and support flourishing? An explanatory account of grassroots community organising in England and Wales during the Covid-19 pandemic.

This thesis presents an empirically derived explanatory account of the ways in which grassroots community organisations (GRCOs) worked toward meeting need during the first Covid-19 lockdown in England and Wales. Based on comparative analysis of qualitative data from 40 different GRCOs, I argue that GRCOs’ ability to meet need and support flourishing was related to their engagement in a relational response process through which identifying and responding to need were done iteratively, through subject-subject relation. This process was enabled by minimisation of hierarchy within organisations and by trusting frontline workers to use their judgment within a teleological framework. The process relied on organisations being adequately resourced. Sources of funding that impel organisations to act toward purposes other than the needs of their communities, such as commissioning or selling of services, are a barrier to acting towards the end of meeting need because they can force organisations to choose between prioritising care and prioritising income, in circumstances in which lack of income damages organisations’ ability to act caringly. As a result, ability to enact the relational response process is likely to currently be inequitably distributed across society. Meanwhile, need-meeting often entails an imbalance of give and take within relationships and encounters, and in some cases, involvement in GRCOs was depleting for organisers, workers and volunteers. Consequently, in order for everybody’s needs and interests to be valued, it is necessary to have a web of caring relation based on the principle of doulia, in which those who give care in one context are cared for in another. I have suggested that grassroots community organising is a potential mechanism for creating such a web, but in order for this to be equitable it needs to take place within material conditions that enable the relational response process.