The Multiplier

Over the past ten years, The Cares Family has built five charities tackling isolation and loneliness across the generations in London, Liverpool and Manchester. Yet despite the difference we know our work makes, we also know that loneliness is just one symptom of wider social disconnection. People everywhere are feeling separated from another, especially since the onset of the pandemic.

But with this disconnection comes solutions to overcome it. People in communities throughout the UK have brilliant and simple ways to create connection in the places they know best. The nuance of how to build community in a Cornish village is known by the people who call that village home; the smartest ways of beating isolation in Nottinghamshire will come from the people that live it everyday; and the most sustainable ways of developing long lasting change in Powys will emerge from people who walk its streets. The leaders in those places just need the support to make those solutions work.

That’s why, in January 2021, we diversified our work to bring 10 local leaders from across the UK together through our very first national project, The Multiplier. We wanted to deepen our impact by providing a space for bridge-builders to adapt, grow and multiply their initiatives. Over five years, The Multiplier will invest in 50 people who are tackling those broader social disconnections at the root, bringing people from different backgrounds and experiences together to build empathy.

‘The Multiplier’ is a different type of programme

We want to support Multipliers to inspire others to forge local connection; to help established power to better understand community, and to help communities to better leverage their collective power.

We want to ensure that we support leaders at all stages of their social change journeys to build on the agency of people in their own communities as well as connect those leaders to others to influence big systems. Most importantly, we aim to encourage Multipliers to pass on what they learn and to support them to tell their stories. We hope that this will inspire others to take action too, spurring a ripple of connection, belonging and power-sharing across the UK – driven not from the top-down, but from the bottom up. So this programme doesn’t focus on technical solutions; it focuses on cultural and relational solutions to some of the biggest issues in society.

The Multiplier impact

As a part of our learning and to support us in creating a programme that unlocks the agency of others, in 2021 we captured the impact of The Multiplier through surveys and discussions with our first cohort. We were encouraged to learn that by delivering the programme in a way that creates time for laughter, as much as problem solving and learning, Multipliers were able to establish bonds and foster mutually beneficial relationships, belonging and wellbeing. By the end of the programme all 10 of our 2021 cohort said that they felt less isolated as community leaders.

Our evaluation report also shows strong indications that our objective to create a model that can spur a ripple of connection is already being fulfilled – because by the end of the programme, all 10 Multipliers said that they'd been provided with the tools to adapt and grow their initiatives and increase their networks, and were inspired to think bigger. We’re proud of this, and we're proud of everything that the 2021 Multipliers have achieved and will continue to achieve as alumni.