Building the People Power Behind Place-Based Change 

At the recent Social Impact in the Regions conference, PLACE shared insights from our emerging Workforce Strategy, highlighting that place-based work succeeds not because of programs or structures, but because of people. 

In a follow-on workshop, the Enable team unpacked the often-invisible skills that underpin effective place-based practice. These skill areas were surfaced through research into workforce needs across Australia’s place-based ecosystem, mapping what’s available, where the gaps are, and how we can strengthen pathways forward. 

From the practitioner on the ground to backbone organisations, community members, and governments, our research highlights a common set of foundations – listening with humility, creating space for collaboration and co-design, analysing and sharing evidence in ways that matter locally, and leading adaptively to join people and systems towards shared outcomes. Together these skills reflect the balance of being (intent) and doing (action) that underpins effective place-based work. 

This resource distils those insights into three foundational skills – with tools, further learning resources and reflection prompts to support anyone working in place to grow their capability and leadership. 

Skill 1: Deep Listening & Analytical Skills 

  • Dadirri – Deep Listening

    Source: Miriam-Rose Ungunmerr-Baumann 

    Links:

    • Accessible explainer (QLD Government) – Note: Includes a short 3-min video and context from Miriam-Rose Ungunmerr-Baumann. Developed for child safety, but offers a clear, accessible introduction to Dadirri that is relevant well beyond the health sector. 

    What it is: A First Nations practice of “inner, deep listening and quiet still awareness” – listening with respect, without judgment, and with patience. The term “Dadirri” comes from the Ngan’gikurunggurr and Ngen’giwumirri languages of the Daly River region in the Northern Territory and describes a deep, reflective listening to both people and Country. This explanation is shared to support respectful understanding of Dadirri, as articulated by Miriam-Rose Ungunmerr-Baumann and the communities from which it comes. 

    How it works: Encourages practitioners to slow down, create a safe space for story, and listen beyond words to meaning and emotion. 

    Relevance: Embeds cultural respect and relational trust into place-based work. 

    Ethical Guardrails: When drawing on Dadirri, it’s important to do so respectfully. The AIATSIS Code of Ethics provides principles such as Indigenous leadership, benefit-sharing, cultural respect, and free, prior and informed consent. 

    Links:

    Motivational Interviewing – OARS (Open-ended questions, Affirmations, Reflective listening, Summaries)

    Source: Homelessness Resource Center (HRC) 

    Link: OARS handout

    What it is: A simple framework for quality conversations, structured around four skills – Open-ended questions, Affirmations, Reflective listening, and Summaries. 

    How it works: Provides conversation starters, reflection techniques and summarising tips to help people feel heard and empowered. 

    Relevance: Supports deep listening by giving structure to conversations – helping practitioners move beyond surface-level talk, reflect back meaning, and create space where people feel genuinely heard. 

    Sense-Making – What–So What–Now What (W³)

    Source: Miroverse 

    Link: Miro Template – Note: A Miro account is required for this template, but it can also be adapted for Excel, Google Sheets, or paper-based facilitation. 

    What it is: A facilitation framework that helps groups move from observation, to interpretation, to action. 

    How it works: Participants respond to three questions in order: What happened? So what does it mean? Now what should we do?

    Relevance: Turns raw listening into collective insight and agreed next steps, keeping discussions productive. It’s flexible and works in any format – digital or analogue – so you can adapt it to whatever tools your group already uses. 

    Root Cause Analysis – 5 Whys Worksheet

    Source: Smartsheet 

    Link: Template PDF

    What it is: A problem-solving tool that digs past symptoms to identify the root cause. 

    How it works: Repeatedly asking “Why?” (usually five times) until you reach the underlying driver of the issue. 

    Relevance: Supports deeper analysis of community challenges so solutions are targeted and sustainable. It also works well as a quick group exercise in team meetings or with partners, helping uncover shared understanding of an issue. 

  • Podcast – Building Belonging through Conversations (Collective Impact Forum, 2025, 80 min) 

    Listen here Explores how intentional, empathetic listening can foster belonging and connection across communities, drawing on practice stories from Aotearoa New Zealand after the Christchurch mosque attacks. Useful for understanding listening as a relationship- and trust-building tool in polarised contexts. 

    Podcast – Deep Listening: Stories of Country (University of Sydney, 2023, 5 episodes) Listen here A 5-episode series centring First Nations voices, with episodes ranging from 23–41 minutes. Each story explores how deep listening connects people to Country, culture, and one another, offering practical insight into listening as a relational and cultural practice. 

    TEDx Talk – The Value of Deep Listening: The Aboriginal Gift to the Nation Watch here Bundjalung Elder Emeritus Professor Judy Atkinson shares how deep listening can heal trauma, restore relationships, and strengthen community connection. This 15-minute talk offers a powerful introduction to deep listening as both a cultural practice and a tool for reconciliation. 

  • Deep listening isn’t a one-off action – it’s a practice that strengthens over time. Taking a few minutes for personal reflection and group discussion helps us notice our habits, challenge assumptions, and consciously adapt how we engage with communities.  

    Self-Reflection Prompt 

    Think of a recent conversation where someone seemed hesitant or only partly heard. What did you notice about your own listening? What’s one adjustment you could try next time to listen with more presence – and what difference might that make? 

    Team Reflection Prompt  

    How might deep listening (like Dadirri) shift the way we plan, design, or deliver our work? What’s one practical change we could test this week in how we listen to community, partners, or each other? 

In PLACE Australia’s model, deep listening and analytical skills are central to localised decision making, accountability, and partnership. They help us genuinely understand the issues affecting a community – hearing lived experience, interpreting local context and making sense of information before acting. This skill is the foundation for trust, relevance and effective action. 

Skill 2: Adaptive & Facilitative Leadership  

In PLACE Australia’s model, adaptive and facilitative leadership is about creating the conditions for others to lead alongside you – shifting from directing to enabling. It’s key to working in complex, community-led contexts where solutions are not fixed and success relies on listening, sharing power and navigating uncertainty. This skill underpins partnership and accountability in practice. In this section we have pulled two other key skills required in place-based work (Co-design and Stakeholder Analysis & Engagement) to demonstrate how Adaptive & Facilitative Leadership can work in action. 

  • Source: IDEO.org

    Link: IDEO Co-Creation Session

    What it is: A practical method from IDEO’s Human-Centred Design toolkit for involving community members directly in shaping ideas, services and solutions. 

    How it works: Provides a step-by-step process for running a 1–3-hour session with facilitators, partners and community members. Activities such as conversation starters, role plays, and rapid prototyping guide participants to co-create and refine solutions – moving beyond consultation to genuine collaboration. 

    Relevance: Demonstrates facilitative leadership in action by creating space for community members to co-shape solutions. Instead of leaders making decisions alone, this process shares power, strengthens trust and ensures solutions reflect lived experience. 

    See also: The Victorian Government Co-Design Hub for a broader playbook of co-design principles and resources. 

  • Source: Collective Impact Forum 

    Link: Community Engagement Toolkit

    What it is: A downloadable toolkit with structured strategies and templates for equitable, transparent engagement. 

    How it works: Provides practical tools such as a Community Engagement Spectrum, equity reflection exercises, and partnership-building guides. These support mapping stakeholders, designing inclusive processes and ensuring community input is meaningful and acted on. 

    Relevance: Supports adaptive leadership by providing concrete ways to build trust, test assumptions and include diverse voices. Using these tools helps leaders move beyond one-way consultation to genuine partnership and accountability. 

  • Podcast – Leading to Learn: “Adaptive Leadership: Radical Ideas or Growing Relevance?” (Multiple episodes, each 33–46 mins) Listen here A podcast series with Nick Ellem exploring adaptive leadership in Australia. Shares lessons from government and public sector contexts about leading adaptively in complex, fast-changing environments. Offers practical examples and reflections relevant to place-based, cross-sector leadership. 

    Podcast – Rural Leadership Unearthed (Multiple episodes, each 25–40 mins) Listen here A series featuring real stories of leaders in rural and regional Australia. Covers topics from changemaker workshops to navigating remote challenges, offering place-based leadership insights and examples of facilitative leadership in action. 

    The Change Collection – Leadership Guides (Centre for Social Impact)

    Read here An extensive suite of frameworks, exercises, and case studies for systems-oriented leadership and collaboration in complex, cross-sector contexts.  

  • Adaptive leadership is strengthened through reflection and shared learning. By pausing to notice how we respond to complex challenges and by discussing our leadership approaches with colleagues, we can shift from reactive problem-solving to more inclusive, long-term solutions. 

    Self-Reflection Prompts 

    Think of a recent time you faced a tricky challenge at work. Where did you jump to a technical fix? Where could you have leaned into adaptive leadership – e.g. creating space for reflection, asking bigger questions, or inviting others in? 

    Write down three shifts you’d like to try in your leadership next week on a card or sticky note and keep it somewhere visible as a reminder. 

    Team Reflection Prompts 

    What could it look like to ‘hold space’ for adaptive leadership in our current work – especially with community or partners? Could we check in with open questions that invite more perspectives? What’s one opportunity we could try this week? 

    Try a quick “Postcards from the Future” exercise. Imagine it’s a year from now and your team has solved an adaptive challenge. Each person writes or sketches how you got there, then share back. 

Skill 3: Effective Project & Program Management  

  • Work Plan Template – Australian Government 

    Source: Community Grants Hub 

    Link:View template

    What it is: A straightforward template for mapping activities, milestones, and responsibilities. 

    How it works: Lists project tasks with timelines, owners, and deliverables, making accountability clear. 

    Relevance: Provides a ready-to-use tool you can adapt for your projects. 

    Impact Measurement – Roadmap to Social Impact 

    Source: Centre for Social Impact (CSI) 

    Link: Roadmap to Social Impact

    What it is: A step-by-step Australian guide for planning, measuring and communicating social impact. 

    How it works: Walks through eight stages – from understanding your context and stakeholders, to defining intended changes, choosing indicators, collecting data, and using results to improve. 

    Relevance: Helps keep your work focused on outcomes (the difference made), not just outputs (the activities delivered). 

    Planning & Strategy Tools – Commons Library 

    Source: Commons Library 

    Link:View tools

    What it is: Templates and exercises for Theory of Change, stakeholder mapping, project planning, and debriefing. 

    How it works: Step-by-step resources to clarify goals, map influence, and align activities with intended outcomes. 

    Relevance: Keeps projects focused and collaborative, building clarity and stronger stakeholder buy-in. 

  • Video – Community Centres SA: Introduction to Results-Based Accountability (RBA)

    Watch here A 30-min video introduction to the RBA framework, widely used in community and government contexts. Explains the difference between program and population outcomes, and covers the three core questions:

    • How much did we do?

    • How well did we do it?

    • Who is better off?

    A practical explainer for outcome-focused planning, evaluation, and continuous improvement in the Australian context. 

  • Effective project management keeps every task connected to the outcomes that matter for the community. By building in regular reflection and team discussions, you can check that you’re focusing on the right priorities and make timely adjustments when needed. 

    Self-Reflection Prompt 

    Where in this project am I tracking outputs instead of outcomes? Name one output you deliver and write the outcome it is meant to shift. What is one indicator you could start capturing this month to test that shift? 

    Team Reflection Prompt 

    Looking at our current work plan, what is the clearest line of sight from an activity to a community outcome – and where is it fuzzy? What one small test could we run in the next two weeks to reduce that fuzziness? 

In PLACE Australia’s model, effective project and program management is about turning big-picture vision into tangible results while staying responsive to community context. This means planning well, tracking progress, measuring what matters and adapting as you learn – all while working in partnership with communities and across sectors.

We’d Love Your Feedback 

This resource is a work in progress – just like place-based change itself.  

We’ve pulled it together to spark ideas, share tools, and strengthen practice, and we know it will keep evolving as people use it.  

That’s why we’d love to hear your thoughts, questions or suggestions. Your feedback helps us keep this useful, relevant and grounded. 

Contact us at info@placeaustralia.org or follow us on LinkedIn. 

The tools and resources shared here have been created by community leaders, practitioners, and organisations across the field. PLACE has not produced these materials. We are highlighting them to recognise and amplify the knowledge and work of others. Copyright and credit rest with the original creators, and we have named sources to ensure their contribution is properly acknowledged.