Ending poverty in Edinburgh: a regenerative, resident-led approach
What would it take to end poverty in a city like Edinburgh — not just alleviate it, but fundamentally transform the systems that sustain it?
Aala Ross, Co-Head of the Regenerative Futures Fund, considers how this work is an ambitious response to that question.
The Regenerative Futures Fund is a place-based, pooled fund, it brings together resources from individuals and institutions across Edinburgh and the UK to tackle poverty at its roots. Its approach is grounded in a simple but powerful premise: poverty is not a single issue—it is interconnected, structural, and deeply shaped by racism and climate injustice. The Fund recognises that poverty is experienced across multiple, overlapping dimensions—from financial hardship to social exclusion and systemic discrimination. Ending poverty will require well-resourced community led and coordinated, long-term systems change initiatives.
A different way of funding and enabling change
At the heart of the Fund is a radical shift in power. Residents with lived experience of poverty and racism were not just consulted—they were the decision-makers and will remain a central steering force for the Fund. Alongside community organisations, they have gone through a capacity-building journey, to engage with tools such as the Three Horizons framework and reach a shared understanding of systems change, intersectionality, and racial equity.
After deep thoughtful deliberation, the residents selected the final cohort of 11 projects, who will receive ten years of unrestricted funding—creating the conditions for long-term thinking, experimentation, and collaboration. Over half of the funded projects are Black and People of Colour (BPOC) by-and-for projects, meeting a robust DEI Data Standard (with majority BPOC leadership and governance). This matters. Our equity framing ensures that those closest to the issues are resourced to lead solutions—shifting not only outcomes, but who holds power. We recognise that racism does not operate in isolation, but intersects with class, migration status, disability, gender, climate vulnerability, and other forms of systemic inequity. In the same way, our work toward regenerative futures for the city must be rooted in justice, ensuring that climate action and economic transformation are shaped by and benefit the communities most impacted by exclusion. Across the cohort, all projects are being supported to deepen and strengthen their intersectional framing, embedding this understanding into their systems change approaches, partnerships, and long-term visions for Edinburgh.
The Fund will support these 11 interconnected projects to work together to address five types of poverty: financial, material, opportunity, social, and structural. Rather than working in silos, they will fold into our collaborative ecosystem—learning from one another, sharing insights, and generating “trickle-across” impact across the city.
Multi-solving is central to how we approach the Regenerative Futures Fund: rather than addressing issues in isolation, we support work that responds to interconnected challenges—climate, equity, community wellbeing, and local economies—through investment in joined-up, place-based solutions. In practice, this means backing initiatives that, for example, reduce carbon while creating dignified livelihoods, or strengthen community ownership while improving health and resilience. For us, multi-solving is about depth, not dilution—investing in work that creates compounding benefits over time.
Working across the dimensions of poverty
What makes this cohort distinctive is not just what each project does, but how they overlap, and how they will connect and strengthen one another over time:
Financial poverty is addressed through employment pathways, income generation, and community wealth-building.
Material poverty is tackled through housing justice, food systems, and energy access.
Opportunity poverty is reduced through education, skills, and access to creative and civic spaces.
Social poverty —stigma, isolation, exclusion — is challenged through community-rooted, culturally competent work.
Structural poverty is confronted head-on through racial justice, advocacy, and policy influence.
Economic Agency and Creative Power
Projects like Be United and the Scottish BPOC Writers Network focus on employability in the creative industries—sectors where access, representation, and income are deeply unequal. By building pathways for Black and People of Colour creatives to tell their own stories, they address financial poverty through a lens of agency, letting Black and People of Colour people pursue career pathways they want to, meanwhile expanding cultural power and opportunity.
Community-Led Change in South Asian Communities
Sikh Sanjog and Networking Key Services are rooted in South Asian communities, working slowly and relationally to dismantle stigma around poverty while shifting employer practices toward genuine inclusion. Their work spans social, structural, and financial poverty—challenging both lived experience and systemic barriers.
Regenerative Community Power
Migrant Justice Edinburgh, the Sudanese Community in Edinburgh (in partnership with Edinburgh Science Foundation), and Porty Community Energy are equipping communities facing financial hardship with tools to organise, advocate, and build community wealth. Their work integrates climate action, education, and justice—demonstrating how local solutions can address global challenges.
Housing Justice and Rights
Living Rent Edinburgh and the Cables Wynd House Residents Group (with Making Rights Real) are empowering social housing tenants through advocacy, rights education, and collective organising. They tackle material poverty—housing quality, affordability, fuel poverty—while strengthening civic power and holding power to account.
Food, Land, and Climate Resilience
Lauriston Farm Collective, and Transition Edinburgh South & Edinburgh Community Food are reimagining local food and medicine systems. Through co-design, education, and distribution, and direct land access, they address material poverty while restoring ecosystems and influencing policy and shifting the way we approach public health.
Learning, accountability, and citywide impact
The RFF cohort is not just funded—it is held within a shared learning ecosystem. Through collective reflection, live monitoring and evaluation for action and improvement, and ongoing collaboration, organisations will track not only their individual impact but their combined effect across Edinburgh. This emphasis on “trickle-across” impact recognises that systems change is not linear. It emerges through relationships, shared insights, and the diffusion of new practices across sectors and communities.
This cohort marks the beginning of a long-term, citywide commitment to building a more just, regenerative, and connected Edinburgh. The work of these 11 projects cannot happen in isolation. Its growth and sustainability will depend on the continued support, solidarity, and compassion of people, organisations, and institutions across the city and beyond. We hope others will follow their work closely, engage with openness and care, and become part of the wider movement for systems change that is taking root across Edinburgh—because ending poverty is not the responsibility of communities alone, but a shared collective endeavour.