What this is. NCV hosts a directory of voices groups across Australia. NCV does not run the movement and there is no national body — many in the movement would want no part of one. Every group manages its own entry: you write it, you change it, you take it down. Nobody approves it and nobody edits it for you.
Why we bother. Groups doing much the same work in different places mostly cannot find each other. A shared list is the smallest thing that fixes that, and it is the groundwork for anything more structured that participating groups may want later — comparing notes, sharing what has worked, running something jointly. That is an offer, not a plan we have for you. It is an architecture, not a command.
What counts as a voices group. An independent, community-led group, not a branch of any party, that listens to the people of a place and carries what it hears to government. The name varies and none of it matters here: Voices of, Voices for, Matters, Independent, Network, Together. Redlands Matters and Voices for Indi are the same kind of thing.
Your group is not listed yet — add it. It takes a few minutes and nobody has to approve it.
Your group is listed but nobody looks after the entry — count us in and nominate somebody.
You already look after your group’s entry — update your listing.
Everything past the map is a preview of a concept Northside Community Voices is still developing, shown early on purpose so people doing the same work elsewhere can tell us where we have got it wrong.
Three ways in
Add your group to the directory
Your group is not on the map yet. Put it there — the name, where you are, how people reach you and a short description in your own words. Nobody approves it and nobody edits it for you.
Take charge of an existing listing
Your group is already on the map. Nominate somebody to keep the listing accurate, so it stays yours to change. It takes a few minutes and commits you to nothing.
Thinking of starting one?
There is no group near you, or none that fits. Read what it actually takes, what we can help with, and what we cannot — then tell us what you are thinking.
Three things, and none of them finished
This is the concept in plain terms. Everything further down the page exists only as evidence that these three are worth attempting.
Sharing what we have learned
Infrastructure that lets peer groups collaborate on an informed basis, and practical guidance for people starting a voices group from nothing — or lifting a beginner group to something steadier — without a bench of skilled, experienced volunteers to draw on.
A steadier, more visible community voice
Helping community-based groups mature into something credible and durable in Australian public life. Every group keeps complete local autonomy. What is shared is values and purpose, not direction.
Listening that changes policy
A way of actively listening to what your own community wants, and turning that listening into a trusted channel of evidence — so that sitting representatives and candidates alike have something real to build community-responsive policy on.
How far we have got
How we run ourselves
The working method and the tools behind it — how one group with a handful of volunteers runs membership, groups, listening, events and governance without anyone needing to be technical.
The Backgrounder Library
Researched, referenced papers that our own Working Groups actually use. The clearest example we have of listening turning into something a community can act on.
How it all works
The practical mechanics — what a Backgrounder is, how one gets built, and how the pieces of the model fit together.
Common Ground
A first attempt at writing down what groups like ours seem to share. Offered to be argued with and improved — not a list anyone is asked to sign.
The thinking behind it
Why a set of separate, uncoordinated groups might benefit from a framework that is deliberately designed rather than one that simply happens.
Tell us where we have got it wrong
This page exists to be criticised. If any of it is useful, wrong, already solved better by somebody else, or missing the point entirely, we would like to hear it — particularly from people running a group somewhere else and dealing with the same problems.
The question we would most like answered: what would you need to see before you would trust a model like this with your own group’s work?
Comments and criticism go straight to the person responsible for this work — David Grogan, who designed this directory and the Listening model behind it, and President of Northside Community Voices. Not a general inbox, and not a committee.
Email David directly