Our Approach

We provide development support to groups and people across Scotland who want to make a difference in their communities.

This is our approach to working together and making things happen.

Vision and values

Outside the Box’s vision is a society where communities are welcoming and inclusive, and where people can contribute to making their communities work well for them and for everyone.

We help achieve this by supporting people to make their communities work better.

Our values and approaches are:

Promoting human rights in our communities and in the work we do.
Creating a more equal society where people have opportunities to develop their skills and confidence and to contribute in ways that are right for them.
Celebrating and valuing people’s strengths and supporting people and communities to think bigger and wider around what they could achieve.

Encouraging and enabling people to have as much control as they want in their own lives and in their communities.
Sharing and learning from other people and places.
Recognising people’s experience of disadvantage and working alongside them to use that experience as part of making life better.

Community leadership

Our approach centres on community-led development. This means we support people in communities to take the lead, valuing their power to work together and create positive change. We listen and use empathy to challenge limiting assumptions, and nurture equality, creativity and flourishing.

Different approaches

Our team has training and experience using different approaches to support people in communities.

Working in ways tailored to each community's context, we can use Community Wealth Building, Asset Based Community Development, intersectional Human Rights, Whole Community and other approaches.

Partnerships for positive change

All our work is developed and delivered in partnership with people in local communities. We also work in partnership with many other organisations on local and national matters.

Thank you to everyone we’ve worked alongside to make positive change happen!

Find out more about what we do