CommuniCity Pilots: The Wildcard Challenge

CommuniCity is a transformative citizen-centred initiative, funded by Horizon Europe, that aims to inspire tech-enabled solutions to digital, social & urban challenges. In 2024, Manchester become the only UK city outside of London to take part in CommuniCity’s third Open Call.

In this blog, the last in our three-part CommuniCity series, we share insights from how our partnership with Commu - the biggest platform of helping in the Nordics - could help social food providers in Manchester to better co-ordinate their services.

Read Parts 1 and 2, or explore our Wilcard Challenge below.

Every morning, too many people in Manchester wake up not knowing where their next meal will come from.  
 
According to research by the University of Sheffield, nearly a fifth of people in Manchester regularly worry about not having access to enough food. For families and individuals who struggle with food insecurity, the repercussions of going without enough to eat can extend far beyond the dinner table – degrading mental and physical health, limiting capacity to engage in education and employment, and exacerbating barriers to breaking the cycle of poverty.    
 
The Our Manchester Food Partnership, a collaborative network of social food providers, aims to alleviate the pressures of food insecurity by improving the support available to people in need across the city. Alongside providing essential access to nutritious and affordable food, the partnership supports residents to connect with a wider network of specialist support services that could open up longer-term pathways out of poverty.  

Social food providers offer low-cost and sustainable food support to help people in need.

Joining Horizon Europe’s CommuniCity programme offered a unique opportunity to engage international innovators in the development of tech-enabled solutions to real-world social challenges.  
 
Inspired by Manchester’s long-standing history of innovation, our third CommuniCity challenge began life as a ‘wildcard’ brief. Rather than focusing on a single issue, we invited tech companies and entrepreneurs to propose any technology enabled solution to any social challenge in the city. Through broadening our brief, and keeping the scope of the challenge open, we hoped to inspire bold and creative innovations that could help us tackle some of the biggest barriers faced by our communities. 
 
Little did we expect to find our perfect match in Commu App, Finland’s ‘Tinder for Good Deeds’. 

Commu’s homepage.

Finland has been ranked the happiest country in the world for eight years in a row, and a key reason is its strong sense of community and culture of giving back. Volunteering and helping others play a big role in Finnish society, and technology has made it even easier for people to connect and support one another. 
 
Commu, one of the biggest community platforms in Northern Europe, aims to empower organisations and people to ask for and receive help. Founded in 2021, Commu has already proven its impact in Finland, where over 100,000 users have completed more than 30,000 good deeds, from helping neighbours with daily tasks to supporting charities. 

Commu is one of the biggest platforms of helping in the Nordics.

Working in partnership with the piloting team and partners across the Our Manchester Food Partnership, we were excited to explore how Commu could help social food providers in the city better co-ordinate their services. Through connecting providers with Commu, we hoped to simplify collaboration between different organisations and make it easier to share resources, identify gaps in provision, and empower providers to respond more efficiently to local need. 
 
To assess whether Commu could meaningfully alleviate common barriers faced by social food providers, the piloting team worked closely with the Our Manchester Food Partnership to build relationships with charities and organisations across the network. 
 
Over the three-month piloting period, the Commu team visited over 20 food providers in Manchester to better understand how the platform might be used to help organisations respond more effectively to rising levels of food insecurity. Meeting with organisations individually, and in their own settings, helped create space for transparent and open conversations where ideas and insights could be freely shared. Through building trust with organisations and developing a clearer picture of their specific challenges, the piloting team could and identify practical ways to shape Commu around the realities of everyday service provision.

When technologies are developed in collaboration with communities, we reduce the risk of imposing unsuitable, unsustainable or redundant solutions to create potential for genuine and lasting impact.  
 
Across the network, providers were eager to explore fresh solutions to long-standing challenges, with organisations praising Commu’s potential to simplify resource co-ordination and volunteer management to better reach those in need. Offering a centralised platform for communication and collaboration, Commu was widely seen as a valuable tool to empower providers to work together more effectively. 

Commu’s simple interface has been praised by food providers.

Featuring a simple, user-friendly interface, and multi-lingual support, providers also valued Commu’s inclusive design. Deep-rooted inequalities in our society mean that people who struggle with food insecurity often grapple with multiple additional barriers. In particular, people from minoritised ethic groups experience food insecurity at almost twice the rate of the majority population. By recognising how the intersection of different characteristics could intensify existing inequalities - and championing inclusive solutions that empower people from a wide range of backgrounds to easily access and navigate support - we can help to ensure that food provision in Manchester effectively meets the needs of all our diverse communities. 
 
Following a positive reception from providers, who valued Commu’s potential to support providers to reach more people in their local area, we’re thrilled to be collaborating with the Our Manchester Food Partnership to extend the pilot to more food providers in the city. Over the next six months, the piloting team will continue to work closely with local authority colleagues and social food providers to support organisations to embed Commu in their daily operations and assess the benefits of active adoption.  
 
We’re excited to explore how Commu could help food providers to co-ordinate their services more effectively. Through amplifying the impact of the existing support offered by the Our Manchester Food Partnership, we hope to empower more people in Manchester to engage with the help they need to eat well and access the right resources to open up long-term pathways out of poverty.  
 
Together, we can build a more connected and inclusive city - where nobody is left behind.  

Want to learn more about our next steps? We sat down with Karoliina Kauhanen, Founder & COO of Commu, about making it easier to ask for help - and future plans for Commu in Manchester!

Explore the full interview below.