Is ‘local’ the antidote to ‘too much world’?
And why showing up in communities — properly — is now one of the most valuable things an organisation can do.
If you work in brand, communications, or CSR, you’ve probably noticed a bit of a collective shift in recent years. It’s about people.
We knew people people were getting increasingly cynical about big institutions — however now; they're exhausted by them. The Reuters Institute Digital News Report 2024 found that 46% of UK adults now actively avoid the news at least sometimes, up from 24% in 2017. Two in five describe it as worn-out, repetitive, and overwhelming. War, politics, crises — it keeps coming, and it keeps feeling unsolvable.
There’s just too much world. Too big, too broad, confusing and complex. People are increasingly focusing closer to home.
The proximity bonus
What’s interesting is that the same people switching off national news are still turning up to save their local pub, funding their local newsletter, and shopping at the community-run café.
Trust follows the a similar pattern. Across all EU member states, local and regional institutions are trusted more than national governments by an average of 15%. In France, the gap is a very gallic 32%. A 2026 survey of 27,000 people across the EU found local institutions score 4.8 out of 10 on confidence, versus just 3.6 for national governments. In the UK, only 27% of people report high or moderate trust in the national government — well below the OECD average (ONS, 2023).
Trust in national government has fallen from 40% in 1986 to 12% in 2024 (British Social Attitudes Survey). That's not a dip it’s a generational collapse. And into that vacuum, local is starting to fill something global can’t.
Agency is the clincher
There's a reason local holds when national doesn't. Local is where people have a stake.
Their kids' school. The high street they use three times a week. The community centre their neighbour volunteers at on a Thursday. These things are visible, tangible, and — crucially — changeable by ordinary people.
National feels out of reach but local feels possible.
Power to Change has been tracking this at an economic level for years. For every £1 spent with a community business, around 56p stays in the local economy — compared with just 40p for large private-sector firms. The sector has grown from 5,500 to over 11,300 organisations since 2015, employing 37,800 people, and owning assets worth £870m. These aren't marginal operations. They're the hardware of local agency — places where people are owners, workers, and customers simultaneously, with direct visibility of their impact.
When a pub closes in a village, people don't start a national campaign. They rally the locals. More than 50 pubs across England have been brought into community ownership this way, raising £15m in community shares, transforming into multi-use hubs offering childcare, co-working, food, and events. That's a beautiful example of people deciding that something close to them is worth fighting for — and putting money behind it.
People will pay for local. Less so for national.
Local news is the clearest proof of this.
UK audiences won't subscribe to national outlets en masse — but they will contribute £4 a month on average to support a local independent newsroom that covers their street, their school, their council (Public Interest News Foundation). The UK government recently announced up to £12m in public funding for local media — framed by DCMS (the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport) as the first major action plan to support local journalism in a generation, responding to the spread of 'news deserts' across the country, as well as the rise of problematic news outlets and the loss of any central source of validated truth.
People seem to be turning away from national noise while actively investing locally.
What this means for us
Most brand 'localisation' is just media targeting. It's the national campaign with the postcode swapped out. Communities see through it immediately — because it is immediately obvious that no one who made it has ever been to the place it’s landing in.
Contrast that with the organisations whose model is structurally local. 70% of jobs in community businesses go to local people. Leadership is nearly four times more likely to come from minoritised backgrounds than in private SMEs. These organisations aren't marketing to their community, they are them.
Greggs is a lovely example here. It doesn't publish a purpose manifesto, but it has a foundation that's been funding breakfast clubs, employability programmes, and children's hospices in the specific places it operates — for over thirty years. No national campaign, just presence over time. That and the sausage rolls.
The LGiU's State of the Locals 2025 found that local community groups receive the highest levels of public trust of any institution — above local councils, above the civil service, and well above central government. The closer to home, the more credible.
The opportunity
The world is getting louder, larger, and harder to make sense of at scale. People are actively retreating from it — not out of apathy, but out of self-preservation.
Local is where people still feel like things make sense. Where they know the names, can see the results, and feel like their presence has effect. For organisations willing to show up there — properly, patiently, on the community's terms — that's not a limitation, it’s a mutually beneficial opportunity.
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