The Model
Culture by Co-Design is the practice. CxCD is the method.
Culture by Co-Design helps communities and organisations understand how culture, relationships, identity, power, participation and institutional structures shape outcomes. CxCD provides the practical method for locating the work, mapping the system, gathering evidence, identifying patterns, co-designing responses, testing solutions, building capability and sustaining change.
Model dimensions
The dimensions the practice works through.
Each dimension depends on the one before it. Skipping a dimension is usually why change stalls: participation without authority becomes consultation, and co-design without capability becomes a document.
Relationships are not soft. Relationships are infrastructure.
- People
- Relationships
- Participation
- Patterns
- Systems
- Co-design
- Collective Capability
- Stewardship
CxCD, stage by stage
Eight stages, adapted to context every time they are used.
An agnostic model, a specific practice
Sector-agnostic. Format-agnostic. Audience-agnostic.
Sector-agnostic
It can be applied across:
- community development
- education
- workplaces
- professional sport
- music
- arts and culture
- youth development
- reconciliation
- social cohesion
- health
- wellbeing
- public institutions
- feminist movements
- creator ecosystems
- social enterprise
- philanthropy
Format-agnostic
The work might take the form of:
- research
- community mapping
- workshops
- organisational reviews
- cultural capability programs
- academies
- learning pathways
- leadership programs
- partnership frameworks
- governance reform
- online learning
- public events
- community networks
- facilitator development
- implementation planning
- evaluation and learning
Audience-agnostic
The model can involve:
- young people
- Elders
- community members
- artists
- athletes
- teachers
- cultural practitioners
- executives
- Boards
- frontline staff
- facilitators
- service providers
- funders
- government stakeholders
- movement leaders
- creators
- consultants
The method can travel. Culture, authority, language, ownership, history and knowledge remain specific to the people and place.
Shift statements
The Standard We Are Shifting
- Fixing peopleRedesigning conditions
- Facilitating workshopsDesigning human systems
- Stakeholder managementRelational systems practice
- ConsultationParticipation with influence
- RepresentationAuthority and shared power
- Cultural awarenessCultural stewardship
- Cultural competence as individual knowledgeCultural responsibility as a system
- Community stories as anecdotalLived experience as legitimate evidence
- One-off programsSustainable capability
- Extracting informationReciprocal learning
- Imported solutionsLocally interpreted responses
- Expert-led changeArchitectures of collaboration
- Diversity as numbersDignity, participation and power
- Values on paperBehaviours and operating systems
- Reporting activitiesDemonstrating change
- Relationships as softRelationships as infrastructure
- Avoiding conflictBuilding capacity for repair
- Founder-owned knowledgeStewarded and shared infrastructure
- Working for communitiesWorking with communities
- Universal deliveryContext-responsive implementation
What the model refuses
- It does not treat culture as interchangeable across contexts.
- It does not treat consultation as participation.
- It does not treat community knowledge as free raw material.
- It does not deliver standardised programs without local interpretation.
- It does not leave a system dependent on the practitioner.
- It does not report activity in place of change.