How agency grows
Global upheaval has a way of prompting reflection, and I’ve been noticing something in my work and world lately.
This particular reflection was triggered by Ian Bird, CEO of Community Foundations Australia, who delivered the 2026 Leadership Victoria Oration in Melbourne last week.
Ian spoke about the rise of communities in the context of global disorder. He observed that great community foundations help communities make sense of that disorder—and build and activate local agency.
I wholeheartedly agree. It’s something we’re working hard towards at the Ballarat Foundation.
But it left me with a question:
How does agency actually form?
Across community conversations, policy discussions and social impact spaces, agency is often named as something we want more of. We want people to feel empowered. We want communities to take ownership. We want less dependence on institutions and more local action.
But the more I explore agency in this context, the more it feels as though we sometimes treat it as something that can be created simply by naming or encouraging it.
If we ask people to step up, take responsibility or get involved, perhaps something will shift. Agency will just happen.
But that’s not quite how it works.
Psychologically, agency is the felt sense that “I can influence what happens next.”
That sense doesn’t emerge from language alone. It comes from experience.
It grows through small moments in which someone notices that action is possible, takes a step and sees that something—however minor—has shifted as a result. Over time, those moments accumulate. A pattern forms and the belief strengthens:
I can do something here. We can do something here.
Without those experiences, something else can take hold. People may still care, often deeply, but begin to doubt that their actions will make any real difference.
You might hear it as:
“Someone should do something about that.”
“This is really a government issue.”
“What’s the point?”
It’s easy to interpret this as apathy, but I don’t think that’s quite right. More often, it reflects a quiet erosion of agency: a shift from I can to it won’t matter or that’s someone else’s job.
And once that shift occurs, it can be difficult to reverse.
What I’ve learned through many years as a psychologist working in human systems is that agency isn’t simply a mindset we can encourage. It is built—or constrained—by the environment in which people are operating.
When you look closely, it tends to form through a kind of loop.
Someone sees that there might be something they can do.
They feel, explicitly or implicitly, that it’s okay for them to act.
They have enough capability to take a first step.
They try something.
Then they see some form of impact—not necessarily a significant outcome, but something that signals their action wasn’t pointless.
That experience feeds back into belief, and the loop begins again. It is a process of testing and learning.
Break any part of that loop - if people can’t see what’s possible, feel they need permission, don’t know how to begin, or see no evidence that anything changed - and agency weakens.
This helps explain why simply asking people to “step up” so often falls flat. If the enabling environment isn’t there, the message doesn’t empower. It creates pressure.
Consider a very ordinary example.
A local resident notices that a shared space - a park, a street or a community noticeboard - isn’t being used or cared for in the way it could be. They have an idea. Nothing grand. Perhaps a small clean-up, a simple sign or a conversation with a neighbour.
Whether that idea becomes action depends on what surrounds it.
If it doesn’t feel like their place to act, if they assume permission sits somewhere else, or if the problem feels too large, the idea may fade.
But if small action feels acceptable, the next step is clear and even one other person is willing to join them, something different becomes possible.
They pick up some rubbish. Organise a working bee. Put up a sign.
The space begins to look a little different. Someone else notices. A neighbour makes a comment and a conversation begins. Next time, another person joins in.
It isn’t a dramatic transformation, but it doesn’t need to be. It is enough for the action to feel worthwhile - to register that it wasn’t pointless.
That experience begins to build the belief, not only within the individual but more broadly, that we can do something here.
This is where a positive spiral can begin. When people can see what’s possible, take action and experience even small wins, they start to connect through doing, not just discussing. Momentum builds in small, often uncoordinated ways.
It can look messy from the outside, but it carries a different kind of energy.
The system feels more alive.
All of this raises a more useful question for those of us working in this space.
If agency forms through experience, how might we enable those experiences to occur more often?
The starting points are surprisingly simple, although they require discipline.
Begin small enough that people can succeed. Make local action visible so effort and impact are connected. Lower the often-invisible barriers around permission. Build capability through real work, not abstract training. Create spaces where people can act alongside others. Pay attention to feedback: what changed, what didn’t and what was learned.
None of this is particularly new. But it is often overlooked because it’s easier to design programs than to design for human behaviour within those programs.
It’s easier to name outcomes such as “agency” or “mindset shift” than to stay with the slower, more iterative work of creating the environments and experiences that make those outcomes possible.
And yet, without that layer, the rest doesn’t quite work.
Which brings me back to Ian’s words about community agency.
What stayed with me wasn’t only the idea that agency matters. It was his observation, drawn from time spent with communities around the country, that relationships within our communities are often stronger than we realise.
People are connected. They care. They are already doing things - often quietly and without recognition.
But the signals around those relationships can be weak.
The activity is there, but it isn’t always visible. The dots exist, but they aren’t joined. From the outside, and sometimes even from within, it can look as though not much is happening.
And when it looks like nothing is happening, it becomes harder for people to believe that their own actions will make a difference.
Seen through this lens, agency isn’t only about individuals feeling empowered. It is also shaped by how clearly a community can see itself: its relationships, its efforts and its everyday acts of contribution and change.
If those signals are faint, fragmented, unseen or uncelebrated, the loop struggles to take hold. People can’t see what’s possible or find evidence that action leads somewhere. The belief that “we can do something here” never quite gels.
But when the signals are strengthened, something shifts.
When the relational infrastructure of a community becomes more visible - when stories of action and impact are shared, and patterns of connection and contribution are surfaced—the loop becomes easier to enter.
People can see where they might step in.
They can see that others are already acting.
They can see that action leads somewhere.
And that begins to change behaviour and build community agency.
This suggests a different kind of role for those of us working in communities, including community foundations, local organisations and civic leaders.
Our role is not only to deliver programs or fund initiatives. It is also to help make sense of what is already there. To join the dots. Strengthen the signals. Share the stories and celebrate the successes.
We can help make the often-invisible work of connection, contribution, care and civic action more visible to the community itself.
Because when people can see it, they are more likely to believe in it.
And when they believe in it, they are more likely to act.
That, ultimately, is how agency begins to grow.
First publshed on Wayfinders