Centre for Thriving Places: Building Pathways to a Thriving Future
Centre for Thriving Places: Building Pathways to a Thriving Future
Who we are
We are passionate and highly skilled change-makers. We work with people like you who want to see a better world and are ready to make that transformation happen. We help reshape local areas to deliver for people and the planet.
What we do
Everyone deserves to live in a place where they can thrive. Our multidisciplinary teams provide expert guidance, insight, practical tools and bespoke support to transform how places work so they fulfil their potential and deliver greater wellbeing for all.
We help you measure and grow the things that really matter to all our lives, such as good health, secure livelihoods, decent housing, opportunities for learning, social connections and support, green spaces and clean air. We bring together local decision makers and communities to develop shared goals, and co-design policies, strategies and actions to achieve them.
Liz Zeidler CTP Founder and Chief Executive
How we work
We build local pathways to a thriving future.
We work with you to understand and map the routes to developing a thriving place. We do this by combining the best existing data and evidence with the wisdom and knowledge of local changemakers. We help navigate around obstacles, join up teams and resources, and design practical steps to grow greater wellbeing for all.
Our Values
Our values guide our work – how we deliver and how our clients and partners experience their work with us.
Be courageous and visionary
- We are committed to creating deep-rooted change
- We challenge ourselves and the system
- We name root causes and unspoken assumptions
Be champions of people and systems
- We help create the conditions for people to thrive
- We act ‘with not on’ involving and enabling others
- We recognise the interdependence of people and systems
Be rigourous and practical
- We are thorough and detailed
- We take responsibility to creating the best outcomes
- We are pragmatic and solution focused
Be positive and generous
- We are curious and open to new ideas and possibilities
- We are energetic and future-focused
- We create space for active inquiry, learning and reflection
Our story
Early years
Founded in 2010 by Liz and Mike Zeidler, Happy City was set up to challenge the belief that economic growth is the only measure of success in society. Their aim was to put wellbeing at the heart of public discourse on what it means to truly prosper.
With an initial focus on their home city of Bristol, we launched a ‘public inquiry into what works’ as an alternative to the conventional problems-focused approach and came up with ‘a radically simple plan to grow happiness one city at a time’. We were soon joined by growing numbers of volunteers and supporters to help people ‘live more, share more, and enjoy life, for less’.
Gaining momentum
Projects, campaigns, workshops and events were run in communities across Bristol and beyond – sparking new conversations about what really matters to people. Thousands were engaged in thinking and acting on ways to improve their own, and their community’s, wellbeing. Art, music, media, film and performance were used to provoke conversation and connection.
We also developed a range of training programmes, delivered in schools, prisons, businesses, community centres and public buildings to help people of every background find their way to wellbeing.
Beginning to measure
It was clear from the start that if a model was ever going to challenge the existing paradigm that put measures of economic growth and consumption at the heart of decision making, alternative measures were required. Whilst there was growing interest and development going on around this at an international and national scale almost nothing was available at the local level where people experience wellbeing (or a lack of it) most.
We began working with everyone from global experts to local change-makers, to translate the best of that theoretical and academic work into tool that would be useful to individuals, groups and local policy-makers – new measures to rival existing, GDP based, definitions of value and progress. In 2016, after many years of development work and piloting, we officially launched our suit of measurement tools. And in 2017 we launched our national #InvestIn campaign to reach and challenge tens of thousands of individuals to think about what society should be investing in.
2020: A new name for a new era
After ten years as Happy City we started our second decade with a new name: Centre for Thriving Places. Our reach and influence had shifted in ways which meant we have outgrown our original name – as we were working way beyond just cities and influencing the full range of drivers of our capacity to thrive..
Centre for Thriving Places continued to build on Happy City’s reputation for a place-based approach to wellbeing economics.
2023 onwards
Our offer has become clearer and more rounded in response to decades of learning on the ground and a rapidly changing world. Increasingly we are delivering a full ‘Thriving Places Approach’
Moving from working with individual organisations in parts of the system, to supporting whole systems to move to a more equitable and sustainable economy and society. To find out more about this approach explore our vision and our services.