Saffron is responsible for the Young Foundation’s work on communities.

Saffron manages Future Communities, a programme to explore practical ways for new communities to succeed as places where people want to live and work.  Future Communities is a consortium of partners involving the Homes and Communities Agency, Local Government Improvement and Development, the London Borough of Barking and Dagenham, Aylesbury Vale District Council and Peabody Trust. 

She is also responsible for Local 2.0, a programme funded by CLG’s Empowerment Fund to explore the potential for ‘hyper-local’ or neighbourhood-based web media to support community empowerment.  This work involves King’s Lynn and West Norfolk, Kensington and Chelsea, Kirklees Council and Wiltshire Council.

Saffron has carried out a wide range of research and practical projects about communities and innovation including recent work exploring solutions to entrenched deprivation in very small estates funded by the Tenant Services authority, and Neighbourhood Futures, working with five local authorities to explore the impacts of the economic downturn on neighbourhood working and community empowerment.

More about Saffron
Saffron studied anthropology and development at the London School of Economics.  She joined the Young Foundation in 2005 to manage the Transforming Neighbourhoods programme. Previously she was a senior researcher at The Future Foundation working on social trend forecasting projects for the Home Office and Office of Science and Technology, and Associate Director at communications agency Cohn & Wolfe, leading research, communications and community relations programmes for public and private sector organisations. She has worked as an independent research and communications consultant in the public and voluntary sectors for Citylife, Initiative Ireland, NCH Action for Children, and UK for UNHCR.

Publications
Saffron has carried out a wide range of research and practical projects about communities and innovation, and edited the book Transforming Neighbourhoods, published in 2007. She has contributed articles about community empowerment, neighbourhood governance and local government reform to Society Guardian, New Start, Public Finance, Public Service Review, The Municipal Journal and Criminal Justice Matters.
Contact:
saffron.woodcraft@youngfoundation.org or call 020 8709 9271.