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The AskingCities Handbook

Preface

7 min read

In almost all cities, the smallest organisations – neighbourhood associations, neighbourhood groups, cultural organisations, social projects or community groups – are the ones that sustain a large part of the social fabric, but also those who find it most difficult to access aid, support and resources. They lack channels, visibility, time, administrative capacity, and often someone to help them describe precisely what they need. AskingCities was created to bridge this divide. It is a civic architecture that makes it easy for any small organization to ask for help in a low-overhead and effective way, and for individuals, companies and organization to contribute easily to where they would have the greatest impact.

AskingCities takes the real-world experience of AskingBristol, the initiative launched in 2020 by John Manley in Bristol (UK). It collects the learnings, roles, methods and principles of AskingBristoland turning them into an architecture ready for other cities to implement. What began as an experiment in a specific context is thus transformed into a replicable framework, designed so that other cities can activate their own civic ecosystem without depending on the original team.

AskingBristol began as a civic experiment driven by an observation as simple as it was powerful: the city was full of organizations that needed help and also full of people and institutions that could offer it. But the two sides rarely knew of each other. At the same time there was a high degree of civic connectivity that would provide a powerful backbone. Progressively creating a more connected city would make partnering askers and givers easier and faster. This was the ambition of AskingBristol.

From the beginning, AskingBristol took a radical and uncompromising bottom-up approach. Rather than designing a complex platform or centralised programme, it began by identifying the 5,000–8,000 organisations that make up Bristol's civic ecosystem: neighbourhood organisations, NGOs, community groups, cultural associations, thematic collectives, educational initiatives, green projects, sports organisations and a host of other actors. All of them were potential Askers: groups with real, specific and urgent needs, but without a clear channel to ask for help and support.

The first discovery was revealing: many organizations had never asked for help, not for lack of need, but for lack of knowing who to ask. Their own networks were usually small and local. AskingBristol from the beginning saw it was necessary to offer each organization an AskAuthor. The reason was that the smallest organization might be just a handful of part-time volunteers who often did not have the time or confidence to engage with a new system. The AskAuthor owned all interaction with AskingBristol meaning that the organization’s work would be kept to a minimum.

AskAuthors are not case managers or transactional intermediaries. They were empathetic facilitators who became "buddies" of an organization: they listened, reformulated, clarified, accompanied and listened again. They extracted the "asks" that the organization needed—things, time, services, or expertise—and transformed them into clear, actionable, and specific requests. A well-formulated ask drastically increased the chances of finding a suitable giver. This soon became a rule of thumb: clarity not only helps, it increases the number of successful matches.

Perhaps the greatest impact of the AskAuthors was emotional: for many entities, especially the smaller ones, the fact of feeling accompanied, listened to and taken seriously – especially in times of uncertainty, pandemic or constant pressure – was as valuable as the result of the connection. As one of the first testimonies of the project recounts, "running an organization can be lonely; having someone who listens without an agenda is invaluable."

The Discovery of the Givers

At the same time, AskingBristol began to explore the other side of the system: the Givers. And there arose another unexpected realization: there are many more potential Givers than anyone imagines. Companies, professionals, public institutions, cultural organisations, individuals, student groups, technical providers, outsourced services and even other third sector entities. They all wanted to help but they did not know how to do it or where to direct their contribution.

The model revealed that much of the city's dormant value was not in money, but in things, available time, expertise, and services. Connecting these resources to specific needs began to generate a wave of small meaningful resolutions: computers for digital projects, pro-bono legal support, borrowed equipment, technical accompaniment, design advice, consulting, plantations, chairs for community centres, and even collaborations between one NGO and another.

Each connection was both a success and a story. Each story help demonstrate something positive: the city already had what the city needed, it only needed a mechanism to put it into action.

SuperConnectivity: the hidden fabric of the city

One of the most ambitious insights of the project was that Bristol possessed an underutilized level of connectivity. The idea of SuperConnectivity – a kind of "invisible network" of relationships, affinities and contacts between sectors – became a conceptual driver.

The hypothesis was clear: if AskingBristol could exploit and extend that network, it could multiply the speed and accuracy with which needs were answered. Early experiments confirmed that intuition. The system didn't need technological complexity: it needed the means to activate networks that already existed, but were too narrow or fragmented.

The experiment that changed everything

During the pandemic, a more structured experiment was carried out: various charities were recruited, AskAuthors were trained and asks were put on a simple platform. The test showed that the logic worked even under extreme conditions. The organizations particularly valued:

The pandemic, paradoxically, accelerated the understanding of the model: even in an adverse context, small, precise connections could relieve great pressures.

The question that paved the way to AskingCities

In 2022, the question arose that transformed a local project into an emerging movement:

How do we teach AskingBristol to another city without us being present?

This question revealed a fundamental limit: AskingBristol worked, but it was not yet a replicable framework. The team understood that it needed to turn what it had learned into an architecture that integrated a common language, clear roles, a taxonomy of asks, principles of bottom-up simplicity, connection mechanisms, quality criteria, and—most especially—a methodology that would allow any city to activate its own network of AskAuthors, Askers, and Givers. That was the moment when AskingBristol stopped being an experiment and became a broader vision: AskingCities.

The beginning of a movement

The story of AskingBristol demonstrates that a city can be transformed not by massive investments or heavy platform-based infrastructures, but by something lighter and deeper: careful micro-interactions, clarity of needs, activated networks, and a culture that learns as it collaborates. What was first an experiment, then a practice, and then a civic operating system, is now an architecture capable of transferring between cities. This guide exists because AskingBristol demonstrated that helping and supporting is easier when we know how to listen to each other.

How to use this guide

This guide is designed to accompany you step by step in the activation of the AskingCities model in your city, regardless of its size, context or level of organizational maturity. It is not a technical manual or an institutional document; rather, it is a practical tool built from real experience. It can be read from beginning to end as a narrative that explains the deep meaning of the model, or you can use it as a modular resource, consulting only the sections you need at any given time: roles, processes, support methodologies, quality criteria, etc.

Throughout the guide you will find principles, practices and activation sequences that have been tested in context and that can be adapted to different realities. You don't need to complete everything before you start. Use this guide as a flexible roadmap: start simple, work your way up as your city grows in confidence, and come back to the chapters you need when new questions arise. The goal is not to replicate AskingBristol in detail, but to activate in your community the same capacity for mutual aid that Bristol discovered.

Acknowledgements

The strategic approach described in this manual was developed following the SODA (Strategic Options Development and Analysis) method, developed by Professor Colin Eden, from the Business School, Strathclyde University. In the two workshops held, the StrategyFinder™ tool was used to collaboratively define the main lines of the AskingCities replication strategy. In addition to Professor Eden, who acted as facilitator in both workshops, the following people participated in the workshops:

Professor José Julio González, from the University of Agder (Norway) participated in the meetings prior to the workshops. The work leading to this document has been partially funded by the Universitat Politècnica de València under the P_CC 2026 program.