Exploring the role of grassroots within community engagement.

You hear the word grassroots thrown around everywhere these days. Political pundits use it on the nightly news to explain a sudden shift in voting trends, non-profits plaster it across their fundraising emails, and local councils talk about it in town hall meetings. It’s become one of those buzzwords we hear so often we rarely stop to think about what it actually means.

But if you look at the word itself, it gives you a perfect metaphor.

Think about a network of roots quietly spreading, connecting, and strengthening beneath the surface long before anything visible actually breaks through the dirt. What makes those roots so remarkable is that they do their heavy lifting entirely unseen. Even when the grass above gets trampled, mowed down, or weathered by a harsh season, a healthy root system stays intact. It holds the soil together, draws nutrients from deep below, and quietly prepares for new growth. Given enough time, what looks completely ruined can bounce back simply because the real strength was never in what we could see from the surface.

This is exactly why grassroots is so fundamentally important to community engagement.

BROOKS believes that genuine grassroots engagement is more than just a strategy but more an anchor to community engagement. Our role isn’t to force change from the top down, but to help uncover and support the relationships, trust, and shared purpose that already exist locally. When you focus on building those deep-rooted connections, you create a foundation that helps people adapt, recover, and grow back stronger after any setback.

In practice, grassroots engagement isn’t about rigid structures or top-down corporate strategies. It’s just people showing up for one another. It’s built on moments that feel incredibly small at the time, but eventually add up to something massive:

• A quick conversation at the mail box.
• A local sausage sizzle at the park.
• Someone deciding to pitch in because a neighbour they trust asked them to.

Take a look at New York’s recent mayoral race with Zohran Mamdani. Politics aside, the most fascinating part of that story is how grassroots support built his momentum. The energy didn’t come from multi-million-dollar ad campaigns; it came from everyday people having face-to-face conversations, volunteering their weekends, and rallying their friends. It’s a reminder that people want to get involved when they feel a personal, human connection to a movement.

We see the exact same principle right here in Australia with Clean Up Australia. What started as a single, local idea driven by a few people who cared about their backyard turned into a massive nationwide movement. This happened because local communities embraced it and made it their own. Its enduring success is built on everyday participation, shared responsibility, and ordinary people stepping up for something bigger than themselves.

Back in the peak of my high school existence, I presented a speech at a public speaking competition which I now realise directly links to grassroots.

The premise of my speech was that I was fed up with the same speeches winning each competition. The topics never reached further than social justice issues or injustices. However, as I finished writing the speech I came to an insightful conclusion, with the example of the ripple effect.

When a pebble (idea, cause, issue) is thrown into a lake (society) ripples are formed, and without those ripples nothing would spread. WE are the ripples, saying a speech to spread awareness, talking with neighbours or attending a community event are all ways to let the ripple reach as far as it possibly can.  

So, are you a pebble or a ripple? Each as important as the other.

Like the roots beneath our feet, the most important connections are rarely the most visible. They are built slowly, through trust, shared experiences, and people showing up for one another, day after day. We may not notice them as they grow, but their impact is undeniable. When challenges arise, they are what hold communities together, carry people through uncertainty, and create the conditions for renewal.

the stronger the roots, the greater the capacity to grow. Deep, connected roots help communities withstand change and create the foundation for new growth. In the end, a community’s ability to flourish above ground will always depend on the strength of what has been nurtured below it.