Who we are...
Go Together is dedicated to creating meaningful social change by nurturing relationships between stakeholders in local government, health, education and communities. Our work centres around cultivating trust and collaboration to effectively address complex social challenges.
Our Story
Rich Holmes was no stranger to the world of collective impact. Over the years, he had seen countless initiatives launched with ambitious goals and well-crafted frameworks. Yet, time and again, he watched these efforts falter, not because they lacked resources or good intentions, but because they missed a crucial ingredient: the power of genuine relationships.
For Rich, this realisation wasn’t just academic, it was personal. During his time working within community development, education and health he had witnessed the human cost of fragmented systems. He saw passionate people burned out by bureaucracy, communities disillusioned by broken promises and innovative ideas stifled by rigid power structures. Despite countless frameworks and tools aimed at achieving systems change, the same story played out: a reliance on technical solutions that ignored the messy, human side of change.
It became clear to Rich that technical fixes alone couldn’t navigate the complexity of adaptive social problems. Funders demanded metrics, with leaders focused on immediate outcomes. This has resulted in the relational work — the slow, essential building of trust and shared understanding being sidelined. Yet, it was precisely this work that Rich knew held the key to transformative change.
Determined to rewrite the story, Rich founded Go Together, a social purpose organisation created to serve as the “invisible plumbing” between organisations and communities, fostering trust, breaking down silos and enabling true collaboration. By prioritising the invisible yet indispensable relational infrastructure, Go Together supports organisations to tackle the root causes of social challenges, rather than just their symptoms.
Today, Go Together is a testament to Rich’s belief in the power of relationships to transform systems and communities. It has become a space where health leaders, local governments and community organisations come together, not just to meet targets but to reimagine what’s possible when people truly connect. For Rich, the ultimate success isn’t in the metrics but in the stories of communities thriving through collaboration, trust and a shared commitment to lasting change.
Who We Are
Rich Holmes is the Managing Director of Go Together, a training and facilitation organisation that specialises in place-based change. He is an experienced community practitioner and systems leader with over 25 years' experience in Asset-Based Community Development (ABCD), trauma-informed practice, and strengths-based organisational and systems change. He brings deep knowledge of relational practice, supporting individuals, organisations, and systems to build trust, share power, and create the conditions for collaboration.
Rich supports leaders to nurture learning cultures that strengthen organisational identity, build confidence, and elevate the voices of those closest to the work. He is an accredited Partnership Broker through the Partnership Brokers Association, where he is also an Associate.
Alongside his consultancy practice, he is also studying for a PhD at the University of Worcester, exploring community responses to collective trauma, grounded in real-world community experience.
Rich has previously led VCSE organisations and been a Director at a large grant-making Trust. He has also held senior roles in local government, so he has a deep understanding of the issues facing the social sector and the realities faced by community groups and organisations.
Internationally, Rich serves as a Board Member and Internation Member Liaison at the Asset-Based Community Development (ABCD) Institute at DePaul University in Chicago—connecting global networks of practitioners working to strengthen community power and participatory systems change.
