The Belonging Shift Audit
A 5-minute strategic executive diagnostic for assessing trust, participation, and impact from a belonging lens
Most organisations and leaders say belonging matters but remain limited to compliance, representation or engagement activity. Belonging is the broader and deeper foundational condition that enables trust, participation and impact.
“Belonging is the outcome created when people have fair access to participate, influence, contribute and thrive irrespective of their cultural and social background.”
People’s sense of belonging is shaped by their experiences across different areas - workplaces, communities, places, and societies. When a sense of belonging is uneven across any of these areas, there is lower trust, weaker participation, hidden exclusion, consultation fatigue, fragmented culture and initiatives that struggle to show impact.
This 5-minute audit helps you understand the different dimensions of belonging, and to identify where it is working, where it is vulnerable, and where to focus next.
What this audit gives you?
A clearer view of belonging strengths and gaps
Insight into what’s blocking progress - leadership, systems, lived experience
Practical priorities for deeper review and leadership development
How to do the Belonging Shift Self Audit?
STEP 1: Think about a specific situation (e.g., area of work, project, program, service).
STEP 2: For that situation, answer each of the 7 audit questions honestly based on the scale below.
0 — Not on our radar
1 — We've talked about it
2 — We try, but inconsistently
3 — It's part of how we work
4 — It's visible and accountable
5 — Others learn from us
Score based on what is visible, consistent and experienced by people — not what is intended, assumed or written in strategy documents. Guide to interpreting your scores is at the end of this page.
1. Vision - Is belonging clearly named as an outcome in your work?
To what extent does your program, service, place, strategy, or organisation clearly define belonging as an organisational outcome (for the community) and an outcome for the people doing the work (employees) — beyond broad language about diversity, inclusion or engagement?
Maturity signal: Belonging is named, understood, and used to guide decisions. People are not only present, but they can participate, influence decisions, contribute, and thrive with fairness and equal opportunity.
2. Leadership accountability - Are leaders actively talking about belonging and creating the conditions for belonging?
To what extent do leaders listen deeply to people across difference, and people different from them, and then, based on that, are willing to share power and shift their thinking and actions?
Maturity signal: Belonging is not delegated to one team, one staff member or one community group. Leaders own it as part of their role. Leaders recognise and challenge their own mindset barriers.
3. Community and social cohesion - Do you understand who this work is for and design with their strengths and barriers in mind?
To what extent have you identified the diverse communities, cultures, identities, and lived experiences of people who will receive or experience your work, and designed it with both their strengths and barriers in mind.
Maturity signal: You are not designing for 'the community' as one homogenous group. You understand that people are not only employees, clients or stakeholders — they are part of communities shaped by culture, identity, place and lived experience. You design with their strengths and barriers in mind.
4. Place - Does this place, service or experience actually feel welcoming and safe for everyone irrespective of their background?
To what extent have you considered whether people feel welcome, respected, culturally safe and are able to participate in the physical and digital spaces your work occupies.
Maturity signal: Belonging is experienced in real moments — how people enter, are greeted, move through, speak up and feel seen.
5. Lived Experience - Does lived experience shape the work?
To what extent are people with lived experience involved early enough and meaningfully enough to shape the design, priorities, delivery and evaluation of this work. To what extent is lived experience considered expertise and knolwedge.
Maturity signal: Lived experience is not used as feedback after decisions are made. It influences what gets designed, funded and changed. Difference between information sharing, consultation and co-design is understood.
6. Systems - are your systems helping or blocking belonging?
To what extent have you reviewed the systems and structures (e.g. policies, processes, funding, governance, data, communication, recruitment, partnerships) to assess if they may be creating barriers to belonging?
Maturity signal: The focus shifts beyond events, statements, good intentions and interpersonal analysis — into the systems and structural barriers that shape people's actual experience. So, it asks, if all the people involved in the situation were replaced with a totally new set of people, would the issues and barriers still remain.
7. Outcomes and impact - Can you show what has changed because of this work?
To what extent do you measure whether people feel more welcome, connected, valued, influential and able to contribute — and use that evidence to improve decisions?
Maturity signal: Belonging becomes visible through outcomes, not just activity. You can show what shifted, who benefited and what still needs to change. Evidence is not just numbers — it includes stories, patterns and community voice.
Interpreting your scores
Below are some ways to interpret your scores and next steps:
The belonging deficit model: Scores of 2 or below across the board indicate that belonging is not a priority.
Next step: Your leadership team needs a shared, honest understanding of what belonging actually means and why the current approach isn't reaching it. Start with a belonging shift training session for your leadership team.
The Aspirational Gap: high vision scores (3 and above) and low systems score (2 and below), shows that there is a gap between commitment and embedding change in the system.
Next step: take a custom belonging audit to understand how vision needs to translate into practice, policy and governance.
The Delegation Trap: low leadership accountability score (2 and below) and reasonable scores elsewhere (3 and above) show that we understand belonging but leaders are not accountable for it, they delegate it to others.
Next step: Book a leadership training session or a leadership coaching session.
The Consultation Loop: low lived experience score (2 and below), despite decent community and place understanding (3 and above), shows that we understand who the community is, but don’t design with them in an empowering way.
Next step: undertake custom audit focused on your design and decision-making process will show you exactly where consultation is standing in for co-design.
The Activity Trap: low outcomes and impact score (2 and below) despite mid-range scores (3 and above) in other areas shows that there is a lot happening, but nothing is evidenced.
Next step: undertake a custom audit to help guide development of an outcomes framework that turns activity into evidence.
The Belonging champions: Scores of 4 or above across the board indicate that belonging is a priority. Well done.
Next step: Book a discovery conversation to talk about sustaining this and mentoring it across your sector.
Partner with Belonging Co
Reach out to Belonging Co - if you are looking for a partner who can help you assess what is really happening, brief and engage your leaders on belonging, and design belonging outcomes in your work.