The city council created the communities of identity (COI) program in a bid to meet the needs of the growing refugee population. Belong, the Refugee Forum and Polish Success were three key members of the organisation that united in this initiative, in addition to 16 other member groups. In the first meetings the key members identified a problem: that the African community lacked a voice, and was struggling to be heard and have its needs met. The charity Belong, was asked to provide support for African Migrant-led Organisations, to empower them, to help build their capacity and provide services. The legacy of this initiative by Belong was the linking up of key members within local African community organisations to form a consortium, in order to respond to the needs of and provide services to African-migrant led community organisations. Previously, African community organisations did not work together and their collective voice could not be heard. There were a few attempts to get a Nottingham African Consortium off the ground that were unsuccessful. Since then, NAC has been born from the ashes of these previous attempts, as a stronger organisation, better informed about potential pitfalls and weakness and ready to demonstrate that ‘united we stand and divided we fall’.