Collective hope differs from individual hope in an important way: it depends less on any one person's belief and more on a shared sense, across a group, that coordinated action can actually change an outcome. A community can hold onto hope even when individual members privately feel uncertain, simply by trusting the group's momentum.
This kind of hope tends to be sparked by visible, achievable first steps rather than grand promises. A working group, a small pooled fund, or an early sign of progress gives a community something concrete to point to, which does far more to sustain collective effort than an abstract appeal to optimism ever could.
Once it takes hold, collective hope becomes somewhat self-reinforcing: people show up because others are showing up, and that visible participation becomes evidence, to everyone watching, that the effort is worth continuing, which is often exactly the momentum a difficult, long-term project needs to survive its hardest stretch.