Together4Heat accelerates the decarbonisation of rural areas in the Baltic Sea Region while addressing energy poverty and promoting equitable living conditions. The project empowers small rural municipalities to manage the transition in the heating/cooling (H&C) sector by engaging citizens - particularly home and apartment owners - and co-creating collective, socially inclusive, non-commercial solutions. It focuses on off-grid initiatives where local authorities, NGOs, and citizens collaborate on decentralised approaches beyond heat networks. These include collective investments in decentral H&C by energy communities, joint procurement of equipment such as heat pumps or collective leasing or contracting (including ‘heat as a service’) to keep prices affordable for all. Special attention is given to low income and vulnerable home and apartment owners, fostering inclusive participation pathways. Activities target municipalities or sub-units with up to 5,000 inhabitants, where district heating is not viable. In four pilot communities in Denmark, Germany, Latvia and Poland, local heat teams will build capacity for development and partial implementation of Collective Action Roadmaps for collective H&C solutions. The project supports knowledge transfer through peer learning, online guidance for small rural communities, and national/transnational transfer workshops. It also derives recommendations to optimise policy frameworks for socially inclusive H&C in small rural communities.