46 results found

Lessons in community-led housing

Published: 2023

In 2017 Power to Change launched its Homes in Community Hands programme, to support community led housing (CLH). Focusing on five urban areas across England, the programme has helped plan and develop individual housing projects, develop enabler organisations, and capitalise other investment and funding mechanisms. These three reports summarise …

Empowering Places: Impact on the community and wider place

Published: 2022

Empowering Places aims to build more resilient and prosperous communities by building the capacity of local organisations to catalyse and support the growth of new community businesses. It funds locally rooted ‘catalyst’ organisations in six areas of high deprivation. Each catalyst receives up to £1 million (July 2017–December 2022)…

Empowering Places: The impact of the programme on community businesses

Published: 2022

Empowering Places aims to build more resilient and prosperous communities by building the capacity of local organisations to ‘catalyse’ and support the growth of new community businesses. It funds locally rooted ‘catalyst’ organisations in six areas of high deprivation. The evaluation aims to take a realistic approach to understand…

How can funders support early-stage community businesses? Lessons learnt from the Bright Ideas programme

Published: 2022

Power to Change funded the Bright Ideas programme between 2016 and 2021 to support community groups to develop, test and launch their community business ideas. This short evaluation report outlines the impact that the programme had on community groups and early-stage community businesses, and recommends ways in which funders can support them go…

How can funders support established community businesses? Lessons learnt from the Community Business Fund programme

Published: 2022

Power to Change funded the Community Business Fund (CBF) programme between 2016 and 2021 to support existing community businesses to progress towards greater self-sufficiency by increasing their trading income, securing an asset and / or significantly reducing revenue costs. This short evaluation report outlines the impact that the programme ha…

Helping community businesses be more resilient – Lessons learnt from the Trade Up programme

Published: 2022

One of Power to Change’s three strategic priorities for 2021-2025 is ‘more resilient community businesses’. This paper explores whether the Trade Up programme – designed to support the growth of community businesses and being delivered between May 2017 to March 2022 – made community businesses more resilient. Findings show that while diff…

Understanding the financial impact of Power to Change’s grant funding on community businesses

Published: 2022

This research paper emerged from the need to better understand the financial impact generated by Power to Change’s investment in community businesses. In other words, several years after Power to Change’s investment, what has the financial impact of each programme been on its grantees? The paper draws on previous work that identified the va…

Supports and challenges for community businesses: Lessons learnt from Power to Change’s legacy programme evaluations

Published: 2022

This report summarises findings from a desk-based review of 17 publications commissioned by Power to Change, to share findings on the support and challenges that are faced by community businesses. Looking across Power to Change’s grant and support programmes such as the Bright Ideas, Trade Up and Community Business Fund programmes, the report…

Homes in Community Hands: Year Three Evaluation

Published: 2022

In 2017 Power to Change launched its Homes in Community Hands programme, which sought to boost the development of community led housing (CLH). This would focus primarily on five urban areas across the country. The programme has provided funding to help plan and develop affordable housing projects to meet community needs. It has also provided gr…

Understanding impact for community businesses – Challenges and good practices for community businesses and funders

Published: 2022

This paper explores what community businesses can do to understand their social impact, reflecting on the challenges and building on some of the good practices identified through three Power to Change-funded programmes (Bright Ideas, Trade Up and the Community Business Fund). This is presented following the three main elements that community bu…

Evaluation of Keighley Community Health

Published: 2022

GiveBradford and Power to Change have come together with the aim of creating a community led health offer in Keighley, a town in Bradford, the Keighley Community Health (KCH) grants programme. This has aimed to improve health outcomes for people in Keighley by supporting both community groups and community businesses to engage with social presc…

How to enable Community-Led Housing: Learning Brief 1 – Enabling and catalysing community-led housing

Published: 2021

As part of the ongoing evaluation of Power to Change’s Homes in Community Hands programme, this learning brief shares key insights on how to enable community-led housing. It draws on evidence from five enabler hubs funded through the programme in 2020-21, revealing how hubs are building an environment in which community-led can grow. This bri…

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