Repository
A curated and searchable collection of community-related research reports, case studies and publications
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…
Young people in community business: Stories of change
Published: 2022
This report showcases the many ways young people came to be and are involved in community businesses across England. It shows that young people are involved in community skate parks, media companies, pubs, energy and many other types of community-led enterprise. Their engagement ranges from senior leadership, founders and co-founders, boar…
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…
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…
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…
Better understanding the financial impact of funding programmes through the ‘Year Zero’ approach
Published: 2022
Through funding programmes such as Trade Up and the Community Business Fund, Power to Change supports community businesses to trade for the benefit of their local community; yet how can we understand the financial impact that Power to Change has had on community businesses? The answer is not straightforward, and programme impact can be difficul…
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…
Evaluation of the Next Generation programme for Community Energy – innovation Year 2
Published: 2022
Power to Change’s Next Generation programme aims to support the development of innovative business models for community energy businesses. This evaluation report from CAG consultants summarises findings from Year 2 of CAG Consultant’s evaluation of the innovation programme. Support and funding from the Next Generation programme …
Nourishing Community Businesses: Beyond Market Development
Published: 2022
This report, written by CRESR at Sheffield Hallam for Power to Change, builds on the themes of an earlier insight report, Food for Thought: Understanding Market Development (Dobson, Macmillan and Wells, 2020), which was prepared in late 2019 and published in February 2020. Since then there have been major changes within Power to Change, the com…
Thematic Paper: Assets & Community Businesses
Published: 2022
Community assets – buildings or land which are used for the social interest or wellbeing of the wider community – can be essential to a community business’ service delivery and financial sustainability, and can contribute to greater community empowerment and pride. Power to Change supported communit…
Empowering Places? Measuring the impact of community businesses at neighbourhood level
Published: 2021
Empowering Places is a programme of place-based investment that aims to demonstrate the role that concentrated clusters of community businesses can play in improving local areas and reducing inequality. To measure the impact of the programme, Power to Change commissioned Kantar in 2020 to conduct six ‘hyperlocal’ extensions of the gove…
The Community Business Market in 2021
Published: 2021
This is the seventh in a series of annual reports published by Power to Change on the state of the community business market. This iteration is the fifth researched and written by CFE Research. It uses survey and interview data to describe a community business market bouncing back financially from the worst of the pandemic, diversifying t…