Celebrating 10 years backing community business

We know community business works to create thriving places

 

We have seen and evidenced it over the last decade. We also know there is so much more they can do. In 2025, ten years after our founding, we reflected, celebrated, and looked to the future.

With the right conditions, community businesses can help build an economy that works for people and the planet, give communities a greater say in the decisions that affect them, and support people to make meaningful connections within a community they can rely on. The future of business is community business.

The future is community-led

Essay collection

Each month, our guest essayists looked back as well as forward, reflecting on the role of community business in addressing the pressing issues shaping our world. Those essays are now compiled in a single collection.

From the ground up: Community business and Britain’s next decade 

From the ground up: Community business and Britain’s next decade 

For the past decade, Power to Change has seen community business grow steadily into a movement that spans the country. This essay collection advances a vision of Britain’s future where power and resources are in local hands and community business at the heart of facing down the nation’s challenges.
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Read the full collection

Stories

These twelve stories showcase the diversity of community businesses and the innovative work already taking place in communities across the country.

Back on the Map

Back on the Map

Evolving out of the New Deal for Communities in the early 2000s, Back on the Map is a changemaking community business based in Hendon, on the outskirts of Sunderland, which works to make Hendon a place of opportunity to live, work and thrive by creating a better place, a stronger community and a local voice.
Edberts House

Edberts House

On the High Lanes estate in Gateshead, Edberts House is more than just a building—it’s a warm, welcoming space that has been that listening ear since 2009. With a pioneering approach to community-led health and wellbeing, Edberts House is proving that real change starts on your doorstep.
Grimsby

Grimsby

Community businesses are making an impact in Grimsby, creating local employment opportunities, tackling deprivation and restoring pride in the community, while finding new ways to generate income to become self-sustaining.
October Books

October Books

Founded in 1977, October Books is a co-operative, a radical neighbourhood bookshop and community hub in Southampton. The shop provides a mixed retail offering, complemented by a range of spaces available for hire for community-led events and services.
Legacy West Midlands

Legacy West Midlands

Beginning life as a heritage organisation, Legacy West Midlands has become a catalyst to the growth of the social economy in Soho and Handsworth. As well as delivering health, wellbeing, culture, and youth programmes to its community, it now has a hand in connecting local community groups and social entrepreneurs.
West Midlands Combined Authority

West Midlands Combined Authority

West Midlands Combined Authority is committed to tackling inequalities through inclusive growth. To do this, they have set out a bold vision to double the size of the social economy. We've partnered with West Midlands Combined Authority to implement their social economy growth strategy, making the West Midlands a better place to live and work in, for everyone.
North East Combined Authority

North East Combined Authority

The North East Combined Authority is determined to maximise the region’s potential and address deprivation and socio-economic challenges facing their communities. Power to Change is supporting this goal with a partnership to help grow and develop the region’s social economy.
Liverpool City Region Combined Authority

Liverpool City Region Combined Authority

Liverpool City Region is transforming into a place with a diverse and vibrant social economy, circulating profits locally to tackle deprivation head on. Since 2018, Power to Change has partnered with Liverpool City Region to help grow and develop the community business sector, as part of the wider social economy.
Star and Shadow Cinema

Star and Shadow Cinema

As entertainment venues across the country are struggling, Star and Shadow Cinema is offering a vibrant, multi-arts and community-focused programme to the community in Newcastle’s East End. They’re breathing new life into their local area and inspiring and training the next generation of entertainment.
Friends of Stretford Public Hall

Friends of Stretford Public Hall

After saving a cherished Victorian grade II listed ballroom through a community share offer, Friends of Stretford Public Hall have transformed the space into a vibrant community hub. They've now set their sights on helping the community have more say over their town centre's regeneration, including through participation in our Community Improvement District pilot.
Sherford Community Land Trust

Sherford Community Land Trust

Empowering residents in a new build estate to create the community assets and shared spaces they want and need.
Three Seas

Three Seas

Three Seas is helping to tackle the housing crisis in Cornwall by developing old coastguard cottages into affordable long-term rental accommodation for local people.
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Communities have the answers

We worked with Magic Torch Comics CIC on ‘Meteor Strike’, a comic bringing to life how community business can help communities tackle some of the big issues of today and in the future – if only the conditions are enabled for them to do so.

Read how this looked for Commonside. Click the first page below to view the full story:

Community Business Week 2025

From 29 November to 5 December 2025, we celebrated community businesses in all their forms by shining a light on the difference they’re making across the country. We encouraged everyone to discover, visit, or support their local community business during the week, and teamed up with five community businesses to celebrate in person.

Explore Community Business Week 2025

Keep up with the next 10 years

Do you want to work with us to give communities the power to change what matters to them? Let’s talk.

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