At Power to Change, we are curious and rigorous; we do, test and learn. This means investing in high quality research, evaluation, and insight, and making our data freely available for others to use. Our evidence base shows that community business works to create thriving places when local people take ownership of spaces that matter and deliver services that communities need. We are committed to demonstrating the impact of community businesses, and sharing learning and insight about what support they need in order to thrive.
Previous research conducted by our Research Institute between 2015-2021, including all reports and datasets, is available on theInstitute for Community Studies Repository.
This paper explores community cohesion, empowerment and growth in response to the riots across the UK this summer. The recommendations put communities in the lead, reflecting the importance of places to meet and the need for support from all levels of government.
Our 2023 annual report reviews the ninth year of Power to Change’s operations. It covers the grants we made and our future plans, alongside a financial review of 2023 and our statutory accounts.
This report offers detailed guidance for the Government on how to implement a Community Right to Buy. It is based on almost 10 years of knowledge working with communities and in-depth interviews with community leaders, politicians, civil servants and others.
The Resilient Communities Fund provided emergency support as quickly as possible to community businesses, to support them to implement energy resilience projects to become more resilient to both climate change and the cost-of-living crisis.
This report provides an overview of the finance and funding landscape for community business, outlining the challenges in accessing the right type of finance at the right time, and situating access to finance within the wider policy context.
The Leading the Way programme aimed to increase the skills, confidence, and networks of community enterprise leaders. This report evaluates it's impact, including on their enteprises and communities.
This policy report highlights the support needed from government, local authorities, electricity systems operators, and funders to unlock the potential of Community Energy Businesses (CEBs) in achieving a Net Zero future.
This Community Improvements Districts guidance helps communities imagine new possibilities for high streets, and gives readers the tools they need to make those possibilities a reality.
Empowering Places was a unique five-year programme designed by Power to Change to explore ways in which ‘locally rooted’ anchor organisations, operating in areas of high deprivation, could be supported to catalyse community businesses...
Our 2022 annual report reviews the eighth year of Power to Change’s operations. It covers the grants we made and our future plans, alongside a financial review of 2022 and our statutory accounts.
Community Improvement Districts (CIDs) provide a new approach for community stakeholders to have more say on strategic direction of the high streets alongside local authorities, businesses and other local stakeholders.
This report was written by Clear Impact Consulting and retrospectively evaluates Community Business Crowdmatch, which ran between 2017 and 2022 in partnership with Crowdfunder UK.
Since 2015, Power to Change has made significant investments in research, evaluation, and data analysis to better understand whether community businesses improve places, and, if so, whether we have supported them to do so.
This new Take Back The High Street report by Power to change explores the reasons why high street vacancy rates have increased and set out the policy change needed for community-led regeneration of our high streets.
This report, produced by Spark Insights and Locality, and commissioned by Power to Change, explores the experiences of community businesses and organisations led by or supporting people experiencing marginalisation on the barriers and solutions to accessing funding and support.
