Resources for Community Business

• Design Hops – A free workshop to help organisations redesign services for digital access.
• Digital Candle – free 1 hour of expert digital advice for mission driven organisations.
• Catalyst support library – 100+ free resources on a range of topics, from digital leadership, strategy, change management, creating and running digital services, working digitally.
• Service Recipes – Practical guides to help civil society organisations learn from one another’s services.

• TechSoup – learn from experts that have deep experience with transformative technology solutions and skills.
• Tech for Good Network – A community of organisers across the UK and Ireland supporting each other to fuel the tech for good movement. To find a group close to you, search their network.

• Charity Digital – Ten SEO tips to improve search engine visibility.
• Platypus Digital – Writing for the Web workshop.
• Control R charity digital training – Free charity digital training course in Google Analytics, Facebook ads and more.
• Catalyst Resource – How digital marketing can help you reach your audience – How can charities continue to help existing audiences understand the services they offer? Or even help new audiences understand their services using digital channels? That’s where digital marketing comes in.

• OneDigital – resources for specific types of learners: older learners; young learners; learners with physical disabilities; learners with mental health issues; learners with learning disabilities; learners whose first language is not English; and financial disadvantaged learners.
• Learn My Way – offers free online courses to help beginners (esp. people with learning disabilities, low income families, and older people) learn the basics and develop digital skills.
• This document signposts to digital resources and tools to help those who are less familiar with tech. This includes links to guides on using a webcam, Skype tutorials and video calling.
• BT’s Skills for Tomorrow – offers a range of courses including basic digital functions such as using email.
• The Basics of Digital Accessibility – this blog post explores the importance of accessibility in web and other digital communications as it relates to an organisation’s ability to serve its community.
• Web accessibility checker – This tool checks single HTML pages for conformance with accessibility standards to ensure the content can be accessed by everyone.

• Strengthening cybersecurity – YouTube video.

• Data Kind’s Office Hours – Conversations with experts in data and mission driven organisations.
• ‘How to measure social value in Google Analytics’ – Blog by Richard Edwards about using Google Analytics to measure social value.
• ‘The why, how, and what of impact measurement’ – Blog by Dr Lucy Maynard on impact measurement.
• Data Collective – A community that fosters connections around data challenges, to share good practice, and to help organisations to share their data with other organisations, should they want to paint a fuller picture. Members have access to peer support through a mailing list and slack channel, group workshops, and direct technical support.

• A free, simple CRM in Airtable – reuse and amend to get started.

Social investment is the use of repayable finance to help an organisation achieve a social purpose. Charities and social enterprises can use repayable finance to help them increase their impact on society, for example by growing their business, providing working capital for contract delivery, or buying assets. 

There are various social investors out there, who specialise in providing support for certain sectors, communities or causes. The support they provide can be on different terms and come at a varying cost to you as a community business. Good Finance is a good place to start if you’re considering social investment.  

• Community shares are a means for community businesses to raise finance from their local community. It is a user-friendly name for withdrawable, non-transferable share capital: a form of equity uniquely available to co-operative and community benefit societies. Your community is able to invest in your organisation, whilst eventually getting their money back (often with interest on top). Watch Cooperative UK’s helpful video on community shares.

• See our Community Shares Booster programme

• Farming For Future – they provide support to transform the current industrial food system into a regenerative and sustainable one.

• Landworkers’ Alliance – a union of farmers, growers, foresters, and land-based workers in the UK. 

• Plunkett Foundation – supports rural communities in the UK to establish and run community-owned businesses.

See the Government’s climate and net zero resources for small and medium-sized enterprises:

• One-stop-shop to help businesses save money and go green.
• UK Business Climate Hub – find advice on energy saving and net zero for SMEs, including free carbon footprinting online tools. 
• Net zero business sector roadmap guidelines -these roadmap templates are available on the Climate Hub. 

Make connections with your Local Voluntary Community Social Enterprise (VCSE) Infrastructure organisations. They can provide local information and advice, and networking, support and training opportunities.  It’s always worth searching your local area to see if there are any specific trusts or foundations that serve the community you operate in. Your local authority may also often have funding programmes available for local organisations. 

• Community-led Homes – a useful starting point for community-led housing initiatives. You can find and contact your local Community Housing Hub.
• National support providers:
  • UK Co-Housing – promotes co-housing communities in the UK.
  • Confederation of Co-operative Housing – supports co-operative housing groups.
  • National CLT Network – advocates for Community Land Trusts across the UK.
  • Locality – support for community-led housing projects.