Who we work with

Community businesses

We back community business from the ground up.

Community businesses are helping communities across England to build stronger local economies and better places to live. 

With the right conditions, community businesses can thrive. But they face the same challenges as other businesses, with growing demand and less funding support.  

We’re here to back community business from the ground up.  

What is a community business?

How we’re backing your community business

Working in partnership

We’re bringing partners together to fund and develop projects that demonstrate what works for community business. 

Our partners

Demonstrating what works

Help us test and learn what works for community business. Get involved in our current and upcoming opportunities for community businesses. 

Our projects

Resources for you

Through our evidence and our work with partners, you can access a variety of resources to help your community business.

Resources for community business

Shaping the conditions that affect your business

We use our experience to bring partners together to do, test and learn what works. We use this activity to inform the policy, practice and behaviour of those that have an impact on community business – policymakers at all levels, funders, social investors and mainstream financial institutions. 

We invest in research and evidence and share it openly so that all communities can learn what works (and what didn’t).  

Explore evidence and ideas

Get inspired

There’s a growing network of 11,000 inspirational and energetic community businesses up and down the country.  

No matter your size, function or location, there’ll be other community businesses who have faced the same challenges. 

Read their stories and learn more about community businesses.

Read our community business stories

News and views

Unlocking doors on the civic high street: barriers to space and how to fix them

Unlocking doors on the civic high street: barriers to space and how to fix them

Our thinking
A thriving civic high street brings people together and supports a vibrant local economy. Communities are already showing what’s possible, but access to space remains a major barrier. By learning alongside community businesses seeking to unlock high street premises, we’ve identified what needs to change to bring a lively, inclusive civic high street to life.
Pride in place means councils sharing control

Pride in place means councils sharing control

Our thinking
One of our five community-led high street innovators – The Arcade Group – is working in Dewsbury to bring a Victorian shopping arcade back to life, and into community ownership. Development Director, Chris Hill, reflects on what community-led regeneration looks like in practice, and why sharing power locally between councils, community businesses and wider high street stakeholders is essential to make the most of Pride in Place.
Making the civic high street a reality

Making the civic high street a reality

Our thinking
What if the future of the high street lies not in retail alone but in community ownership, civic participation, and long-term local stewardship? Drawing on a year of learning from our community-led high street innovators programme, Practice and Innovation Manager Kate McKenzie explores how communities across the country are creating a new model of high street renewal – and sets out six recommendations for government to help make the civic high street a reality.
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