Celebrating your community business.

As a Power to Change grantee, you are now part of a network of community businesses across England. Together, we want to build awareness and understanding of what community business can offer.

This guide shows you how to use your beneficiary logo correctly, how to acknowledge your award publicly and how to refer to Power to Change in your communications. We are grateful for our support from the National Lottery Community Fund and it’s important they are included in our identity too.

Once you’ve finished the paperwork, you’re ready to publicise your award. Whether it’s a grant or your participation on a certain programme, we encourage you to share the news widely on your website or social media, in your networks, and with local media. Please use this guide to help you when sharing this news.

Helpful definitions

We know some terms can be confusing. These are the definitions we use, and we encourage you to use them as well.

Who is Power to Change?

“Power to Change is the independent trust that strengthens communities through community business.”

Please describe us, using the description above, on your website or other communications. For press releases, see our section on ‘Notes to the Editors’.

Please refer to us as ‘Power to Change’ not ‘the Power to Change’ unless there is another word attached, for example: ‘the Power to Change grant’ or ‘the Power to Change team’.

What is a community business?

Whilst you will find lots of descriptions and criteria around community business on our website, particularly related to the grant application process, when it comes to talking about community business to the public, we like to keep it as simple as possible.

‘From pubs to libraries; shops to bakeries; swimming pools to solar farms, community businesses are locally rooted, community-led and trade for community benefit to make life better for local people. There are currently 11,000 community businesses across England with combined assets of £870m, employing more than 37,000 people.’

Although it’s important, a community business is not a proper noun so keep it as ‘community business’, not ‘Community Business’, whatever the context.

Grant or programme specific language

When referring to your Power to Change grant or programme, it’s important to follow the guides provided to you so that you refer to it correctly. This should have been shared with you by the Power to Change programme lead.

Sometimes we also work with partners, and so it may be important to also mention them when talking about your grant or programme participation. This guidance should be provided to you in addition to the guidance in this document.

If you have any questions about how to talk about your specific grant or programme, please reach out to: comms@powertochange.org.uk.

• Power to Change logo
• National Lottery Community Fund beneficiary logo

The whole logo therefore shows both the source of your funding (Power to Change) and how it was raised (through the National Lottery Community Fund).

Displaying our these logos are a great way to advertise your grant and our support of you. They can be used on your website or any promotional materials related to your grant, as well as:

• Adverts
• Banners
• Events
• Info boards
• Leaflets/flyers
• Newsletters
• Posters
• Presentations
• Press releases
• Site boards
• Stationery
• Social media
• Vehicles

Logos for grantees

Whenever possible, please use our ‘supported by’ version:

We encourage you to talk about and share your Power to Change award, particularly with local media. Please use one of our press release templates to get started.

In the template, you’ll see our ‘Notes to editors’ sections. They don’t form part of the main text but are included after the contact details and provide helpful background information. As well as referring to Power to Change, you must also include the ‘Notes to Editors’ description of the National Lottery Community Fund. We’ve also included the here: 

Social media is a great way to share your successes and let people in your community know your news. You can also use it to share your news with us!

We love to see posts on social media sharing the news of your grant or participation in a Power to Change programme. Feel free to post the news once you’ve been given the go ahead to talk about it. Just be sure to tag us, and also share more information about the grant or programme, like in the example post below:

Following Power to Change

Following Power to Change on social media is an easy way to connect with us and keep us up to date on your grant or programme. For channels with a handle, you can find us @peoplesbiz.

Feel free to tag us on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram or TikTok when you post. You can also use those channels to contact us. When you tag us, we’re also more easily able to share your posts and amplify your content.

To get started, we recommend you follow us on all our social media channels:

Secure press coverage? Let us know!

We love to hear about any local coverage you secure! Please send them along to us at press@powertochange.org.uk or tag us on social media.

Tell us your story

We promote the great work done by community businesses across England by sharing inspiring community business stories like yours that can be picked up and amplified by the media and by organisations that are involved in our cause.

If you have a great story to tell then please let us know. It could be about your community business in general; it could be about a member of the team or volunteer; or just a funny anecdote that brings to life what you are about. We are interested in all your stories, big and small. These may be newsworthy enough for local and national press, radio and even TV! We’ll help you spot great media opportunities to promote your business.

We also love to highlight stories on our website in the form of case studies. If you have a story worth shouting about, get in touch.

Sign up for our newsletter

The best way to keep up to date with us is to sign up for our newsletter. It’s full of funding and networking opportunities, and updates on our programmes.

The majority of our newsletter subscribers are community businesses like you. If you have any opportunities that might be of interest to other community business, email someone in our team to see if it can be included in our next newsletter. You can reach us at comms@powertochange.org.uk.

And let us know if you are not the right person in your organisation for communications and marketing so we can keep our contact database up to date.