Congratulations! We are excited to be partnering with you to help develop your community business further. We will work alongside you to ensure you access the support and people you need to make the change you want. Together, we can Power Up your community business. 

We are the independent trust that strengthens communities through community business. We use our experience to bring partners together to fund, grow and back community business to make places thrive. We are curious and rigorous; we do, test and learn. And we are here to support community business, whatever the challenge.

Our vision: Powerful communities, better places  

By 2025, we want more communities in England to run businesses that give them power to change what really matters to them. We want people to be able to create more resilient places. Places that are better to live in. Places that work for everyone.

Find out more about the change we want to make.

Our mission: Strengthen the community business sector 

We tackle some of society’s biggest challenges at a local level. We focus particularly on the three biggest challenges of our time:  

• Climate change 
• Digital transformation 
• Social inequalities  

Powering Up offers capacity strengthening support over a 12-month period. The programme supports community businesses in England that need resources and help investing in their future. We support community business leaders addressing social and economic disadvantage within their local communities. We also support leaders that are improving equity within their organisations. 

For the first two rounds, the tailored support package for community businesses was worth up to £20,000 in total, and included:

• Paid access to support providers (up to £9,000) who are brokered in to meet the specific needs of your community businesses over a 12-month period
• Professional development and wellbeing support (up to £3,000) such as leadership coaching, peer mentor, and mental health support. This support can be drawn down over the 12-months
• A £8,000 flexible grant to support you as a community business leader, and your team, to engage in the required support of the programme. This could be to cover your time, back fill a post, purchase essential equipment, or cover other expenditure that enables growth of your community business.

Aims

Our ambition is to partner with you as a community business leader as well as your teams. The programme is designed to support you as you develop and grow your organisation.  

Areas of focus 

Powering Up currently supports community businesses in two key areas: 

• Digital growth 
• Climate and sustainability impact

We will also work with you to address issues your community business faces with equity, diversity, and inclusion. 

How we work with you to achieve equity 

Our approach is based on ’equity’ and not ‘equality’. This means that we recognise different groups face different barriers to success, sustainability and participation in our programme.   

An approach based on equity means we recognise “giving everyone the same thing” does not produce equitable results for our community businesses; rather we will look at what barriers, strengths and opportunities your community business faces and work with you to put into place the support you need to reach your goals and ambitions.

We will assist you and your community business to access the resources and support needed to address barriers you may face and strengthen the assets you have. 

Why do you not use the term equality? 

Equality aims to ensure everyone receives the same support, or that there is no discrimination or disadvantage in the support offered. We recognise however that one size does not fit all and that different groups in England require different support to achieve their outcomes.

For example, in the UK everyone enjoys the equal right to education and has access to government-funded primary and secondary education, this is equality in education access. However, children who speak English as a second language, or who have a learning disability can have substantially worse educational outcomes in the UK educational system. Improved outcomes for these children are achieved by understanding their individual learning needs and tailoring an educational package that meets these needs, this is an equitable approach.  

So, instead of ‘equality’ we use the term ‘equity’, which is a better description of the way we work to address unequal social and economic outcomes in our communities.

You have succeeded in your application to the second round of the Powering Up programme. This round has a focus on community businesses seeking digital transformation and climate and sustainability support.

Our offer to you

We provide a tailored support package to help you:

• Create space to identify business needs and draft plans to address them
• Access to specialist skills and support your business may need
• Increase your knowledge and capabilities in climate and sustainability impact, digital and business transformation
• Support to develop and implement practices that support robust wellbeing practices
• Build peer relationships to boost recovery across the sector (By peer relationships we mean working with others who run community businesses and face the same issues and problems as your own community business)
• Address issues of social and economic exclusion faced by marginalised and minoritised communities in England
• Access to flexible funds to bolster your capacity and resources during this programme.

What to expect

Community Business Connectors 

A dedicated Community Business Connector will work with you for the entire 12-month period. They will guide and support whilst you move through the programme and the different sections of support on offer. There are five Community Business Connectors supporting the Powering Up programme. Each connector brings significant experience working with and in the community business sector. Find out more about the team here. 

Their role is to help you access the right support throughout the 12-month programme. First, they will meet with you to understand the needs of you and your community business. Through ongoing conversations that will help identify your business priorities, they will then tailor a support package which meets each of your needs. Community Business Connectors will also be available to help you with problems and issues as they arise over the twelve months of support we offer.

Specialists

Specialists can provide support in relation to your specific needs and your Community Business Connector will help you to find the right specialist to work with. Depending on the programme that you applied for you will work with our leads, to focus on digital transformation or climate action and sustainability.

Climate and sustainability leads

The Climate and Sustainability Leads have a broad range of expertise across all areas of environmental sustainability. As a team they will be working alongside the Community Business Connectors to help you understand the climate and sustainability impacts of your organisation and define and prioritise your support needs. Climate and Sustainability Leads may also work directly with you to advise what support might be most appropriate and help create your briefs to access that support. See more about the climate and sustainability leads.

As the programme develops, we may expand our range of support partners. Your Community Business Connector will keep you informed of any changes to the support providers.

Digital leads

The Digital Leads are experts in the information, communication and technology sector that will support the Community Business Connectors to understand and define the digital and technology needs of the community businesses they support. Digital Leads might join a call or workshop when the Connector feels this would be beneficial to the aim of the conversation/learning. See more about the digital leads.

Support providers

The Powering Up programme is led by Power to Change with the support of partner organisations. We have a wide range of providers, covering climate, digital, business, marketing, finance, coaching and wellbeing support and much more. You can see a list of the current providers here.

If you currently have a good working relationship with a provider, we encourage you to get them to join the framework. Your Community Business Connector can discuss all the available options with you once you have completed your community business review.

Specialist support – how does it work?

On offer is a mix of technical and non-technical support. It includes: 

• Paid access to support providers. This is your development programme. We at Power to Change want you to get the best support possible to enable you and your community business to thrive. That is why we pair you with a Community Business Connector to understand your needs and find the right support provider to help you.  
• Professional development and wellbeing support. We provide professional development coaches to help you develop your personal and business growth strategies. We also partner with peer mentors who understand the pressures and issues facing community businesses. Their expertise is rooted in having all faced similar issues in their own community business.  
• An £8,000 flexible grant. The purpose of this grant is to help financially support you to be able to engage in the Powering Up programme. This grant can be used to cover your time, back fill a post, purchase essential equipment, or cover other expenditure that enables growth of your community business.

Specialist climate and sustainability support will be provided by a team of experts in the environmental field who are experienced in working with community centred organisations and wider communities. They will be able to contribute to building knowledge, skills and capacity in your organisation and through peer learning.

The climate and sustainability impact you wish to address may be primarily internal (the sustainability of your own operations), external (helping your community consider their sustainability) or a combination of both. Equally they may focus on reducing your impacts (mitigation), preparing for the changing climate, ecological and social conditions climate change will bring (adaption) or a combination of both. The support will help you to reflect on your area of focus and develop a plan to ensure your organisation is set up to deliver long term ongoing change.

You know your organisation and community’s needs better than anyone, so the focus of your support will be tailored to each community business and may change over the course of the programme. However, the following stages may be helpful to ensure that emerging climate action is robust and holistic in its approach and delivery.

Specialist digital support will be provided by experts experienced working with social impact and community-centred organisations. Their support will have a high level of skills and capability building, as well as peer learning approach. In practice this means that community businesses will be learning how to approach digital transformation by doing with the guidance and support of the digital specialist.  

From our research with community businesses, we identified priority areas for support. This, together with the insights from the digital transformation programme experts who helped shape the design of this Powering Up programme, have informed the following three support options. Further learning from phase one of the programme might evolve this offer, as we are committed to ensure the community businesses get the greatest value from this programme. 

Conditions that need to be met by community businesses to go straight into embedding a solution.

Evidence of:

• thorough discovery and definition activities 
• thorough user research and testing of wireframes 
• there is a clear brief for support procurement 
• support will be procured through and open process; when working with a known agency/freelancer there needs to be evidence this support was procured through an open process. 

We expect specialists will work 1:1 with community businesses to gain a thorough understanding of interconnected business functions in order to effectively implement the tool.  

The programme portal (known as the award manager portal) is the main way for you and your team to manage your involvement in the programme. It provides an overview of your award and the support activities you have chosen and shows you the remaining funds you have available. You can also look at our approved support providers and submit your evidence of spend for the £8,000 grant.

How to access the portal 

You can access the portal here. The email address associated with your organisation’s profile on the portal is the main contact as given on your original application to the programme unless you have told us otherwise.

You will be asked for your email address and then sent a six-digit code to enter the portal.

Your connector can provide more detail and further resources will be available shortly.

If you need further support

Although we don’t expect anything to go wrong, we wanted to provide you with an alternative contact if you want to raise an issue that you don’t feel you can raise with your community business connector. In this instance, please email the Powering Up Delivery Manager.

Please ensure that someone in your community business has overall ownership and accountability for the Powering Up Programme. If changes are needed during the 12 months, please notify your Community Business Connector as soon as possible.

And finally, remember that this is a two-way process and by working in an open partnership we will achieve the desired results.