Community Asset Development Finance Initiative

In towns and neighbourhoods across the country, people are taking ownership of the places that matter to them – the old baths, the shuttered pub, the empty shop on the high street, workspaces, homes, and local energy projects. These are run by people with the entrepreneurial drive to make them work commercially and the commitment to hold them for the long term, for the benefit of the place they are in. This group is called community asset developers (CADs), and they are already proving this model works and generates commercial and social returns.

And yet, the finance market isn’t built for community asset development. Available capital is often too short-term, too expensive or too inflexible for the long-term work of acquiring, developing and stewarding community assets.

At the same time, investors and finance providers do not consistently understand the impact, business models or financing needs of CADs. This makes it difficult to identify where existing financial products work, where gaps remain, and what kinds of investment approaches are needed.

Learning from across the sector is also rarely captured in ways that can influence investor behaviour, product design or policy. As a result, valuable experience remains fragmented, limiting opportunities to develop a stronger and more effective market for community asset development.

Working in partnership

Across the country, CADs are transforming neighbourhoods through community ownership. Yet too often their ambitions are constrained by a finance system that was not designed for community-led development.

That’s why we’re bringing together CADs, funders, investors, researchers and policymakers to:

• Build a clearer understanding of the sector’s financing needs and opportunities.
• Develop tools, evidence and investment approaches that can increase investment readiness and strengthen engagement between communities and investors.
• Work with funders, lenders and investors to identify how finance can better support community-led development.
• Generate evidence that informs policy, shapes investment practice and supports innovation in financial products.
• Build momentum for a financial system that supports long-term community stewardship and neighbourhood renewal.

The Community Asset Development Finance Initiative (CADFI) is delivered by Power to Change in partnership with the Mycelial Network and the community asset developers we work alongside. CADs bring the hard-won experience of financing and stewarding real assets. We bring research, convening and finance expertise. Together, we’re combining expertise in community business, community asset development, systems learning and finance to build stronger evidence and practical solutions for the sector.

By working collectively, we are helping to get the finance in place to support CADs. Together, we can help communities take greater control of the assets and places that matter to them, creating lasting social and economic value.

Join us

If you’re a community asset developer

We want to hear from CADs across the country about the finance you need and the barriers you’re facing, whatever stage of development you’re in.

If you’re a funder, lender or investor

We’re looking for finance providers willing to explore what would need to change — in terms, tenure, security or risk appetite — for capital to reach community asset developers. That might mean joining a workshop, telling us what your investment committee would need to see, or testing a proposition with us.

If you support community-led regeneration

We’re keen to connect with organisations that share our ambition for community-led regeneration. Whether you bring research, policy, technical expertise or connections to communities, we welcome opportunities to share learning, strengthen the evidence base and help create the conditions for community asset development to thrive.

Interested in partnering with us or hearing more about this initiative? Please reach out to our programme lead Dan Woolley.