What we do
Community-led High Street Innovators
We’re collaborating with a small number of community businesses to test and learn how community-led high street regeneration projects can be a model for communities everywhere.
Testing solutions for community-led high street renewal
Are you working to make a community-led high street project a reality? Power to Change is looking to collaborate with a small number of community businesses that are working on innovative ways to renew their local high streets and town centres.
We want to learn with and from you about how community-led high street regeneration works in practice. What are your ambitions for your community and your local high street? What challenges are you facing in making your vision a reality? Why do you think your community-led approach will create sustainable local regeneration?
We are seeking to collaborate with community businesses that can demonstrate the potential of communities to lead change and take an active role in revitalising their local high street or town centre.
We’re particularly interested in innovators who are working to:
- enable communities to take space on the high street or town centre, whether through meanwhile use, lease or community ownership, or
- enable communities to have a greater say in the governance of their high street or town centre.
Power to Change has long been committed to helping communities take back their high streets, and it’s an exciting opportunity to be a part of our next phase of high streets research and policy development. We are keen to involve community businesses that will actively take part in a learning partnership with Power to Change and other community business innovators. There will be opportunities to visit fellow community businesses and to learn what is working in other community-led high street regeneration projects. And the lessons that emerge will help shape Power to Change’s ongoing policy and advocacy work, helping to shape community-led high streets solutions at the national and regional level.
Applications are now closed
We will announce the selected community businesses in April 2025.
What’s on offer?
Investment between £25,000 – £50,000 to help you implement your idea
Peer networking and learning with other innovators and placemaking experts
Opportunities to engage in national policy and advocacy work
Who can apply?
We are looking to collaborate with community businesses in England which are operating on a high street or in a town centre, or are looking to expand existing operations onto a high street or into a town centre.
You must be able to commit to working actively on community-led solutions to your high street or town centre’s regeneration over 12 months, starting in April 2025. You must also be willing to be part of the Community-Led High Street Innovators learning partnership. This involves meeting (virtually or in person) with Power to Change and other innovators to learn from your experience. There are also opportunities to support Power to Change’s high street policy work and share your own ideas inspired by your work.
In addition to meeting the characteristics of a community business, Power to Change can only invest in organisations which are incorporated, have a charitable purpose and meet a charitable need, and benefit the public.
The details
We are looking to collaborate with a small number of community businesses, between three and seven. Power to Change is able to invest between £25,000 – £50,000 to support you in implementing your ideas.
Investments will be made on a 12-month term as grant funding and can cover revenue and project-based expenditure. For example, the investment could be used to dedicate staff time to develop new partnerships, to implement a project, or for external support, such as specialist advice. Partnerships are welcome where a community business is the lead organisation.
We are particularly interested in ideas to support communities taking space or taking a greater role in the governance of their high street or town centre.
As part of the learning partnership, we will work with you to demonstrate how community-led innovation can tackle the challenges seen on the country’s high streets and in our town centres. Together, we want to develop locally informed solutions for national and regional policy. To support you in this, we are offering peer-to-peer learning, both with other innovators and with our wider network. We are also offering opportunities to engage in advocacy on community-led high streets policy with support from Power to Change. This could include participation in our high streets expert steering group, media training and speaking opportunities, study visits from politicians and civil servants, participation in panel events, and other public engagement opportunities.
Timeline
If you would like to be a Community-Led High Street Innovator, we would love to hear from you between Wednesday 13 November and Friday 20 December. Please check your eligibility and complete an expression of interest, giving us details of your challenge and your plans to take back your high street.
1. If helpful, between 14th November and 19th December email sam.watson@powertochange.org.uk to ask questions about your eligibility and the alignment between you’re your community-led innovation and this opportunity.
2. Check your eligibility and complete an ‘expression of interest’. The information and questions to complete are reproduced below, for your reference, and the EoI form will be open from Wednesday 13 November until midday on Friday 20 December.
3. Power to Change will shortlist applications for investment in January 2025, and will move forward with shortlisted community businesses into a co-design process.
4. The co-design process will take place between January and March 2025, with shortlisted community businesses invited to two development calls with Power to Change to get into the details of the innovation and its implementation. Over this period Power to Change and the shortlisted community businesses will co-design a full proposal for the innovation, in readiness for investment.
5. Power to Change anticipates disbursing funding in April 2025.
How to apply
Applications are now closed.
What to cover in your application
The context
You should include details about which high street or town centre your proposal relates to, the current situation on the high street or in the town centre, and how this has changed over time. Please tell us how your community business currently engages with, or operates on, the high street or town centre, and how this fits in with your other activities.
The challenge
You should include details of which challenge you are facing on your local high street or in your local town centre, how this challenge affects the high street or town centre itself, and how it impacts the community. Please detail how you have engaged with the challenge to date, and which people or organisations you have worked with to understand the issue. If there is an important reason to act now, please tell us why.
About your innovation
You should provide details of the community-led innovation you’re proposing, and what it aims to achieve. Please tell us how you have developed the community-led innovation, and if you’ve worked in partnership to develop the innovation, please include details of which people or organisations have been involved, what their involvement has added to the work, and whether they play an ongoing role.
The opportunities
You should include details of the positive change you anticipate that the implementation of your innovation would bring to the high street or town centre, and to the community. If you anticipate that the delivery of this innovation would unlock further opportunities or funding for the high street or town centre, or for the community, please include information on what this might look like. Please also tell us why you are attracted to working collaboratively alongside Power to Change and other high street innovators as part of this initiative, what would you contribute and what would you hope it could unlock with regard to wider high street or town centre renewal?
Implementation
You should include details of how you would implement your community-led innovation and sketch a brief timeline for the funding period of 12 months. Please detail why you believe your community business is the best organisation to lead on delivery of this innovation, and if you would be working in partnership to deliver the innovation, please detail which people or organisations would be involved, and their role(s). Please include here details of any relevant work you’ve delivered in the past.
Level of investment needed
You should include details of what sum of investment you are requesting, and how you would spend the investment to implement your community-led innovation. If you would commission support as part of your spend, in order to bolster the existing skills or knowledge of your team, please detail the support you’d commission and, if known, who you would commission this work from. Please confirm whether or not this investment would cover the full costs of implementing your community-led innovation, and if further funding is required you should provide details of the funding you have confirmed, and any funding that is yet to be confirmed, including dates for when decisions will be made.
Provide organisational information
Alongside the detail of your community-led high street innovation we require you to submit some organisational information.
Please download a copy of the organisational information we ask you to provide alongside your Expression of Interest.
Next steps
We’re looking forward to hearing your innovative ideas to take back the high street.
Once we have received all responses, Power to Change will use a portfolio approach to shortlist collaborators. We will be seeking to create a small cohort of community businesses with a blend of high street and town centre contexts, across different geographic regions and covering various approaches to community-led innovation.
Considerations will include the nature of the high street or town centre challenge being addressed, the type of innovation to be tested, geographic location including level of deprivation, diversity, equity and inclusion, and potential contribution to peer exchange and the learning partnership.
Once Power to Change has identified the community businesses we would like to invest in and collaborate with, we will invite the shortlisted parties to co-design a full proposal.
We expect this co-design to include two calls with the Power to Change team between January and March 2025. During this, we will work together to shape the detail of your proposal and how the initiative moves forward, and invite any questions about our role alongside our investment.
Power to Change will expect each shortlisted community business to develop a full proposal, refining the details of their idea and its implementation in readiness for investment.
Alongside this work Power to Change will also require each shortlisted community business to submit further organisational information, in order that we can complete due diligence ahead of our investment.
We anticipate finalising full proposals in March 2025 and that shortlisted community businesses will receive their investment by April 2025.