Repository: evaluation
51 results found
Five years of Empowering Places: Evaluation report
Published: 2023
Empowering Places was designed by Power to Change as an experiment to explore what happens when local anchor organisations are supported to catalyse community businesses in deprived communities in England.
This evaluation report is the final in a series of six reports and several short
ethnographic films. The interim reports took a formative a…
Lessons in community-led housing
Published: 2023
In 2017 Power to Change launched its Homes in Community Hands programme, to support community led housing (CLH). Focusing on five urban areas across England, the programme has helped plan and develop individual housing projects, develop enabler organisations, and capitalise other investment and funding mechanisms. These three reports summarise …
Empowering Places: Impact on the community and wider place
Published: 2022
Empowering Places aims to build more resilient and prosperous communities by building the capacity of local organisations to catalyse and support the growth of new community businesses. It funds locally rooted ‘catalyst’ organisations in six areas of high deprivation. Each catalyst receives up to £1 million (July 2017–December 2022)…
Reaching Further: Lessons for Funder Practice
Published: 2022
This report sets out eight lessons in funder practice from the work of Lloyds Bank Foundation for England and Wales from 2018 to 2022. During the five years of their strategy Reaching Further, the collision of unprecedented social, health and economic crises brought both the strength and fragility of civil society into sharp focus – funders and…
Nourishing Community Businesses: Beyond Market Development
Published: 2022
This report, written by CRESR at Sheffield Hallam for Power to Change, builds on the themes of an earlier insight report, Food for Thought: Understanding Market Development (Dobson, Macmillan and Wells, 2020), which was prepared in late 2019 and published in February 2020. Since then there have been major changes within Power to Change, the com…
Evaluation of the Next Generation programme for Community Energy – innovation Year 2
Published: 2022
Power to Change’s Next Generation programme aims to support the development of innovative business models for community energy businesses. This evaluation report from CAG consultants summarises findings from Year 2 of CAG Consultant’s evaluation of the innovation programme. Support and funding from the Next Generation programme …
Empowering Places: The impact of the programme on community businesses
Published: 2022
Empowering Places aims to build more resilient and prosperous communities by building the capacity of local organisations to ‘catalyse’ and support the growth of new community businesses. It funds locally rooted ‘catalyst’ organisations in six areas of high deprivation. The evaluation aims to take a realistic approach to understand…
Better understanding the financial impact of funding programmes through the ‘Year Zero’ approach
Published: 2022
Through funding programmes such as Trade Up and the Community Business Fund, Power to Change supports community businesses to trade for the benefit of their local community; yet how can we understand the financial impact that Power to Change has had on community businesses? The answer is not straightforward, and programme impact can be difficul…
How can funders support established community businesses? Lessons learnt from the Community Business Fund programme
Published: 2022
Power to Change funded the Community Business Fund (CBF) programme between 2016 and 2021 to support existing community businesses to progress towards greater self-sufficiency by increasing their trading income, securing an asset and / or significantly reducing revenue costs. This short evaluation report outlines the impact that the programme ha…
Supports and challenges for community businesses: Lessons learnt from Power to Change’s legacy programme evaluations
Published: 2022
This report summarises findings from a desk-based review of 17 publications commissioned by Power to Change, to share findings on the support and challenges that are faced by community businesses. Looking across Power to Change’s grant and support programmes such as the Bright Ideas, Trade Up and Community Business Fund programmes, the report…
Homes in Community Hands: Year Three Evaluation
Published: 2022
In 2017 Power to Change launched its Homes in Community Hands programme, which sought to boost the development of community led housing (CLH). This would focus primarily on five urban areas across the country. The programme has provided funding to help plan and develop affordable housing projects to meet community needs. It has also provided gr…
Understanding the financial impact of Power to Change’s grant funding on community businesses
Published: 2022
This research paper emerged from the need to better understand the financial impact generated by Power to Change’s investment in community businesses. In other words, several years after Power to Change’s investment, what has the financial impact of each programme been on its grantees? The paper draws on previous work that identified the va…