Repository
A curated and searchable collection of community-related research reports, case studies and publications
The impacts of social infrastructure investment
Published: 2021
Social infrastructure can play an important role in supporting the levelling-up agenda in local areas. It creates institutions and physical spaces that foster personal relationships, civic engagement and social networks, leading to more cohesive and healthier societies.
Frontier Economics was commissioned by Local Trust to bring together exist…
The role of volunteers in community businesses
Published: 2021
This study examined the structure and role of voluntary labour for community businesses. Four chapters discuss the profile and working patterns of volunteers, how volunteers are recruited and employed, how volunteers’ skills are utilised, factors covering their training and professional development and the wider motivations to volunteer.
Windmill Hill City Farm
Published: 2021
Windmill Hill City Farm was founded more than 40 years ago as the first city farm outside London. It aims to promote environmental education and addresses disadvantage by providing a green, recreational space in the heart of Bristol. The organisation has grown over time and now provides a children’s nursery, wellbeing- related activities with…
‘Good work’ and community business: Identifying pathways to good practice during Covid-19 and beyond
Published: 2021
This report examines what good work means in challenging times, with a focus on how community businesses are able to provide work which is fair, decent and rewarding within diverse and often challenging operational contexts. The research involved a review and further analysis of existing data sources, in-depth interviews with employees, vo…
Bright Ideas, Trade Up, and Community Business Fund: Year 2 Evaluation Report
Published: 2021
This report outlines evaluation findings from Renaisi’s evaluation of Power to Change’s Bright Ideas and Trade Up programmes, and its Community Business Fund. Each of these is different from the others and specifically targets different stages and support needs in the community business life cycle. However, they were all designed to supp…
Discomfort, Dissatisfaction & Disconnect: Exploring local economic perceptions through peer research
Published: 2021
This report by the Institute for Community Studies explores local economies from the perspectives of local communities through over fifty in-depth interviews undertaken using peer research, giving a platform to these all-too-often forgotten voices. The authors explore the priorities for transition and transformation in local economies thro…
Helping ensure survival: Digitally enhanced advanced services in community businesses
Published: 2021
This research explores how community businesses rapidly adapted to deliver important community services through digitalised means in light of the pandemic.
The research was funded by Power to Change and Digitally Enhanced Advanced Services (DEAS) and carried out by researchers from the University of the West of England. The researchers use dig…
Rapid research COVID-19 Briefing #12: Community responses to COVID-19 – Potential and limits of community power in a pandemic
Published: 2021
New concepts of community power have risen up the policy agenda during COVID-19. Communities have widely been seen as integral to meeting local needs and as having the capacity to respond rapidly to the pandemic. The idea of community power is often assumed, in policy terms, to be a universally beneficial force. However, this fails to address i…
Evaluation of Bright Ideas, Trade Up and the Community Business Fund: Impact on people and place learning paper
Published: 2021
This report builds on Renaisi’s interim evaluation report of Power to Change’s Bright Ideas and Trade Up programmes, and its Community Business Fund, as well as contributing additional evidence to existing research around the impact of community businesses on people and place.
Amongst other things, it finds that:
Communi…
Power in Big Local partnerships
Published: 2021
This report is about the practice of decision making in a resident-led, place-based programme. It explores the operation of power within decision making, how decisions are made, by and with whom and in what contexts.
It considers how particular ideas gather appeal, how some voices are heard more than others, and how beliefs in ‘the right way…
Rapid research COVID-19 Briefing #11: Community responses to COVID 19 – Power and communities
Published: 2021
Community spirit has flourished and community power has been realised during the pandemic. But as thinking turns to recovery and ‘building back better’, it is timely to think critically about how power operates within and between communities, and to consider what this might mean for its potential for transformation. In this briefing we look…
Community business: The power on your doorstep – Executive Summary – Power to Change 2020 Impact Report
Published: 2021
This is the executive summary of Power to Change’s second impact report.