Community Shares Roundtable Reflections

The roundtable was a fantastic event, bringing together community shares practitioners, funders, leaders from community benefit societies and other stakeholders. 

The value of having so many people in one room who are so deeply invested in the topic was evident and a lot richer than ‘just another Zoom call’. Indeed, it was difficult to contain conversations at times which went on after the finish time! 

The day was more pertinent given Government announced the Dormant Assets strategy the same week, including a consultation on how to use £87.5m earmarked for social investment it was a timely session.

We identified a number of factors that have helped the communities to raise capital including:

• Early and ongoing access to technical input from practitioners
• Opportunities to link up with peers who have trodden a similar path
• The value of flexible development grants to prepare share offers

A number of internal challenges and solutions for the successful development of typical share offer were discussed, including:

• Finding the right advice
• Time, money and expertise to develop offers
• Early marketing of the offer to reach the audience
• Managing group dynamics and governance
• Flexibility to adjust to changing circumstances and timescales
• Engaging members, the next generation of investors and maintaining board energy as societies transition from fundraising to delivery

What stood out was the continued appetite and energy in communities to drive positive changes themselves through collaboration and co-operation. However, participants flagged more macro-level challenges that can push against this energy, such as:

• The stop-start nature of funding programmes, including large capital funds like the Community Ownership Fund and competition for limited funds from match equity investment through Booster
• Nation-level variations in support available – for example there is no Booster Fund available outside of England
• Navigating the current economic environment
• Piecing together other finance
• A lack of upfront fast capital to compete with private sector buyers of assets
• End of schemes like Social Investment Tax Relief and limitations on current tax incentives

Despite this there was a lot of positivity around future opportunities including:

• A more powerful Community Right to Buy to give communities more time to buy assets
• The potential for more community energy and decarbonisation investments in communities, and other sectors like health, technology, social clubs and transforming disused high street spaces
• Attracting a new generation of aligned investors and activists and engaging with more disadvantaged and minoritised audiences
• Being the exciting, tangible and visual local presence of the government’s ambition to double the size of the co-operative economy, albeit with the need for some future investment 

We will continue to advocate for ongoing and increased support and investment for communities using this unique form of capital raised. 

Take part in the Community Shares Standards Review

We also launched our Community Shares Standard Mark review and consultation. After ten years of the Standards Mark, and over 400 standard marks awarded, it is a good time to reflect on how this should work in due course to protect this special form of (unregulated) community investment that is Community Shares.