Booster Fund full application – grant funding

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You have been invited to complete the Booster Fund full application for grant funding.

Please read the Booster Fund application guidance, which includes a preview of the application questions. We encourage you to prepare the answers to the questions in advance.

If you need to save your application at any stage, please follow the 'save my progress and resume later' instructions. Please note, the link to resume your application will be sent to the email address you enter into this application form. If you do not receive the link, please first check your spam/junk folder and then contact [email protected]

Booster Full Application - Grant

Save and Resume Guidance

To prevent any potential issues with the 'Save & Resume' function, please ensure that you enter data into the form before saving it. If you enter your login details before adding any data, there is a risk of losing your progress, and we may not be able to recover the information you have added. Saving periodically as you fill out the form helps ensure your information is properly retained.

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Notice - please read


It looks like you may have already begun completing this form.

To resume a previously saved application, go here: https://www.uk.coop/support-your-co-op/community-shares/support/booster-fund/apply/grant?tfa_next=%2Fforms%2Fresume%2F5029530
Declaration
Any information you enter on this website will not be given to anyone else other than the project partners – Locality, the Plunkett Foundation, Co-operative and Community Finance and Community Shares ICOF As well as our funders Power to Change, Access Foundation and the Architectural Heritage Fund and our contracted assessment panel members, governed by our Booster Panel Terms of Reference. Beyond this, we will not share it unless we can't withhold it without breaking the law. We may use some of the data you give us for research purposes to help inform our research work but only as anonymised statistical information.

You can read our privacy policy which explains how data will be stored and used. You can find it via this link.
Who is applying
Please update the primary contact details for your Booster application if they have changed since completing the Expression of Interest form.

By primary contact, we mean the main person we can contact about your community business and this application. 

We need this contact name to keep you informed of progress, and if you successfully pass this application stage we may need to contact you to request additional information for the detailed assessment. 




Your organisation
Legal form

This is how your organisation is currently set up, for example, a Community Benefit Society.


Please provide the date your organisation was registered in its current form.

Please provide the date your organisation was registered in its current form.

If your organisation is not registered yet, please give us the date you originally set your community business up.
What makes your organisation a community business?
Please ensure you have read the relevant section of the guidance before completing this section.
In your Expression of Interest, you said that your organisation meets or is working towards the following community business values: 
  • Rooted in the community 
  • Accountable to the local community 
  • Trade for the benefit of the community 
  • Broad community benefit 
Rooted in the community
A business started by local people that will benefit the community around it.

Community businesses are usually built around the strengths and assets of a place and address the needs of the community of that place. A majority of your staff, volunteers and other stakeholders should be drawn from this area and reflect its diversity.   

When answering this, think about whether the following statements are true about your community business: 
  • Our business exists to meet a local need (tell us what that is and how you meet it) 
  • Our business is defined by its link to a local area (explain why this is) 
  • Our business exists to meet the needs of marginalised people facing particular challenges (explain what the challenge is and how it is being met)     
Accountable to the local community
The local community has a genuine say in how the business is run.

Ways you could demonstrate accountability to the local community include having open membership, regularly consulting with local people about your activities and plans or involving local people through a community share issue.  You may want to include information about how you involve the local community in decisions about how the community business operates. Or if you have local board members, volunteers and staff.

When answering this question think about how true the following statements are for your community business: 
  • Our business was started by members of the local community 
  • Our business is led by members of the local community
Trade for the benefit of the community
Community businesses have a clear trading model and sell services and products in and around their local area. Community businesses create benefits for the local community with their profits and through the way the business is run.

All or part of your income will come from community activities such as delivering a service for vulnerable people, running community transport, hiring out your space for community activities, providing housing or selling the produce you grow. 

If you generate a profit/surplus from trading activity, what is this used for?
Broad community impact
Community businesses engage with a variety of different groups in their community and address different community needs. They may have a specific focus on a disadvantaged group, or support the local community more widely.

You need to describe how your community business gives local people real, ongoing decision making power to shape how your organisation is run and what it does. This can happen in many ways (for example membership structure, ownership, broad range of local trustees,) but you must be able to show evidence of regular community influence in decision making.  
You may run events, activities, or services to meet community needs. Broad community impact is about being open to a range of members of your local community and having multiple impacts. 

Tell us how your organisation is inclusive and gives opportunities for people with different abilities and backgrounds to get involved.
What are you raising money for?
Your project

Please tell us more about the project or business that you are seeking to fund through a community share issue. What makes it special? Why should we want to fund it? How does it our aims and priorities? What particular challenges will your project tackle in the area where you are working?  How will our investment be spent - what activities will it support?
Project impact
The Booster Fund wants to support projects that have high levels of community impact in a few key areas.  Please select up to two options from the list

Hold down the Ctrl key to make more than one selection.

Charitable purpose
In your Expression of Interest form, you identified one or more charitable purposes that your project will meet. 

Your community business does not have to be a charity to be funded by the Booster Fund. But we do need to know that our funding will further charitable purposes or achieve charitable outcomes for the benefit of the public.
Who are the people you are trying to help?
Who are the main beneficiary groups of your project, that is, who your community is primarily trying to help through this project?


Please select any other beneficiaries from the secondary beneficiaries list that your project also targets.
 

Please describe briefly the extent to which minoritised ethnicities and young people form part of your community of benefit.  Please tell us how you reach out to them and how you support them through your work.

By minoritised ethnicities we mean individuals and minority groups who have been minoritised in a UK context through the political and social discrimination and barriers that they face. 

By young people we mean people 35 years and under.
Your grant funding needs
We expect to award development grants or business development support of between £2,000 and £10,000, averaging around £5,000.  

This grant funding is to help you get ready for investment and to finalise your community share offer. This may include further work on your business plan, community engagement work, governance structure and legal registration, the share offer document and the promotional campaign. 

The grant application is split into two parts: 

1) Getting investment ready - Expert input to help develop your business plan, community engagement work, governance structure, legal registration, and the share offer document

2) Launching the offer - Applying for the Community Shares Standard Mark and costs associated with promoting the live offer

If you want to apply for just Part 1 or Part 2, simply fill in the relevant section and leave the other section blank.  It is up to you how you split your total grant request between the two sections.

We expected grants awards to average £5,000 (minimum £2,000, maximum £10,000).
What grant funding are you applying for?

Getting Investment Ready

Getting Investment Ready - Grant item  
Getting Investment Ready
For all the items you have ticked, please explain:

e.g. writing the offer document

e.g. external consultant

  i.e. in the first week of March 2018 

Maximum 255 characters
i.e. 1200

e.g. Four days work at £300 per day
Launching the offer  
Launching the Offer
Please now complete any items associated with launching the offer such as applying for the Community Shares Standard Mark.

You will be able to include additional items once you complete this item.

  e.g. producing a promotional video for the share offer

  e.g. creative agency

  i.e. in the first week of March 2018

   i.e. £1200

    e.g. Four days work at £300 per day
Total Grant Items 



Value must not exceed £10,000
Your Share Offer
Your share offer plans
Even if you are only seeking a grant at this time, it would be helpful for us to have a bit more information about your share offer plans

This will help us confirm how best we may be able to support you. We may be able offer additional business development support to early stage offers. 

  • The purpose of a pioneer offer is to raise share capital for a new society that will be spent on getting the enterprise investment ready. 
  • Time-bound offers are offers that seek to raise a target amount of capital for a specific investment-ready project within a specified timescale.
  • Open offers are integral to the capital flow of established societies, enabling people to join or terminate membership, and as members, to invest or withdraw share capital. 
  • The purpose of a business growth offer is for an existing society running a subsequent share offer to raise new investment and grow their membership. 
  • The purpose of a recovery offer is to improve a society’s solvency and balance sheet position. This differs from raising capital for a new start up or a new capital project.      
You can find out more about the different types of share offer in the Community Shares Handbook, here: Community Shares Offer Guidance
You can find out more about best practice principles for recovery share offers here: Recovery Share Offers Guidance
     
Land and building information
Please tell us a little bit about any land or buildings that are part of your community share offer.


To be of special historic interest a building must illustrate important aspects of the nation’s social, economic, cultural, or military history and/or have close historical associations with nationally important people. More information can be found from Historic England here

Please click here for more information

Please only include numbers. No commas, full stops or symbols (£)






How much money do you need for your project

If you are applying for a grant and equity, you will need to submit this Grant Application first.  If successful, you may then be invited to complete the full Equity Application.

You will be able to request a different amount of match funding if you are invited to full Equity Application.

The Booster Fund Panel will look at your investment needs, business case and how well you fit the investment priorities to determine how much we could invest. Investments could range from £10,000 to £100,000, although the typical investment is expected to be £20,000-50,000. 

Through this equity investment, Co-operatives UK and/or Community Shares ICOF becomes an institutional investor in your community share offer. We invest on the same terms as all your other community investors, with the same voting rights and terms as laid out in your share offer document. The only difference is that as a larger investor, we will only request to withdraw our investment at a pro-rata rate, so that we do not take priority over other community investors. 

Investment by either Co-operatives UK or Community Shares ICOF will not exceed 50% of the society’s overall withdrawable share capital, so that neither becomes a majority shareholder in the society.

Affordability of shares

Key milestones
Share offer dates
Please tell us when you intend to launch and close your share offer.




Please tell us when you think you will be ready to submit all your share offer documentation to the Booster Panel for assessment and a decision on the equity match funding.
Key milestones

All applicants receiving support are ordinarily expected to have been awarded the Community Shares Standard Mark for their community share offer. The Community Shares Unit maintains a Practitioner Directory of Licensed and Registered practitioners capable of awarding the Standard Mark and providing business support to community groups and societies planning to run a community share offer. Read more about the Standard Mark here: Community Shares Standard Mark

Supporting documentation

Documents we are looking for include the following: 

  • Business plan and any connected documents (for example, marketing materials) 
  • Share offer document (draft/final) 
  • Any available past annual accounts, ideally going back three years 
  • Budget and cashflow for the current financial year 
  • Latest available management accounts (up to the last full quarter) 
  • Any available impact/project plans or evaluations from your work 
  • Any available future financial forecasts - ideally a two-year forward looking cashflow
  • Any leases or valuations you may have for the property you are aiming to acquire and/ or run
  • Other (if other, please list) 
Additional documentation
If available, please provide the following

• Health & Safety Policy
• Equality and Diversity Policy
• Environmental Policy
• Privacy Policy
• Conflicts of Interest Policy
• Safeguarding Policy (if you work with children, young people or vulnerable adults you must supply this policy)






(if the applicant is working with children, young people or vulnerable adults)
That is the end of this form, if you would like to amend anything you can go back and edit your answers. If you are happy then press submit and we will review your form and be in touch

Contact Information