Deadline: 19-Sep-22
Applications are now open for the Powering Up, a programme for community businesses who need support shifting from an emergency mindset to investing in future planning.
The ambition is to develop a partnership with you as community business leaders, and your teams, as you embark on developing or growing your organisation. Powering Up supports community businesses in the key areas of digital growth, environmental sustainability, and financial resilience, with a cross cutting theme of diversity, equity and inclusion.
The initial phase of the programme focuses on community businesses looking to learn how digital skills could help their business become more effective and efficient. The programme is now expanding to include support to help your business become more environmentally sustainable.
Funding Information
- They anticipate supporting 30 community businesses in this bidding round, with the focus of support being split between digital and environmental. Of the 30 organisations who are successful in the forthcoming round, they anticipate about 18-20 organisations will have a primary focus on environmental sustainability and approximately 10-12 of them will have a digital focus. You will be asked to choose which support offer you are wanting to access. Due to their capacity, they will be supporting an initial 20 in the autumn and a further 10 will start their support in December 2022 onwards.
- The Powering Up programme will run for a total of four years with multiple rounds of funding, and before every round they will be seeking feedback from the sector to increase their understanding of the community business market. It is worth noting that for the first round, there were 94 applicants and 21 were funded.
- The Powering Up programme offers a tailored support package for each community business and is worth up to £20,000 in total, this can be drawn down over a 12-month period. It includes:
- Paid access to technical and business support providers (up to £9,000) who are brokered in to meet the specific needs of your community business
- Professional development and wellbeing support (up to £3,000) such as leadership coaching, peer mentoring, team building and mental health support.
- An £8,000 unrestricted grant to support you as a community business leader, and your team, to engage in the required support of the programme. This could be to cover your time, back fill a post, purchase essential equipment, or cover other expenditure that supports development and resilience of your community business.
Eligibility Criteria
The programme is open to any community business operating and registered in England to apply. You must also:
- Be a community business that has been trading for one year or more which can provide accounts as evidence.
- Be able to dedicate a minimum of 12 days (over the next 12 months) of your time or a team members time to engage with the support being offered in this programme
- Looking for support to improve how your business uses digital to develop and grow or to develop sustainable environmental solutions and practices to improve your business.
- Power to Change will be prioritising support to community businesses in the most deprived areas of England, as well as organisations that are led or predominantly working in communities with a high percentage of minoritised ethnicity. If demand is above capacity, they will prioritise:
- Community businesses that are led or predominantly working in communities with a high percentage of minoritised ethnicity.
- Community businesses based in the English Indices of Deprivation (IMDs) 1-3.
For more information, visit https://www.powertochange.org.uk/our-work/our-programmes/powering-up/#