The Community Business Bright Ideas Fund aims to give your community group the support and tools to start setting up your community business. It will also give your group the early stage finance that you need to carry out consultation with local people and feasibility studies to develop a community business idea the community wants and needs. 
To be considered for support and funding through Bright Ideas, you must:
• be a group, an organisation or an association, not an individual
• be based in England
• have an idea for a community business
Bright Ideas will provide successful organisations with:
• Business development support: Between 2 to 15 days of business development support from Locality, Plunkett Foundation, or Co-operatives UK
• Peer to peer networking: The opportunity to learn from existing community businesses, through visits and events
• Grant funding: The opportunity to apply for a grant of up to £20,000 to develop your idea and/or improve your organisation’s capability, depending on your needs
To apply, you need to answer a few questions which will determine whether you are eligible for Bright Ideas. You can find this at:
http://mycommunity.org.uk/funding-options/brightideas-fund/. If you are eligible to apply you will be automatically sent a link by email to the application form. The process is: check if you are eligible, develop and agree action plan with your advisor, apply for an appropriate grant, apply to join Bright Ideas programme, 1:1 support starts, and awarded the grant
For further information and to apply, visit: http://mycommunity.org.uk/funding-options/bright-ideas-fund/, or contact 0300 020 1864, or email: [email protected]
Deadline: Monday 31 May 2017, 10:00