Are you an existing community business in England? Looking for funding and support to make your business more sustainable? Power to Change’s Community Business Fund provides grants between £50,000 and £300,000 to help you progress towards self-sufficiency. 
To be considered for funding through the Community Business Fund your project and organisation must be incorporated, based in England, and will need to be able to clearly evidence how you meet each of the 12 criteria below:
1. Power to Change only funds community businesses Community businesses are run by local people for local people. They can revive local assets, protect the services people rely on, and address local needs. There are many types of community business. What they all have in common is that they are inclusive and give decision making power to local people and that the profits they generate flow back into the community to deliver positive local impact.
2. Be incorporated
The Community Business Fund will only fund incorporated organisations. This means that your organisation is recognised as a legal entity in its own right, rather than as a collection of individuals.
3. Share their impact goals
Power to Change are interested in seven core outcome areas. As part of your application, you will be asked to select at least 1 of the following impact areas:
1. Reduce social isolation
2. Improve health and wellbeing
3. Increase employability
4. Create better access to basic services
5. Improve local environment
6. Enable greater community cohesion
7. Foster greater community pride and empowerment
4. Charitable purpose
You must have a charitable purpose at the heart of the project you’re asking to be funded, which meets charitable needs in your community.
5. Public benefit
For a project to be charitable, it needs to have both a charitable purpose and to be for public benefit. This means that your project must create benefits for a sufficient section of your community, including people who are experiencing disadvantage.
6. Growth and viability
Power to Change will not fund 'business as usual'. Your application must demonstrate how the funding will help you to increase the social impact of your community business, and make it more financially viable in the long-term by increasing traded income, securing an asset or reducing revenue costs.
7. Accounts
Your organisation should have at least one year of financial accounts; this could be your management accounts or your annual accounts.
8. Other funding sources
Power to Change will not fund the full costs of your project. You should have other sources of funding either confirmed or close to confirmation to show that you are viable.
9. State Aid
State Aid relates to certain EU regulations around competition, which Power to Change must abide by. Unlawful State Aid will have to be repaid.
10. Readiness
You must be ready to start work within six months of accepting your grant offer. Your project can last up to a maximum of three years in total.
11. Capital and revenue request limits
These limits represent the maximum upper limits that can be requested. Stronger applications tend to show how the community business can access larger proportions of income or other funding sources, making them less reliant on our grant.
12. Grant size
Power to Change’s analysis has identified that there is a gap in the market for funding for community business between £50,000 and £300,000. The Community Business Fund will not accept applications outside this range.
The Community Business Fund will provide successful organisations with funding towards:
• Capital costs including building, vehicles, equipment of significant value, refurbishment costs. For building projects, you will either need to own or be taking on ownership of the building or have a long lease in proportion to the amount of grant you are requesting. For the largest grants, this would need to be 25 years or more.
• Project-specific revenue costs like staff costs, professional fees, volunteer costs.
For further information and to apply, visit: www.powertochange.org.uk/funding/grants/community-business-fund/, or contact 0300 124 0444, or email: [email protected]
Deadline: Wednesday 5 July 2017, 12:00