Power to Change

VACANCIES 💼 | We're looking for an experienced Communications Manager to join our Policy and Insight team as a 14-month maternity leave cover. This role leads the delivery of our communications strategy and provides both strategic and operational support across the organisation. Acting as the central point for all external communications, you'd oversee our website, social media, media engagement, and programme of events. Apply now 👇 👇 https://lnkd.in/ed9p24vX

NEWSLETTER 🗞️ | Read the latest community business news, political commentary, resources, and opportunities in our March newsletter 👇 https://lnkd.in/eQ_fw-_n

⏰ Coming soon: Trading for Good: Community Business Programme If you're based in England, leading a locally rooted community business, accountable to your community, trading for community benefit, and making a broad community impact. Then, get ready to take your community business to new heights.  📚 Unparalleled Learning Experience  Over nine months, engage in 12 days of immersive learning—both online and offline. Learn skills in generating traded income and building resilience. Ensure that you're equipped to navigate the challenges of running a community-focused enterprise.  💷 Match Trading™ Grant  Fuel your business growth with our Match Trading™ grant, offering up to £4,000, designed to encourage the development of trading income streams, promoting financial sustainability and enabling you to reinvest in your community.  🤝 Ready-Made Support Network  Join a cohort of like-minded individuals who share your commitment to community. Benefit from peer-to-peer learning, expert insights, and become part of our extensive network of over 3,000 SSE fellows.  📝 Applications open Spring 2025  📅 Programme runs: 20 Oct 2025 - 31 Jul 2026  Register your interest today and be part of the Trading for Good movement  ➡️ https://lnkd.in/eZrTxFC9

🔟 🎉 We are celebrating 10 years backing community business. We know community business works to create thriving places. We have seen and evidenced it over the last decade. We also know there is so much more they can do. This year we are reflecting, celebrating, and looking to the future. A new series of blogs and essays will explore how the world has evolved since 2015 and set out a vision for the next decade. Read more from our Chief Executive, Tim Davies-Pugh ⤵️ https://lnkd.in/ev2eNNUg #PowertoChange10

🌍 With the right conditions, community businesses can help build an economy that works for people and the planet, give communities a greater say in the decisions that affect them, and support people to make meaningful connections within a community they can rely on. 🎉 To celebrate a decade of backing community business, we're bringing you stories from around the country that show the future of business is community business. 🏡 This month we visit Sherford CLT 🏡 Community Land Trusts (CLTs) focus on creating homes that are affordable, sustainable, and tailored to local aspirations. This story shows how this has worked in practice, and how the community continues to play an active role in shaping this new town in Devon. 📖 Read more: https://lnkd.in/eGpHTSpF #PowertoChange10 #townplanning #communitylandtrust #community #newtowns #Devon

🏘️ Govt's Plan for Neighbourhoods is a £1.5 billion, decade-long neighbourhood regeneration programme for 75 communities. Jessica Craig wrote for The Municipal Journal to explore what the legacy of New Labour's New Deal for Communities can teach us about longevity in regeneration. Read it here on our site for free: https://lnkd.in/edeWfuxw

Ever wanted to let politicians understand how vital your business is for society and the economy? Any social enterprise can now fill in Social Enterprise UK’s State of Social Enterprise survey. It’s proved influential over the last 15 years, helping to show the size of the sector, the social value it creates and the contribution it makes to sustainable growth. It’s contributed to policy on social investment and procurement that’s supported the sector grow and created business opportunities for social enterprises. Make sure MPs, investors and other decision makers know how important you are. You can make an impact in less than 20 minutes by filling in the survey today using this link sose2025.co.uk

🌏 From behaviour change to public consent for new renewable energy infrastructure, Communities' buy-in is essential to the Government's commitment to clean power by 2030. Community energy provides a route through these knotty challenges. ✍️ Nick Plumb explores for Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF) how community energy can help meet clean power commitments and how it can work for low-income households. Read here: https://lnkd.in/e_-Chy-Q

Imagine if as well as pubs and village halls, communities could dream big and purchase beloved rivers, woods, and peat bogs. A tweak to Labour’s forthcoming Community Right to Buy could make this possible, but rumours are circulating that this change is at risk of being abandoned. Read more in this guest blog from author and environmental campaigner, Guy Shrubsole. 👇👇 https://lnkd.in/ec4QKDRk

🏘️ Labour's new Plan for Neighbourhoods draws a line under the levelling up agenda. Instead, it looks back to New Labour's New Deal for Communities for inspiration. What can this teach us about longevity in regeneration programmes? 🌳 Successor organisations like B-inspired in Braunstone are still running buildings and spaces that came from New Deal for Communities regeneration funding, and they continue to reinvest the money they make back into the local community. 🔄 Jessica Craig tells The Municipal Journal why investing in communities and giving them the skills and confidence to run assets will repay itself many times over: in the social connections and trust people create in these spaces, the local people they employ and the money spent there that recirculates in the local economy. Read here: https://lnkd.in/eJ92uUNu