'Community Shares have given us the chance to become truly sustainable for the first time in our 129-year history'

Read how we helped Lewes Football Club raise £200,000

'The share issue made us a community for the first time'

How we helped create a 21st century community hall

'We're opening Britain's first community-owned pub on an estate, giving 18,000 people a place to come together. Hopefully, not all at once'

Read how we helped the Bevy get going

Be Owned By Your Crowd!

Community Shares are the future of finance for community businesses, social enterprises and charities

Don't know where to start?

What are Community Shares and why are they such a great way for community enterprises to raise capital?

The Basics

We've helped raise over £10.5m

We’ve helped a variety of different groups raise £10,500,000 to help transform their communities. We can help you too.

what we can do for you

We'd love to hear from you

Our mission is to help communities raise the money to make their enterprises thrive. We’re always happy to answer questions.

get in touch

We can help you reach your target

We can help with every stage of the process, from the first discussions through to the launch and beyond.

OFFER DOCUMENTS

A successful share offer needs a great offer document, and we’ve written them for some of the UK’s most successful share issues. 

We specialise in writing copy that persuades people to invest and also ticks all the right legal boxes.

MARKETING PLANS

Promoting your share campaign is the most important thing you’ll do as a group to have a successful share offer.

We can help you plan how to engage your community the right way in the lead up to your launch.

BUSINESS PLANS

A good business plan shows how you will use what you raise to change the world in some way and possibly provide returns to investors. 

We can help you get a credible plan that supports your share offer and gives investors confidence.

TAX BREAKS

Community Shares can be eligible for 30-50% tax relief which can really make your offer more attractive.

We can help your offer qualify and get confirmation from HMRC so people know upfront that they will get the tax breaks.

What our clients say

We have a fantastic track record of helping groups hit their targets – working with us will increase your chances of raising the sums you need.

Here’s some of the nice things people who we have worked with have said…

Lewes Football Club
The Community Shares Company guided us through a complicated rule change with the minimum of fuss, then wrote our offer document that helped to secure £200,000 of funding towards the construction of a 3G pitch. This project represents a major step change towards long-term sustainability for our club and the Community Shares Company has been vital to our success.
Lewes Football Club
Exeter St Hall
The Community Shares Company were able to explain legal jargon in a straightforward and understandable way. Their commitment to the principles of co-operative social enterprise was reflected in the way they worked to support, re-assure and inspire us.
Exeter St Hall
Alex Kann, CEO, The Community Channel
Dave was recommended to us as the leading expert in Community Shares and rightly so. From our initial conversations and right through our campaign Dave provided us with the knowledge and expertise we needed to make informed decisions and choose the best model for our future. He was very generous with his time, providing advice for colleagues internally and for our stakeholders. Always a pleasure to work with, with great humour and grace under fire, we absolutely couldn’t have done it without him.
Alex Kann, CEO, The Community Channel
Bevendean Co-operative Pub
The Community Shares Company advised us when we started to develop our business plan and turned it into a credible business plan which helped convince people that we could make a go of this. It is in part thanks to them that The Bevy will be opening its doors by Xmas 2014!
Bevendean Co-operative Pub
Hazel Healy, New Internationalist
Dave is a real inspiration. This community shares thing is a sort of crazy alchemy that makes things happen and he's like the wizard who invented the potion...
Hazel Healy, New Internationalist
Calum Currie, Portpatrick Harbour Charity
Portpatrick Harbour Charity were the first charity in Scotland in to undertake a share issue and the Community Shares Company wrote the offer document that enabled us to raise the £100,000 we needed to save our historic harbour from developers. They captured what was special about our community and how investing the harbour was going to help us transform it.
Calum Currie, Portpatrick Harbour Charity

Why we do what we do…

We believe COmmunities are stronger when they own the things that matter to them

WE BELIEVE Community Shares enable more communities to take ownership & control

We know what drives people to get involved in community enterprises

We’ve been volunteers in organisations like yours and we know what help you need

We’ve got the experience, empathy and expertise to make Community Share offers succeed

We want to help communities like yours

and how we do it…

We'll work with you to get your offer into shape

We work with you to help you refine and sharpen your focus and get your business plan and your offer into the best possible position to succeed

We won't lead you down the wrong road

You only get one shot at a share issue, so we never encourage you if we have doubts about your plan or if we think you are unlikely to hit your target

Freeing up your time to focus on what counts

People join groups to change their community, not get bogged down in technicalities. We concentrate on the nitty-gritty, so you can focus on the bigger picture

WHAT DOES YOUR COMMUNITY NEED?

There’s no limit to the things that enterprising communities can achieve. Across the country, communities are running all kinds of services and projects, including: sports clubs, rural bus services, heritage railways, swimming pools, shops, forests, historic buildings, performance spaces, cinemas and much more. If you are planning or running a community enterprise and want to know whether Community Shares could work for you, please contact us.

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Sport & Recreation

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Transport

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Pools, Piers & Lidos

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Shops & Pubs

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Woodlands & Parks

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Heritage buildings

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Theatres & Cinemas

Renewable Energy

Renewable Energy

WE’D LOVE TO HEAR FROM YOU