Financing community food: Securing money to help community food enterprises to grow

Financing community food: Securing money to help community food enterprises to grow

‘This report examines the funding needs of community food enterprises and how they can continue to use food to achieve a wide variety of important social and environmental benefits.

The report was written following a series of community food finance meetings, bringing together organisations that assist community food enterprises, with progressive funders. This process was undertaken as part of the five-year Big Lottery funded Making Local Food Work programme that has – since 2007 – supported a wide range of community-run food enterprises to help communities take control of their food and where it comes from. The community food finance meetings discussed how best to secure funds for community food enterprises in the future, to help them through the all-important start-up phase, and to obtain funds to grow and, thereby, continue work that has more charitable than commercial aims.

We hope to see the community food movement grow and thrive, hence the enterprises need improved prospects for securing the finance they need to succeed. With this report, and work evolving from it, we wish to encourage conversations between enterprises and their communities, the sector organisations that support them, the individuals and organisations that provide funds, and with government, whose policies provides the framework in which we operate….’