The Plunkett Foundation (PF) is a national charity, which helps rural communities to tackle the issues they face, through promoting and supporting community business. These are businesses that are owned and run democratically by members of the community on behalf of the community, such as shops, pubs, cafes, farms and woodlands. The Plunkett Foundation (PF) is a national charity, which helps rural communities to tackle the issues they face, through promoting and supporting community business. These are businesses that are owned and run democratically by members of the community on behalf of the community, such as shops, pubs, cafes, farms and woodlands.
For over 100 years, we have provided practical support to help communities establish and run successful community businesses. Currently, this includes: an advice line, practical toolkits and resources, 50 business advisers and mentors, training and networking opportunities, purchasing benefits via membership, and at times, bursary and grant funding via other Trusts and Foundations. PF is particularly regarded for its specialist advice on legal structures, business planning and raising finance through community shares. PF’s service is now responsible for having supported over 600 rural community businesses to establish in the UK in recent years, of which are celebrated for having a 96% long term survival rate.
As well as our practical support service, PF has geared up its engagement activities in recent years including communications, marketing, policy and partnership development. We have invested in this area in order to reach a greater proportion of the UK, and to ensure even more communities are aware of the community business model and its potential to overcome rural problems. Our intentions are also to create a supportive environment in which community businesses can set up and thrive. Particular successes include our work in Scotland, where we are now much more integrated into the support landscape and work collaboratively with partners at a local level. In England, we have a particularly strong partnership with Locality, Co-operatives UK and Power to Change, of which we work together to influence supportive policies from government and to collaborate on research and communications.