Growing Community Businesses - An interim evaluation of Bright Ideas, the Community Business Fund and Trade Up

Power to Change commissioned Renaisi in April 2019 to evaluate three programmes: Bright Ideas, Trade Up and the Community Business Fund. The overall aim of the evaluation is to help Power to Change draw lessons about the impact of the funding, and to measure whether the three funds have met their aims to: (i) understand the impact of Power to Change on grantees and the wider marketplace; (ii) understand the impact of community businesses on people and places; and (iii) test and revise Power to Change’s hypotheses about the role of community businesses in creating better places. This working paper is the first annual report for the evaluation, and builds on the findings from outputs delivered in the first year of the evaluation, including two data visualisations, a blog, a quarterly report and a case study.