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Supporting the development of community businesses

Business case developed from the findings of a recent evidence-based research piece by the University of Birmingham which makes the case for investment in support of community businesses.

The business case highlights that these small, community-rooted businesses are easily overlooked by policymakers, commissioners, and funders, who are seeking to respond to multiple changing needs and concerns in the wider health and care sector. Community businesses are nevertheless well-placed to deliver support that generates positive outcomes for people and their families, and contributes to wider social and economic policy priorities.

“[Community businesses] actually have a role to play in helping individual commissioners understand how to […] look at what are the social value opportunities and how smaller organisations can really compete in terms of the benefit that they bring to communities to make them fully competitive […] not just on the core service that they’ve been commissioned to deliver, but also on what was their social value commitment.”

Local authority commissioner