TRAINING
Together for Change resources community transformation in the Diocese of Coventry by equipping churches, community groups and individuals through a variety of training opportunities. This includes hosting dedicated training days, running practical workshops, producing engaging video content, and offering 1-to-1 meetings to provide advice and support. These initiatives are designed to empower local communities to respond to the needs around them and bring lasting positive change. To help churches stay informed, we have summarised our frequently asked questions.
Details of upcoming training events are posted on our News and Facebook page.
As a starting point, we would recommend exploring the following online grant search portals:
• Warwickshire Community and Voluntary Action
This is a mixture of free and paid subscription services and can highlight what funds may be available or suitable to support your project.
Alternatively, if you are seeking funding for a Church, check out the Diocese of Coventry for available funding.
Each month, Coventry City Council’s Community Resilience Team publish grant opportunities in their newsletter. You can find out more and sign up for this newsletter on their website.
Funders often publicise the grants that are available on their websites. Check out our Partnership Page to see specific funders that Together for Change have or are collaborating with to support our projects.
A social enterprise is a business with specific social objectives as its primary purpose. For example, our Saints Central Project is a social enterprise that has the overall aim of alleviating the effects of poverty in Nuneaton, so all income generated from the building whether it is through coffee sales or hire income, is fed back into the various community projects and initiatives that we run.
We have put together a few top tips to launching a social enterprise in your local community:
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Understand your ‘why’. Why would a social enterprise be of benefit to the local community? What issue or objective will you aim to work towards?
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Understand the local community. If this is a deprived community for example, considerations into covering expenditure will need to be beyond coffee and cake sales!
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What are the gaps in provision and where is the greatest need? This could help define your ‘why?’
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Diversify – don’t put all your eggs in one basket. If coffee sales alone won’t cover the bills, you may need to think of other income generating ideas to support the sustainability of your project.
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Location is crucial. Do you have a venue? If not, where would your social enterprise be ideally located to meet the greatest need of your local community?
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Consider how you will get and fund good staff. A project of this nature will not be sustained through voluntary support alone.
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Listen to customer feedback. How can you improve to ensure you are working towards your ‘why?’
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Provide a quality experience. This could include turning the heating on to ensure your customers are warm, creating a relaxed atmosphere with beautiful décor, providing good quality products that are not too expensive for the customer, ensuring that you are meeting good health and hygiene standards and leaving room for diversification and change as your project develops.
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Build Partnerships! Collaborative working is crucial, you don’t have to do it alone. Collaborative working could be through project delivery, funding support, connecting with local delivery partners to enable effective signposting or advice and support from local charities, agencies, councils or businesses.
If you would like to learn more about establishing a social enterprise, then come along to our Social Enterprise Training Days. We will publicise on our website and social media when these events are hosted.
We do not currently have any training days in 2025.
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At Together for Change, we work closely with local authorities to support the advancement of our mission, which is to see positive change in our local communities.
Here are our top tips for collaborating with your local council on community support initiatives:
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Understand what you offer. What are the issues you are seeking to address? What services or programmes do you offer? How does your work support the local community? Having a clear outline of you mission and values will enable local authorities to understand how you may be solving an issue they are also seeking to address and therefore consider possible collaborative opportunities.
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Identify the right department or contact. Local authorities are often split into departments such as housing, education, health and wellbeing, community development, social care and arts and culture. Explore the council’s website to understand which department may be most relevant. In particular, explore the community partnership pages and pages on grants and funding support.
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Begin the conversation. Communicate clearly to the relevant team or individual about how your project or charity aligns to the goals of the council. This could be through a funding application or through a specific letter or meeting to discuss collaboration opportunities.
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Build relationships. This could be through attendance to council meetings or public forums, joint community boards or if possible, advisory panels. This will help build a relationship with your local council and other local delivery partners or organisations that could also inspire future collaborative opportunities.
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Research what council funding may be available. This could be through the fund advertised on council websites, or through email mailing lists.
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Stay compliant and transparent. Having clear governance, up to date policies, including safeguarding if working with vulnerable people, and financial transparency and reporting in place will make collaborative working more desirable.
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Evaluate and provide feedback. Having good reporting in place to track outcomes and impact, project successes and challenges and up to date financial reports will encourage future collaborative opportunities that could promote long-term sustainability of your project or enable the launching of a brand-new project to support your local community.
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