Ownership models
Trusts, shares, and community holding structures.
Focus — Livelihoods, Enterprise & Community Prosperity — Community-owned businesses
COMMUNITY-OWNED BUSINESSES
IDEAS WE SUPPORT.
World Seed Fund supports people whose ideas improve enterprises owned by a community for the residents who own and use the enterprise.
Why this area
COMMUNITY-OWNED BUSINESSES
IN CONTEXT.
Community ownership keeps returns local, but needs clear governance. Ideas qualify when ownership, decision-making, and surplus use are defined.
Scope of the area
WHAT THIS AREA
INCLUDES.
Illustrations of scope, not a fixed list. If your idea belongs here but is not described below, introduce it anyway.
Governance
Accountability to the community.
Trade
A business that actually works commercially.
Reinvestment
How surplus returns to the place.
Criteria to qualify
WHAT A COMMUNITY-OWNED BUSINESSES
IDEA MUST SHOW.
All five criteria apply. An idea does not need to be complete or proven — it needs to be specific enough that we can judge it, and grounded enough that a next step is possible.
A defined problem, in a defined place
We need to understand exactly who is affected, where, and how they cope today. General statements about a global challenge are not enough to qualify.
- Names the place, community, or system where enterprises owned by a community fall short.
- States the situation today in plain terms — revenue, surplus reinvested, members involved, or jobs created.
- Explains what the residents who own and use the enterprise do now, and what it costs them.
Human insight behind the idea
The idea should come from knowledge of the situation — technical, scientific, operational, cultural, or lived — rather than from an assumption about it.
- Draws on direct knowledge of enterprises owned by a community in that place.
- Accounts for why earlier community enterprise projects did not hold here.
- Was shaped with the residents who own and use the enterprise, not only for them.
A credible next step
There must be a specific thing that can be attempted next, at a scale that can be observed honestly, with a stated way of judging whether it worked.
- A defined pilot with a stated size — enterprises, members, or revenue in a first year.
- A stated measure of success — revenue, surplus reinvested, members involved, or jobs created.
- A timeframe within which the result can be judged honestly.
Value for people and place
The benefit should be meaningful to the community or system the idea serves, and describable in terms they would recognise.
- Improves local income, ownership, and reinvested surplus for the residents who own and use the enterprise.
- The benefit is described in words the community itself would use.
- Does not shift cost, risk, or harm onto neighbouring people or systems.
A path to keep working
Ideas qualify when someone can plausibly own, operate, fund, and repair the result after the first phase of support ends.
- A named community trust, association, or cooperative able to carry the work after the first phase.
- Running costs, materials, and skills obtainable near the work.
- Ownership, permission, or agreement that lets the work continue.
Evidence & boundaries
WHAT HELPS,
AND WHAT DOES NOT.
Evidence can be modest. A careful account of a small trial is worth more than a projection.
Evidence we look for
- Any observation, record, or measurement of enterprises owned by a community in that place.
- Costs, materials, or time recorded from a small trial, however modest.
- Notes, letters, or agreements from the residents who own and use the enterprise or the community trust, association, or cooperative.
Usually outside this area
- Broad proposals about community-owned businesses with no named place and no named people.
- Equipment or funding requests with no operator and no running cost.
- Work that transfers cost, risk, or harm to neighbouring people or systems.
Submit an idea
INTRODUCE YOUR
COMMUNITY-OWNED BUSINESSES IDEA.
There is no application window and no required format. Answer these four questions in your own words and we will read them.
Who is affected, where, and how do they manage today?
What do you know about enterprises owned by a community that others working on it may not?
What could you attempt next, and how would you judge whether it worked?
Who continues the work afterwards, and what keeps it running?
Human potential is everywhere. Opportunity should be too.