Looking down the back of the sofa...

Ideas and options for financing cohousing feasibility and developments

http://about.me/adrianashton

Why am I here?

• National reputation for #socent #coops #startup

• Train specialist enterprise advisors on financial planning

• Part of national programmes to support sector growth, acting as lead on finance

So you’ve got a great idea...?

• Grants and gifts• ‘Crowdfunding’• Commissions from HA, LA, etc

• ?SITR (up to 50% tax relief for supporters at this stage as investment would be unsecured – no property yet)

Grants Lead time

Restrictions on use

Cash-flow implications

Admin time/cost in monitoring & reporting

Risk of 'claw back'

Risk to credibility

A word of caution about grants...

Crowd funding

http://www.nesta.org.uk/blog/understanding-alternative-finance

Crowd funding

http://www.nesta.org.uk/blog/understanding-alternative-finance

How to find the pots of money?

• What have other people had success with?

• Who do you know? (and who do they know?)

• What are local priorities of wider bodies? (Council, LEP, etc – note to self: tell them the story about the Cambridge incubator)

So you need to build it...?

• Debt.– But comes in lots of flavours: loan, equity, loan

stock, community shares, quasi-equity, mortgage, bonds, ... Many of which could (in theory) offer tax relief for the investor

• Possibly some grant support (but would need to evidence specific criteria)

What’s been used in #cohousing before? (an incomplete list)

• Founder member using own savings/personal mortgage – Springhill Cohousing Community

• Founder members collectively invest personally - (Lancaster cohousing)

• Wider community ownership via #comshare – (various CLTs and housing #coops)

• Part support from Housing Association – (Threshold Centre in Dorset)

Where do we go from here..?

• Define what we’re happy to manage on what terms

• Swap stories with each other

• Don’t be afraid to experiment (student housing coops, Personal Budgets to support shared housing for people with long-term ill health,...)