Current Projects

Due to racial disparities in access to opportunities within the co-operative sector, The Ubele Initiative and Co-operatives UK are inviting people and organisations from, or working with, Black and racially minoritised communities*, to share your knowledge or experience of co-operative practice. We're also interested in speaking with people who are not currently members of a co-operative but may have an interest to join one or set one up in the future. 
 
The aim is to learn about different journeys, to identify barriers or potential opportunities for building community ownership using community shares - an innovative mechanism for co-operatives or community benefit societies to raise withdrawable, non-transferable share capital for member-owned community businesses, local building or land.  
 
Your answers to the questions in the survey below will inform the design of a publication, online map, and archive collection, which aims to connect people and organisations with culturally appropriate, and regionally focused information, development support and opportunities within the co-operative sector. 

 
Complete this Survey to Participate 
 

Further Reading 
 
Co-operatives, or self-help solutions, often arise from resisting against racialised economic, social and cultural policy environments which can restrict access to finance, asset ownership, and infrastructural support. However, over the past decade a new community wealth building agenda has emerged which identifies co-operatives as a mechanism to democratise the ownership of the economy to enable communities to hold greater control, participation in, and benefit from, local economic development.   
 
This project has been iteratively designed via input from Christxpher Oliver (The Ubele Initiative), Phil Tulba (The Ubele Initiative), Veronique Belinga (Independent), Isla McCulloch (Co-operatives UK), John Dawson (Co-operatives UK), Natasha Natarajan (Outlandish), Claude Hendrickson (Leeds Community Homes) and the team at Stir to Action. We've also had extensive community contributions which will be acknowledged in the publication. 
 
In accordance with GDPR, personal information will not be published or shared without your permission. 
 
*The term 'Black and racially minoritised' is used by The Ubele Initiative to include individuals from a broad range of ethnic backgrounds who may experience being racialised. This encompasses people of African, Asian, Caribbean descent, as well as from Arab regions, and indigenous or aboriginal communities, ensuring the form captures diverse experiences and perspectives. 
 
Please contact christxpher.oliver@ubele.org for further inquiries and project updates 
 
 
Brief Overview  

In November 2023, The Ubele Initiative launched a new research project in partnership with Co-operatives UK and funded by the Connect Fund/Barrow Cadbury. This action research has sought to analyse the barriers and identify the opportunities for Black and racially minoritised communities to set up or sustain co-operatives, lead community share offers, and explore community ownership. An initial line of inquiry for this research is to map the innovative use of co-operative models by Black and racially minoritised communities – but also identify any barriers for investing in community shares or choosing the underlying co-operative business model to raise investment through community shares. 

Research Context 

Community shares, while not a legally defined term, refer to withdrawable, non-transferable share capital unique to Co-operative and Community Benefit Societies. Therefore, a community share offer is a mechanism for a defined group of members to raise finance in return for an equal ownership share of an enterprise or asset. Isla McCulloch and Alice Wharton's research within the Community Shares Unit, found community shares investors (92%) and society representatives (98%) are disproportionately white relative to the 2011 UK Census (86%). Based on insights from Ubele’s research and development programmes, Black and racially minoritised community businesses tend to opt for different legal models, such as Community Interest Companies, Companies Limited by Guarantee, or registered Charities that cannot issue community shares.   

This study is set in an economic environment where local councils, such as in Birmingham, are having to sell off community assets to balance their books. Therefore, this research seeks to identify some of the barriers, but also to illustrate the opportunities for community-owned and co-operative solutions for council assets and services. This includes strategies for raising patient and less expensive finance via community shares. Over the past decade, £210M has been raised via Community Share Offers by Co-operatives and Community Benefit Societies from over 130,000 investors. The match funding programme from Co-operative UK’s Booster Fund (£3.4M investments since 2016) has helped broaden out the types of communities and business models using community shares. Additionally, the Government’s Community Ownership Fund (COF) launched in 2021 has also supported the wider community asset owning agenda by awarding capital grants, many using community shares as their match funding (£49.3M investment into 196 projects across the UK).   

The Ubele Initiative have produced a series of research reports which begin to build an evidence base for analysing the experiences of Black and racially minoritised community businesses and the conditions within which they operate which informs the iterative design of infrastructural support. A Place to Call Home (2015) was co-authored by Yvonne Field, Karl Murray, and Dr. Diane Chilangwa Farmer, in partnership with Locality. This report found 54% of survey respondents from 150 African diasporic organisations indicated their buildings had “insecure futures” due to a range of factors including limited access to social investment. Since the start of this research, Ubele has published A Place to Call Home 2.0 (2023) a revised report that further analyses the benefits and value of owning cultural and community assets. This latest report found that not much had changed since 2015 and that just 10% of community businesses that responded to the survey owned the building they operated out of, which suggests Black and racially minoritised communities have limited control over local economic development.  

These bleak forecasts were compounded by the Adebowale Commission on Social Investment (2022) which found that Black and ethnic minority-led social enterprises were raising finance at just one quarter the size of their White-led peers (see page 58 of the report). Many funders and corporations gestured towards a need to address racial inequity in the wake of Black Lives Matter. However, there is limited data to evidence a long-term structural shift in access to social investment for Black and racially minoritised communities within the Voluntary, Community and Social Enterprise (VCSE) sector. Lord Adebowale, speaking at Ubele’s fringe event at the Social Enterprise World Forum (SEWF), warned of the cyclical nature of “shame money” within post-colonial economic environments and the precarious, dependent conditions it can reproduce. 

Research Hypothesis 

Increased access to culturally appropriate infrastructural support will reduce the barriers, and enhance the opportunities, for Black and racially minoritised co-operatives and community benefit societies to lead community share offers to expand community wealth building. 

To test this hypothesis, the research has begun mapping the types of co-operative models that are used by Black and racially minoritised communities, to learn about their journey, and to identify any challenges or potential opportunities for building community ownership. Through preliminary desk research, community engagement across six English regions, interviews, Community Shares Practitioner training, and workshops, this Action Research has connected with a range of communities at different stages of their co-operative journey. Our team has identified newly incorporated co-operatives, organisations attempting to align co-operative design along religious principles, and the potential for co-operatives to address racial discrimination within the social care sector. In addition, the project has identified long-established housing co-operatives, communities practicing co-operative principles with legal models that cannot issue community shares, and rotating savings systems such as Pardna, Susu, or Committee that share co-operative principles.   

The Publication as Participatory Research Method 

Drawing on community engagement and interviews, this Action Research has identified the participatory process of making a publication as a way of testing the research hypothesis. The publication has three components: research, a corresponding archive collection, and a map. The research will feature interviews, survey data and report on the work of co-operatives, community benefit societies and community shares practice. An associated archive collection will be set up to store (with permission) research materials such as interview transcripts, videos, photographs, and reports as a reference for infrastructural development, knowledge sharing and community engagement. The map will initially be set up as a private network on the Democratic Ownership Matters website, currently stewarded by Stir to Action, which includes a forum function to share learning and enable collaboration.   

References:  

• Beyond Racial Capitalism: Co-operatives in the African Diaspora, 2023 

• The Ubele Initiative’s participation in Community Shares Practitioner Training 2024, Community Shares Unit - Led by Isla McCulloch 

• Building Community Ownership: Expanding Opportunities for Black and Racially Minoritised Co-operatives, Stir to Action Journal 2024 — Christxpher Oliver 

• The ABC’s of the New Economy, Stir to Action 2023 

• Workshop with Equal Care Co-operative and the Pan African Workers Association 2024 

• Panel from 2024 Co-op Congress featuring Isla McCulloch, Natasha Natarajan, Christxpher Oliver 

• Financial Symposium 2024, Afrikan Co-operative Union 

• Understanding a Maturing Community Shares Market Report, Community Shares Unit 

• Gida Housing Co-operative 

• Co-op Sector Interviews and Community Dialogues 2023/2024 

• The Adebowale Commission on Social Investment (Adebowale Commission on Social Investment | Social Enterprise UK)