Catalyst Collective is supporting is wide range of collectives with a specific focus on Co-operatives, Community Benefit Societies, Workers Co-ops and Community-led Housing groups.
We offer advice at the early stages as well as more specialist consultancy support and training throughout the development and life of a project. We’re also always happy to answer small queries by email or a have a quick phone call to discuss any issue your project might be facing.
We put a strong emphasis on wanting to work with our clients so they don’t keep relying on specialist advice going forward. Co-ops are about doing what members want and need to do and so we won’t come in and tell you what you should be doing instead. We’ll come and listen to you, help you learn and find out what you need to know to be able to make decisions on how to move your project forward. We’ll work with you to help you do the things that are most important to you.
We have developed a range of training useful to many types of co-ops. You can find more information on our training page.
For more information or to discuss your needs contact info@catalystcollective.org
Community-led and co-operative housing
Catalyst has been supporting community-led organisations since 1992 and has contributed to the sector through lobbying for law changes, developing and maintaining financial tools, creating model documents, and working on new mechanisms to support access to capital and create financial resilience.
We provide in depth financial and legal expertise for community-led housing schemes. We work with Radical Routes, Leeds Community Homes and many other community-led housing projects across the UK, providing support with:
- developing a financial strategy
- choosing your legal structure
- creating detailed and flexible financial projections (cash-flow, profit and loss, and balance sheet forecast)
- doing the financial appraisal of a particular project
- developing your business plan
- advising on financial regulations
- negotiating with lenders, creating investment prospectus, developing a fund-raising strategy
- helping you understand your project finance (and general financial literacy)
- writing contracts and model documents (rules, loans, tenancies, etc.)
- working on developing sector-wide strategies and innovative financial mechanisms
Workers’ co-ops
We work with Acorn Co-op Support, Co-op Culture and The Hive to support workers and housing co-ops to make new business plans, do market research, find out about their customers and people they work with, make financial projections, and develop their businesses.