So much more than fundraising

Services

We provide fundraising services, project and partnership development and advice for organisations that make a positive difference; and we help good people to do great things. We understand the value of building effective relationships with the people and organisations we work with.

Team players

Our collaborative working approach enables our people to become proactive and valuable extensions to our clients’ teams; while our creative and effective response to clients’ needs means they recommend Our Community Enterprise to others. We provide experience and capacity to help our clients deliver what they do best.

Success

We are proud that most of our clients come through personal recommendation. They tell us this is because they enjoy working with us and we help them succeed. Read our testimonials to find out more.

Fundraising

“Believe you can and you are halfway there”

Theodore Roosevelt

Funding strategy

Our clients work with us because we are really good at what we do, and they trust us to give them good advice.  We will always spend time identifying the best way to raise the funds you need and will steer you away from spending valuable time on applications that aren’t a good fit for your work; we want you to succeed.  We can help to develop your fundraising strategy, and review your activities regularly, to ensure you stay on track.

We have raised over £25 million since our launch in 2011.

“Very calm and very knowledgeable…the help with the business and impact plan was invaluable.​”

Mark Newcombe

Craufurd Arms Community Pub

Cost effective fundraising

We specialise in fundraising from statutory sources, grant making trusts and foundations, with a very healthy 60% success rate. Every pound a client invests in our service generates £16 in income to spend on doing great things.  

Our services are cost effective and as a social enterprise we are not about making a profit for (non-existent) shareholders; instead we invest our time to get to know you and your beneficiaries so that we can really understand your needs.

Collaborative

We always agree the cost of our service with you in writing at the outset. We can offer to share the financial risk of fundraising with our clients where appropriate, because we recognise that many organisations worry about the costs associated with fundraising.

“Happy to share their IP with us; the creative ways of making funding applications. Shared their expertise”.

Laura Davis

Ways into Work

Public authorities, charities, communities, neighbours

Our client list includes a wide range of organisations of all sizes, from public authorities looking to finance major infrastructure projects to individuals who want to fund a local activity with their neighbours. Find out what our clients say about us here and learn more about some of the projects we have supported here

Fundraising skills

We work with partners and associates who provide complementary skills when required as part of the funding mix, for example to spearhead an individual giving campaign or to generate high value philanthropic support; and we will always help upskill your team to increase your capacity to fundraise in the future.

Business Planning

“A goal without a plan is just a wish”

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Mind the (funding) gap

Aims and objectives, research, business strategy, finance and delivery plans are vital but all to easy to neglect when you are busy delivering ‘business as usual’. We can help you focus on delivering more of what you do best and ensure that you are planning ahead to prevent funding gaps or risks to your service.

“We were a small service – now we’re huge!”

Shula Tajima

Windsor & Maidenhead Community Counselling

“In depth knowledge in the field (voluntary and statutory sector, access into private sector money) understanding of how the sectors work”. 

Emer O’Neil

Journey of Hope

Sector expertise

Our Community Enterprise has expertise across a range of sectors from cricket clubs to community pubs, and church halls to local authority schools.

Project development and evaluation

“Any fool can know; the point is to understand”

Albert Einstein

Outputs and outcomes

Successful projects are well-planned and researched, based on strong evidence of need and funded sufficiently to make a difference. We can help you shape your good idea into a great project that delivers for your organisation and for your beneficiaries, with clear outputs and outcomes and monitoring built in from the start. We’ll identify your baseline so that the difference you make is clear and we can deliver honest and compelling impact reports that demonstrate your value.

“I have always been impressed by OCE’s ability to make us think in different and innovative ways.”

Sue Penton-Voak

ADC charity

 “It makes sense to have OCE write the evaluation because they are honest and critical friends who know us and the project well, and can deliver the analysis it deserves”

Helen Buckland

Slough Borough Council

Evaluation

Our team can help to monitor and evaluate your project and enjoy working with you to understand the impact of your work, highlighting opportunities for further development.

Carbon reduction

“You must unite behind the science…because giving up can never ever be an option”

Greta Thunberg

Funding renewables, environment and more

The Our Community Enterprise team are committed to carbon reduction. Michael and Nicola are volunteer directors of MaidEnergy Renewable Energy CBS; Michael is a trustee at Reading Hydro; and Maria co-founded a climate emergency coalition to lobby for local change. Our shared passion for tackling climate change has led us to raise over £2.9 million for projects that reduce carbon or increase biodiversity through renewables, green and blue infrastructure projects and energy saving schemes.

Community ownership

“What are you doing for others?”

Martin Luther King Jr

We have considerable experience of spearheading community share schemes, enabling communities to take ownership of the things that matter to them and that enhance the lives of local people. Michael, a director at Our Community Enterprise, is a licensed community shares practitioner.
Increasingly we are being commissioned to write community share offer documents, negotiate lease arrangements, arrange site surveys and evaluate financial returns for a range of community owned projects from solar installations to zero waste shops.

“OCE did a very good job promoting our share offer, commissioning an excellent share offer website and getting it delivered rapidly, helping us think through our comms well”

Ben Niblett

Director MaidEnergy

Local Authority Funding Service

“Local government touches the lives of everybody, every day.”

Local Government Association

Funding for residents and communities

We work with local authorities to enable them to do more for the people who live, work and study in their areas. Our funding service supports public, charitable and community organisations to generate additional funding from a range of sources including European and government grants; local enterprise partnership funding; national lottery and other grant making trusts; and fundraising from their community including crowdfunding and community share offers.

Funding contracts

We have a contract with the Royal Borough of Windsor & Maidenhead (RBWM) and have exceeded our KPIs every year since 2011. Our funding service has supported infrastructure projects including building schools, leisure facilities and roads; the delivery of statutory and non-statutory services for adults and children; funded community gardens and loneliness projects; and enabled carbon reducing measures for public buildings.

The Royal Borough has worked with Our Community Enterprise for a number of years.  For a small team, they punch above their weight, accessing and securing a wide range of funding for the benefit of the borough’s residents.

Hilary Hall

Director of Adults, Health and Commissioning, Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead