Plunkett UK strategy 2022 – 2026

Plunkett UK is a national charity which supports people in rural areas to set up and run a wide range of businesses in community ownership. We represent 800 trading community-owned businesses and a further 500 in the process of setting up, from shops and pubs through to woodlands, farms and fisheries.

Our vision and values

Plunkett’s vision is for resilient, thriving and inclusive rural communities throughout the UK.

To achieve this, we support people in rural areas to set up and run a wide range of businesses which are genuinely owned by local communities, whereby members have equal and democratic control.

Through our support for community businesses, we have a specific mission to create innovative, impactful and inclusive spaces.

We achieve this by helping community businesses to:

  1. Provide a wide range of services and amenities that communities value and need
  2. Stimulate the local economy through localised supply chains
  3. Create access to employment and training and volunteering opportunities, often supporting people who are excluded from the labour market
  4. Tackle climate change through delivery of environmentally sustainable initiatives
  5. Promote equality, diversity and inclusion by creating safe and welcoming spaces for all

Our Values:

Committed: We have championed the community ownership model for over 100 years because of its track record for delivering better businesses for people, communities, the economy and the environment.

Inspiring: We tell the success stories of rural community-owned businesses and encourage people to join this growing movement of people and organisations.

Inclusive: We provide an accessible service which is tailored to individual needs, and embed diversity, equity and inclusion in everything we do.

Collaborative: We build partnerships with a range of people and organisations who share our values, to grow the reach and impact of our work.

Our 5 strategic objectives

We aim to help more community businesses to open and existing ones to thrive. By the end of 2026 we aim to have grown the sector by at least 20% to 750 rural community businesses.

We aim to build awareness of the community business model and our support for businesses UK-wide. We will target rural areas where community businesses are currently most under-represented, specifically Scotland, Northeast England and the Midlands.

By supporting community businesses we will help them to deliver enhanced social, economic and environmental benefits for their communities. We will support 30% of all existing community businesses to identify opportunities for greater impact.

We will nurture a supportive environment for community businesses to establish and thrive. We are committed to listen to and represent community businesses through policy, research, communications and campaigns.

To ensure our ability to help the wider rural community business movement to grow and thrive we will continue diversifying our income sources aiming to ‘break-even’ across the strategy period. Any financial surpluses will be re-invested in our mission.

Activities that are essential to achieving our five objectives

The Ambition: We will provide a first-class ‘universal’ service for community businesses throughout the UK – by which we mean having sufficient resources to meet the support needs of community businesses of all types as demand grows, at all stages of their journey from setting up to running and across all areas of the UK. As well as the important work of saving assets under threat, our service will focus resources on the creation or enhancement of innovative, impactful and inclusive spaces.

The Ambition: We will embed Plunkett membership at the heart of the organisation, creating a culture both internally and externally in which membership becomes a ‘must have’ for all community businesses and those who support them. Ultimately, we want to grow the Plunkett membership, and ensure all members feel aligned to a wider movement and have the opportunity to shape it.

The Ambition: We will grow our information, policy and communications output in order to inform the development of our services; better evidence and demonstrate the impact of rural community businesses; and reinforce our role as the voice for rural community businesses. In particular, our ambition is to raise the profile of rural community businesses generally, and reinforce wider activities taking place that builds a movement and unites those that the movement represents.

The Ambition: We will strive to enhance our existing approach to our regulatory, statutory and legislative responsibilities, strengthen our internal financial systems and controls, and invest in our people. Ultimately, we want to achieve greater resilience and sustainability so that we continue to attract talented and committed people who help ensure we support and represent a thriving rural community business network.

Download the Executive Summary of our 2022-2026 Strategy
Download the full 2022-2026 Strategy

Join the movement

Become a Plunkett Member today and help us to support even more community businesses across the UK.

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