Rural Shops & Post Offices

Village shops and post offices are very important in rural communities. They provide invaluable services to members of the community who would otherwise have to travel a long way to access similar facilities. They are particularly important to those people who find traveling difficult and they also help to keep carbon emissions low by reducing the need for travel.

Why do some Community Owned Shops thrive where others fail to survive?

1. They are primarily driven by a social purpose or purposes.
2. They strive to be financially self-sustaining by, at least in part, engaging in trade of goods and services.
3. Any financial surplus generated is reinvested in the enterprise or for community benefit rather than being distributed as private profit to individuals.
4. Assets and wealth are held in trust for community benefit.
5. They are community owned and democratically involve members of their constituency in the governance of the organisation.
6. They are independent organisations accountable to their specific community.

How we can help

We can provide advice and support to community owned shops and post offices to help them start, grow and develop in a sustainable way.

Our Social Enterprise Team can provide 1 to1 development advice to communities who are looking at developing community owned shops whether they are just starting out or looking to grow and develop. We work closely with the Plunkett Foundation and the Rural Shops Alliance (RSA) to do this.

We also provide support to privately owned rural shops via the Rural Shops Alliance.

Support for Community Owned Shops

The type of the support we can give depends upon your needs and can include advice on;-

• Setting up a new community shop
• Setting up a steering group and constitution to suit your purpose
• Undertaking feasibility studies and market research
• Stakeholder analysis and partnership development
• Community consultation
• Business plan development
• Deciding on appropriate legal and organisational structures
• Incorporation and registration
• Identifying finance and fundraising strategy
• Monitoring and evaluation
• Recruiting specialist technical and professional help
• Mentoring and exchange visits to existing similar projects