Resonance Community Developers Fund

The challenge

There is a lack of resources within communities and from local authorities to tackle local housing shortages and finance non-essential services such as sports and leisure facilities. Local community groups often lack the operational and financial expertise to develop assets, and attract and manage funding, for local community-led solutions to these problems.

Our approach

We worked alongside Resonance to invest into the Resonance Community Developers Fund, which provides end-to-end financing and wraparound support across the different stages of community asset development. This includes support for pre-development, through planning, land acquisition and construction, for community groups who want to create and own income-generating assets such as affordable homes, sports facilities, and renewable energy generation.

The Fund

Resonance Community Developers Fund is a blended structure that combines grant funding from funders such as Access – The Foundation for Social Investment and MHCLG, with repayable finance from investors. This structure has two vehicles managed by Resonance:

1) Resonance Community Developers (RCD) Ltd, an evergreen investment fund and

2) Community Land and Finance (CLF) Community Interest Company (CIC), a grant funded asset-locked vehicle. CLF receives the grant funding, some of which is used to finance the pre-development work (planning, viability, feasibility, etc) and purchasing of land; the remaining grant funding is invested into RCD Ltd, to be used as first loss to attract further capital, through repayable social investment.