By Dan Betterton, co-founder of Cultivate.
In 2010, I started working with my local Community Action Group (CAG) Low Carbon Oxford North on their sustainable food projects, and was keen to see what other groups were up to across Oxfordshire. Simon Kenton invited me along to other groups’ food meetings, and after a few months we came up with a theory that there might be an appetite for a cross-county project around local food, that would build on the neighbourhood successes.
We thought we’d test the idea by inviting the food group leaders from the 30-odd CAGs to a couple of cross-county meetings in Oxford in May last year. Behind the scenes, Simon was busy organising a committee to chair the meetings and provide various suggestions for future action. The core of Cultivate (who six months later became its co-founders and directors) left the second meeting feeling legitimised and energised after our ideas of a community supported agriculture project went down well. The five of us were already excited by our ideas, but having another 20 people tell us we weren’t completely mad was great!
We went away and put our business plan together and made the first steps in negotiating land rental and legal incorporation. When we were ready to share our plan, it made perfect sense to call on the same CAG contacts again to act as friendly critics for drafts of our business plan and share offer document. Despite mince pies and mulled wine, the focus groups didn’t hold back! Which was just what we needed – honest, constructive feedback to improve our offering before we launched to the general public. Our materials were more professional and effective as a result.
At our share offer launch on Monday 16 January, I’d estimate 50% of the attendants were active members of at least one CAG, further demonstrating the time and support available to projects like ours. Many have invited us to present at their local meetings to pitch to potential investors, and others are actively building a neighbourhood interest for our VegVan service when it launches in June.
And how much has this feasibility study, focus group market research, promotion and marketing cost us? Not a penny (in fact we’ve just applied for a special projects grant to buy some of our first tools and seeds). I’m not sure if there is a recognised scale for social capital within networks, but CAG would register extremely high.
Part of my motivation for writing this article was to acknowledge and thank the CAG network. But I hope moreover to give some tangible examples of the great resources and engaged communities it has to offer that might fuel the imagination of our project leaders – use it!
Cultivate has just launched its community share offer – read more about it at www.cultivateoxford.org