Jim Brown
Strategic Adviser, Community Shares Unit
Jim is the strategic adviser to the Community Shares Unit. The Unit was created in October 2012, with funding from the Department for Communities and Local Government, and is a joint initiative between Co-operatives UK and Locality. Approximately 400 communities across the UK have raised over £120m in equity finance for community ventures such as food stores, pubs, football clubs, renewable energy schemes, community work spaces, bookshops and community transport. The Unit owns a dedicated crowdfunding platform called Microgenius.
Jim Brown has written extensively on community investment, as the commissioning editor of Co-operative Capital (2004) and author of Community Investment using IPS legislation (2008) and The Practitioners’ Guide to Community Shares (2010) as well as in articles for the Guardian newspaper, the Social Enterprise Journal, and the Journal of Co-operative Studies. He is the author and editor of the Community Shares Handbook, which underpins the Community Shares Standard Mark, a self-regulatory quality assurance mark issued by the Community Shares Unit.
My Sessions
How to finance: crowdfunding, community shares and crypto equity
Great HallVivian Woodell
Agne Milukaite
Dave Boyle
Jim Brown
Victor Matekole
John Atherton
Venture capital is not the solution! This session looks at the alternative forms of funding available to Co-ops including crowd funding, community shares and crypto equity.