THE COMMUNITY BUSINESS CHALLENGE

BRADFORD

#CBCHALLENGE BRADFORD

The winners

Five inspirational community businesses reached the final of the Bradford M&S Community Business Challenge. They secured a record 803 votes of support from the public and were all awarded with M&S business skills support £10,000 funding from Power to Change.

Bread+Roses 

Bread + Roses is a unique city centre ‘home for many’ with a cafe, co-working and event space, rentable kitchen and serviced offices. It is used by anyone from refugee groups to youth services, local freelancers, art groups and many more. 

Bread + Roses want to develop a healthy lunchtime delivery service from their cafe and are hoping for a grant and business skills support to carry out the project.

Friends of Silsden Town Hall

Friends of Silsden Town Hall offers the Silsden community social, sports, educational and arts activities, lunch clubs, a library and free educational events.

They are hoping for a grant and support for events and publicity, and to cover the cost of renovating their kitchen to enable them to offer catering services. 

Mary Magdalene CIC 

Mary Magdalene CIC offers a safe, affordable space for people from all backgrounds and faiths to use in Manningham, in the heart of Bradford. They engage with youth and community groups and run a huge range of activities, from boxing to archery to keep fit sessions for mums and dads. They are Bradford’s official completion centre for the Duke of Edinburgh Award, and also run tutoring, cultural awareness programmes and prison mentoring schemes.

They are hoping for a grant to go towards a new heating system so they can reach more people throughout the winter, and business skills support in marketing and revenue generation.

Queensbury Celtic Football Club

Queensbury Celtic Football Club has provided high quality, affordable football activities for boys and girls, aged 4 to 18, for over 40 years. The club recently upgraded their indoor facilities, and want to increase their daytime opening hours to reach more local community groups, as well as older and disabled people. 

They are hoping for a grant and support to develop their new kitchen for increased daytime use and to offer free taster events in the community.

The Thornbury Centre

The Thornbury Centre in Bradford BD3 generates income through commercial and community room hire and tenancies.  Income is reinvested into the Centre which delivers community projects. These include street cleaning, petitioning the council on road safety and community support groups.   They also run a thriving community adult and children’s library alongside children’s activities and holiday hunger programmes. 

They are hoping for a cash grant and business skills support for community outreach to inform, design and deliver services to community members who receive Individual Service Funds.