Start-up Support
How do you start a co-operative?
How do we get enough money to start a co-operative?
What legal organisation type should we choose?
How do we prove the need for a co-op?
These are some of the questions we can help with
About us
Our team has a range of specialist knowledge to guide you through the process of setting up. We can help with legal registration, feasibility studies, market research, capacity building, detailed analysis and financial modelling, business planning, and helping you to create structures for measuring social impact.
The team has many years of experience in social enterprise and SFEDI accredited small business advice.
We have advised enterprises from a range of sectors including, energy, transport, housing, farming and leisure.
How we work with you
Every client is unique and the first thing we need to do is understand you and your situation.
We will then provide some recommendations, and agree the support objectives with you.
We can work with you in informal, exploratory discussions to help you understand the options, or we can create a guided, facilitated programme to take you through all of the steps.
The process of starting up
If you are looking to start a Co-operative or Community Benefit Society, you will need at least 3 people who are ready to be the officers of the new society. Once you have that, we can help with everything else.
We will try to be truthful about how we think you can best succeed based on our experience of working with other groups, however we understand that this process is yours and you must do what is right for you.
Registration Options
You can have a look at our Resources page to see what some of the different kinds of co-ops are, and what the registrations page to see some of the different legal types and a brief explanation of the key differences.
You can also have a look at our Registrations page to see the model rules we sponsor and what is different about them.
If this doesn’t seem like what you need, have a look at the other services we offer or get in touch.
South West Co-operative Development Limited
Registered as a Community Benefit Society: 31193R
Registered office address:
10 East Reach,
Taunton
TA1 3EW
Office phone: 0300 456 2265
Email: development@southwest.coop
