SEVA: Hello and welcome to the webinar, Grassroots Cultural Placemaking. I'm Seva Phillips, I head the Arts & Culture Finance team at Nesta. Before getting started a few bits of housekeeping, the chat feature is turned on, please strike up a conversation. We have a Q&A box to post questions you may have for myself or the panel that we will come to in the final part of the session. The webinar will be recorded and made available on the website soon if you could not make it today.

In terms of running order, we are going through a short presentation defining Grassroots Cultural Placemaking, why it is important, what it takes to succeed and where to find support. Following this, there is a panel discussion with Bonnie Hewson from Power to Change, Mark Davyd from the Music Venues Trust and Nichole Herbert Wood from Second Floor Studio and Arts.

We will be opening up the conversation then to the audience. We welcome questions on any of the subjects mentioned here. The aim for the webinar is to amplify the conversation around the role of culture and community wellbeing and regeneration. Discuss what it takes to drive grass roots ownership and ultimately empower artist, independent culture Al entrepreneurs and communities to seize opportunities for asset ownership and help them to understand the support that is available.

So, just background on Nesta and Arts & Culture Finance.

Nesta is a charity that supporting new ideas for the public good. Last year, Nesta launched a new strategy to focus on a fair start for every child, a healthy life for all and sustainable future for people and planet. Nesta has always had a focus in enabling innovation in arts, culture and creating economy. Since 2015 making investments into creative organisations with benefits for the local communities. The first arts focused social investment fund, the Arts Impact Fund provided over £7 million of very much to 27 organisations in England over a range of art forms and business models from music venues, museums, theatres, to dance companies and all between. Building on the work, the Arts & Culture Finance emerged as a team within Nesta, specialising and raising and deploying funds to the sector, nationwide. Across the funds we supported 50 organisations to date, most of which are listed here. Many of these have played a vital role in the regeneration of communities. On the website you can find detailed information on all funds as well as case studies or all investments we have made to date. So, why are we interested in the idea of culture Al placemaking? Culture is key to placemaking in terms of personal community and wellbeing and economic growth. As well as physical space, which is important to culture, it enables people to come together and share the transformative experiences, in a theatre, in a cinema or at a gig. All too often we see a top-down approach to culture, where it is either parachuted in by big business or it is not sensitive to the needs, wants, experiences of the local people. On the flip side, true to our work at Arts & Culture Finance, we have seen how the grass roots ownership of culture Al assets is often community focused and inclusive. We supported organisations to do this and would like to see more stories of success as we are sure there are many more opportunities out there. But there are challenges to the grass roots initiatives around the knowledge, skills, resources and we wanted to touch on those today.

Before going further, we wanted to clearly define the key terms, by grass roots we mean independent, local, community-focused and inclusive projects. We are talking about initiatives that reinvest a significant amount of profits back into the work or the community or completely not-for-profit structures. In this context we are taking a wide view of culture. Encompassing many different creative forms as well as heritage and the natural and the built environments. Finally, by placemaking, which, I appreciate it can be a contested term, we mean the creation of identity, desirability and a sense of pride in a place whilst being mindful of the risk it is poses in the process.

There exist many examples of grass roots culture Al pandemic up and down the country from Future Yard, a music venue and artist development hub putting Birkenhead on the map to Kurious Arts, a film post production facility in Sheffield, consolidating the city status as a centre for film making, preventing industry brain drain from the area, letting more local stories told. There is also the Old Courts in Wigan, an arts centre over many sights in the town, the team behind it, single handly driven the Wigan culture Al regeneration. In Bristol, the Knowle West Media Centre, a multidisciplinary art centre and maker space and you will be hearing from Nichole later about Second Floor Studio and Arts.

And then there is the Pipe Factory in Glasgow, which is in this picture. This was built in the 1870s, owned by a community interest company since the beginning of last year. The transfer of ownership from private hands to the social enterprise model was made possible by passionate local people who cared about the building and saw in it the potential to create a space for the community and its young people, especially.

Following an extensive refurbishment, the building will be a creative hub to engage local young people in the arts, providing work space for artists. Now a few things must anybody place for Grassroots Cultural Placemaking to happen, firstly, it is a question of knowledge. So, where to find the opportunities for buying property and creating the physical spaces.

There is also tied up with that, the technical expertise required to design the building, the architectural expertise, the knowledge around how to construct a business plan, how to put together a financial model ... also, a question of where you access the support that you are going to need and where to make the relevant connections. Then in terms of skills, well, I guess it is about writing proposals, be they funding bids, proposals to planners, skills around finance, management, modelling. And in terms of resources, clearly that is a question of time and money and the ability to raise grants, repayable finance, donations, that is to be crucial to any culture Al enterprise's success.

Finally, to classify networks as a resource as well. Having the right networks opens doors, whether they are enabling doors in terms of local authorities’ connections to open up opportunities to acquiring property, to developing your audience, who will ultimately keep the lights on when the venue is finally open.

In addition to thinking about these things, culture Al entrepreneurs need to be able to engage their community. We have this helpful slide, thanks to Bonnie from Power to Change and tips on how you may go about this. Firstly, you have to talk to as many people as possible and listen to them, seeking out good connectors, the people that can introduce you to others who may be able to help. People with specific knowledge or simply people with different perspectives ... it is amazing how many opportunities and connections can open up as a result of one conversation.

Secondly, frame ideas and invite people to feed in but don't feel that you need to have all of the answers.

The first point was about being proactive, talking to people, this point is about proactively inviting feedback. The process of creating buy in from many stakeholders is iterative and it takes many rounds of feedback.

Next, don't be afraid to ask for help an input. People will be more engaged if you feel that you are genuinely contributing to a project from the early stage. Then, think about what people need, the service and product has to be fit for purpose and reach people where they are at. Finally, you have to think about where you want the power and the decision-making to lie in the long-term. Who will benefit? How can they be involved in shaping the benefits? It has implications on the organisation Al structure of the work, how a legal entity is constituted and which people have what to say over various parts of the project.

Then there is the role of finance, which, at Arts & Culture Finance, we are naturally interested in. Here, I will briefly talk about social finance, interested in positive social outcomes in addition to getting a financial return.

Loans are the most common form of social finance. They have varying repayment terms and interest rates typically ranging between 3-9% depending on the availability of security and perceived risks Arts & Culture Finance provides loan finance, more on that later, whilst on the website GoodFinance.org.uk, you can find a directory of many social investment providers up and down the country. The advantage of loans from social lenders is that they can be a fairly flexible financing tool with loan structure to suit the needs of the borrower. The disadvantage is that the borrowers need a business model able to make repayments soon after the loan is drawn down. Community Shares are a way for community businesses and co-operatives to raise finance in a flexible and affordable way from individual investors working best when the community in question cares so much about an asset that they are prepared to invest their own money into it. Community Shares are withdrawable that cannot be sold, traded or shared between members, unlike the shares of a typical company, you cannot sell the Community Shares for a profit. The shareholders become members of business of the organisation that they invest in, all members are entitled to one share of the vote. And their share is paid at the discretion of the company's Directors. Crowd funding is a way of raising funds from an engaged community in exchange for non-monetary awards. However, running a crowd funding campaign requires significant management in order for it to be successful. Finally, let's not forget grants, the cornerstone of many community projects. Anthropology are typically no repayment obligations with grants we hesitate to call them free money bast of the time involved in developing the applications and the subsequent reporting cost but great if you can get it.

On this slide, I wanted to get a little more technical, illustrating how social investment can work in the context of a property acquisition or a refurbishment.

In the scenario on the slide, the bulk of property acquisition cost is financed through a convention Al mortgage. A long-term loan. The mortgage typically makes up 70% of the asking price with the balance of required funds coming from the borrowers’ reserves. In many instances borrowers will not have the levels of reserves available to produce the deposit so then possible to use an unsecured loan to make up the amount. That is the second example on the slide. For this kind of example to be viable two broad conditions must be met, firstly, the financial case has to add up. the operating and the financial model of the borrower following a purchase of property must be able to sustain that level of borrowing, so this tends to work in cases when buying a building result in a big cost saving or more income for example the leasing out of a new phase. And the second condition is that all parties to the deal must give concept to this kind of structure. In practice, the mortgage provider must be happy that the deposit is made up by an addition Al loan from another lender. I am happy to take questions in the Q&A. The next user case is for renovations and refurbishments. In the examples, the investment is used to fund the project costs.

In the first example, the need for this arises whilst all the funding is confirmed in writing some is released in arrears or on completion of the project. The organisation in question may not have enough cash immediately on hand to carry out the work required. So the loan acts as a cash bridge to the confirmed funding.

In the second, more risky case, not all of the total funds required by the budget have been raised but for whatever reason, the work must start now, perhaps as it is taking place in less busy months. So in this case, the lending is taking place on the strength of a fundraising pipeline bridging to nonconfirmed funding, lender must have confidence in the borrowing ability to complete the fund-raising process. In the last example, the source of repayment is not future phrasing but new or increased income to arise as a result of the refurbishment, here the lender must be comfortable that the increased income will materialise as mentioned earlier. It is worth saying in practice, examples 2 and 3 can be combined. A loan can be a bridge to future fundraising and new income. The possibility of both may make it a less risky proposition for the lender. Arts & Culture Finance manages 3 social investment funds only one is open to new investments, the Arts Impact Fund. This provides loans of between £150,000 to £1 million on a secured and unsecured basis.

What it means is that you don't need assets or collateral in order for the organisation to apply for a loan, although we will be more likely to expect it with bigger deals or capital projects. With unsecured loans it means if the borrower cannot repay the loan, the lender has limited options to recover the money. So the risk will be higher. We are very much prepared to do these deals and take risks if we believe there is a solid business plan in place a strong team and a possibility of significant social benefits to the communities.

The loans are repayable by June 2030, meaning that organisations have up to around 8 years to repay the loans. We try to take a case-by-case approach to looking at opportunities, and can be flexible in terms of how we structure our deals. That means that we can offer things like capital repayment holidays until the repayment professional is for each organisation, this is no one size fits all approach. The interest rate is based on a perception of risk and for this fund between 3 to 8.5%. And the less risk to loan being paid back or recovering value, the cheaper the loan will be. There are no early repayment fees so the borrower can repay the loan when it works for them. Lastly a slide on other sources of support for a Grassroots Cultural Placemaking. Again, courtesy of Power to Change. I think a lot of this is self-explanatory. But from a financing point of view I encourage you to have conversations with funders and investors early on to better understand their requirements and perhaps get signposted to other sources of support.

This comes back to the first point around community engagements, having lots of different conversations. Impact focus funders if they are grant makers or investors will ultimately be a part of your community too. So, thank you for listening to that. I can see that the conversation box is getting lively. That is great. We love to see that.

We will now bring on our panel, so, Nichole Herbert Wood, CEO of Second Floor Studio and Arts. Mark Davyd, CEO of the Music Venues Trust and Bonnie Hewson, a place-based investment manager at Power to Change. If you can unmute and turn on videos that will be great.

Thank you for taking part. If you can begin by introducing yourselves and briefly to talk about your background and relationship with culture and placemaking. I will pick on Nichole if that is OK.

NICHOLE: Good afternoon, thank you for joining us. Brilliant to see you posting where you are coming from in the country. Lovely to see people from my home town, Bristol. I'm Nichole Herbert Wood, the Chief Executive of the Second Floor Studio and Arts, I run the projects with Matthew Wood my business partner. Graduating from Goldsmith university and needed work space, was representing buildings, friends joined, inform Al for 15 years when we realised it was harder to secure the space. So we decided to embark on a capital investment programme and strapped on big boy pants and drank a lot of courage and we are now in a position where we have bought our first site. That was a mixture of good luck, a charity bank giving us a mortgage. The GLA giving us grants. Philanthropists giving us a bridging loan and a very stable income stream through artist studio provision so we spent £2.1 million buying the building and £1.2 fitting it out, it is now worth about £7 million, and we have asset holds worth £10 million. So I lived it, been in the room, not known all of the answers so here to answer the questions in an honest, a transparent way about what it is like to buy culture Al assets.

SEVA: Thank you. Turning to Mark next.

MARK: I want to spend all the time talking to Nichole! I'm CEO and founder of Music Venues Trust. Music Venues Trust is a charity that aims to pro sect, secure, grass roots music in the UK.

We were founded as the title suggests around the specific issue of ownership, 93% of venue operators in the sector are tenants. It is one of the lowest levels of owner operators, certainly in the UK and any part of the culture Al sector and across the world. We are like a unique example. That model emerged from the organic nature of the way that live music venues are founded, founded either by a single or a small group of individuals who are passionate and want live music to happen in their community. They frequently do that against any good advice that you may give them about the best way to plot a long-term future and that leaves them vulnerable to landlords, commercial organisations that rent out property. We have a sector that really is desperate to tackle the issue underlying a huge number of other issues that we face. They may not seem connected but down to even noise complaints, frequently a noise complaint ends up with a closure of a venue, as it is a cause of irritation to other parts of the development or nearby residents. So, we want to, we are launching something on Monday, I'm sure we will come back to but to address this by creating a new community share business, a community benefit society and our intention is to remove all of the venues, either by supporting them to launch their own community share offer or their own version of ownership, or by presenting them with an opportunity of a central agency that will take control of the freehold and give them a lease that is more resilience, more sustainable and effectively a landlord in tune with their passion for life music.

SEVA: Thank you. Last but not least, Bonnie.

BONNIE: That sounds interesting, Mark, I will have to talk to you about that! My background is originally in heritage. I ran a theatre company for a while then segued into project management and local food projects and activism and community businesses. And ended up working for Power to Change when it started in 2015. So I have been a furnished for 6 years which is interesting to be on the other side. Power to Change is set up to support the community business sector to thrive, that is business better locally rooted and making a profit in the benefit of their own community. So, reinvesting money into things that matter to local people. So it has a specific definition but generally speaking if you imagine a community benefit society or a co-operative, something like that is normally a resilience community business. So I manage the Empowering Places programme, working in 6 wards within the UK supporting communities to establish clusters of community businesses to see if they can make places better and also now an alternative ownership strategy with relevance to all sorts of different ownerships, so, employee owner, and I live in Bristol, a cultural city, my partner works in theatre. I am close to the issues that the sector suffers from as well. So, interested to be a part of the conversation. Thank you for inviting me.

SEVA: Thank you for taking part.

So, thank you all for introducing yourselves. The question to ask you all, I guess that you all have a slightly different advantage point coming at this. But what are some of the greatest challenges for the Grassroots Cultural Placemaking that they encounter and how have they been overcome? Perhaps if I can go to Nichole first.

NICHOLE: I think that there is a few things. I think when you are trying to make an asset acquisition, there, the first thing is you need to have no ego at all. It is not about you, it is about what you are going to create and who for. By taking out the ego as well it means you don't mind looking stupid. You can ask the really base questions.

So, my role was not to know all the answers but my role was to co-ordinate them. Just be really aware that I don't know what I don't know but keep asking and keep asking the stupid questions and be open. When it gets to the finance, all I focused on and Seva will back me up, I don't know how to read a balance or a profit or a loss sheet, I could not give a scoobie but, do I have cash in the bank, yes, I say my cash as it is our business. So, if you focus on cash, and you are very, very open to people stepping in and helping you and working with you and co-ordinating all of that, then you are on to a good start.

But don't underestimate how hard it is to raise all of the finance. Again, if you have no ego and you are open to be supported like I was with Seva, I went with all of my business plans with him, he crawled all over them. But I found it fantastic he did, as no-one else was crawling all every them. So that was really helpful. And if you want someone to finance you, they have to belief in you ... as well as your track record. So, again you come to it without ego and you are there saying this is what I want to do to benefit these people, it is amazing how many people will come out of the wood work to help you.

SEVA: That is definitely true. Having the right support around you is important in terms of skills and not just pastoral support but the skills and the experiences that people bring.

Who else would like to have a go to answer that question?

MARK: I will back up to say, I'm, I think that I understand spreadsheets until I saw one for asset purchases! Which projections and everything for the work that we are launching next week, really is a different realm of finance. I mean, ours is a large project, the acquisition of 9 properties. It is lyingly complex. It is involving in a significant amount of modelling way outside of my field of experience and I don't mind that it is in someone else's experience! I think, yes, I'm going to pick up on what Nichole said, being incredibly open to the help that is available and going out and seeking people who have experience of doing this.

Experience of trying to take some control. I think also, that the other thing I would raise is that, one of the key things that we are addressing the project that we are doing is, identifying who has the imagination to make this happen. That has been quite important to us. We are working on different things where we support people, communities to do it themselves. But we also look at where something very culturally important is happening and perhaps the community is not confident to do it, that is really how our project is built. That we have to both give people the skills and the support to do it but to identify where perhaps the community doesn't exist but where there is something culturally important happening, to support that, to develop that, that we are doing, to help them to have the same access an opportunity as there is in this field of work.

BONNIE: I agree with everything that's been said about not having ego, working with people, listening to people, thinking of the support that is needed to set things up. Thinking back to the question about the challenges when you are first starting out before getting to think about taking on an asset and building that track record, everybody knows one of the problems is ... money! How to afford to pay yourself to do these things, I don't have the answer to, that sadly. But a key thing is being of a place, being there are for a long time. It is not always relevant to all that is going on, if you are finding work space in different places or a support organisation but if you are based in a local place, one of the things to remember is that there is not just one version of that place. So a challenge is, like, who are you therefore talking to? What are the conflicting visions of what that place is? If you are doing something, is there someone else that you can be working with to make it broader and more inclusive and to draw more people into it so that you end up with a stronger network of what you are trying to achieve. Obviously, you are an individual entrepreneur you can do something with the intention of making money for yourself. But often the arts are a conduit for engaging other people, broadening something out, including people, building their power, trying to achieve something together. It takes a huge amount of time. Not just the time you have in the week but a longer period in order for things to develop to embed in. So taking the time to put support into relationships in a place over a period of time and embracing the differences of things that may be going on and finding a way of working with people who may have a perception of you as something other, storming on their territory, so to find ways of working is important. And sometimes the money clouds that as you are competing for resource, maybe applying to the same thing or you have achieved money and then you are perceived as being the one that got the money and no-one wants to be with you anymore! Lots of weird tensions, so having the good relationships, building the trust, getting the ego out of it, showing you are listening it is really important for getting there in the long run for the long-term gain, rather than thinking you can achieve it in a few months. Things always take longer than you think. It is better to do it with people than going it alone.

NICHOLE: I can add in one thing on property, you can make the best plan in the world but it just seems that when property is involved it always takes another 12, 18 months. There are always delays with buildings and property. I don't know what it is but I have yet to see a project that genuinely ... and everyone has the best intentions to deliver to a certain timescale but the property takes long, so you have to cash flow longer before you get the asset.

MARK: I cannot understate how important that was. We have been working on the project for 8 years, we look at it before COVID so, that was another two years in gestation. Recently we had a meeting of literally dozens of people involved and one of them said, "Thank goodness we had the 2-year pause, we probably would have spent it negotiating everything." It is a complex thing to do but I think it will apply to every single asset purchase.

SEVA: Mark I want to come back to you on the specifics of the scheme. But to feed in a question from the audience. In relation to what you were talking about [distortion of sound] so, supporting from different people can [distortion of sound] ... can get people to the table from an early stage. Does anyone have [distortion of sound] this question of building your network.

MARK: We have a slight problem with the signal. Is it the question that is being asked about costing a lot of money to get people engaged? Just nod. You have frozen all together. Oh, he is back. We, we are kind of macroing the concept a little. Our community is not just a local community. We have 9 local communities doing strong projects and then we have a national community which is Music Fans. So that is what we bring to the puzzle. Our experience is even locally for each of the 9, there are a web and a network of people who are interested enough in their local community and have the relevant skills. So, we have not really found a shortage of skilled people. In fact, probably we have found a slight oversupply of people that have different opinions about the way that things should be done. So that part about our role to corral that enthusiasm into a clear linear plan for the property and how it interacts with the national. So, I think that the other question, that Nathanial asked, one of the problems we faced is the peril, if associated with grants, and particularly in terms of finances, it has made it a risk-avert lending atmosphere, which is a reason we are going down the Community Shares business.

BONNIE: A fair question. Yes, it costs a lot of money! Not just the money to buy a building. Money for people's time, for the expertise, the legal, the governance money, it can be a massive drain on your organisational resources so, if you are thinking of acquiring, think being what the asset is worth, think making sure you will not be taken down. And I have been in this situation, and they want to give the assets to the community and they say no thanks, as they are white elephants and the council has not maintained it and that it is on them to pay for the roof, and if you can take it on tomorrow but then you need the period of time to raise the funds, do you know you will have the money to take it on? In terms of getting expertise, sometimes you are in a place where the community does have a section that is wealthy and would invest in things and lots of professionals and retired people, sometimes you don't have those resources and it is harder to pull a group around you with the skills and the time to support you. So I thinking about what your resources are, that you have available, if it is the right moment to do that. It is often easier to go into the asset acquisition slowly like Nichole. Leasing it first, getting familiar with the lease, what it requires to maintain the property. How to make the money from it and then thinking if it is inhibiting your development, with the leasing of it, are you insecure with the lease with your landlord? Do you trust them? Is it getting too expensive? Is it in your interest to take it on? Or is it an opportunity where it is a building that may be turned into the housing and it needs to be saved by the community? So, where is the drive coming from, who is with you on that? What are you hoping to do with it? It is an undertaking. But there is support available but it does not mean it is easy. However much we try to de-pain it, if you are doing it right, it still hurts and it still takes a long time, it wears people out and you have to look after yourself so that you don't burn out or have furnished syndrome, all of these things but they are not small things to brush off.

SEVA: Absolutely. Mark, I wanted to give you the opportunity to explain more your new project, the community share issue scheme.

To enable the acquisition of music venues. Initially you are trying to acquire 9 venues? If you can tell us more about the project, when it is launching and how people can find out more and maybe get involved.

MARK: Bonnie has given me the introduction, really. That issue around what we like to call "imagination of communities" can a community imagine that they may be able to raise the funds to do a Community Shares issue? We have supported several venues to do that, Bristol Exchange has done one. Future Yard is one of our members. However, what we have look at is to look at the map, how likely is it that all of these venues across the country, if there are 928 and roughly 800 of them are tenants. How likely is it that there will be 800 individuals share issues to raise the money within the local communities? And importantly, does that community have the imagination or, frankly, the financial wellbeing within that community to be able to do such a thing. What we realised quickly, we have a community of music fans that, supra natural, the fans that are bought into the idea that a network of grass roots venues is very important to the artists, in our sector, the artists tour, work, that is how we build their careers. Ode Sheeran played 366 shows at this level before he started to make money. He needed 366 places to play to build his career. So for us an entire network was important to protect. What we have done, while supporting individual venues and communities to look at acquiring their own buildings, we also looked at can we create a national body that we have called Music Venue Properties, and we will do shared issues to acquire groups of building. The first one is live Monday an attempt to raise £3.5 million to acquire 9 months. The properties mostly located in socially deprived areas, areas of deprivation, areas where, perhaps the community is not organised enough or simply does not have the financial where with ail to acquire a building. What we are doing is grouping them together. Asking that local community do you want to invest, obviously, as that is a great way to make a connection. Then asking the national community do you want to acquire the whole set of venues that we will place into a benevolent ownership to create a specific long-term lease that is hooked on the culture Al activity that takes place within the space with a clause that guarantees a certain level of grass roots activities, based in the number of young and new emerging artists that they put on in a year to enable us to do other things around the venues, so in each of the cases 3 of the 9 are community companies and supporting the other six to become CICs, so developing the community locally while supporting them on a national aspect. We don't think it is the answer in all cases but we know across our network probably two thirds of members exist in areas where they would find it difficult to imagine that they can own their own asset but not so difficult to imagine that me may be involved in running a successful, local Quechuas al asset.

SEVA: So, there is lots of angles to this question, Nichole, if I were to ask you something similar but how you find your properties? I think if you can mention the role that the local authorities may play? So if you can give initial answer to that question, that will be great.

NICHOLE: Classic! We are in our 25th operation Al year. For the first 15 years, you can take a commercial lease and freestyle it. What we find with the intention fiction particularly of London that there is no longer a site that you can get a decent length of tenure on. So, it is more important to use the section 106 vehicles through councils to look at acquisitions via 106. We are working in London, Kent and Essex, now, every new project we have on the table is in connection to a council and a section 106 as we are looking at new builds in the main. It is about fostering the relationships with the culture al and teams within the councils to understand what is coming forward for planning. But I cannot emphasise how important it is to have a project at scale. I'm in an affordable work space that is different to a music venue but from our point of view, we need scale, so we need large site acquisitions to make the finances work. Financing £2.7 million of debt finance is not pretty. It is about £12,5 hub mortgage a month so you need good debt coverage and you only get that by going to scale. There are a lot of projects that are coming forward that are 2,000 or 4,000 square feet, and they are a nice idea but we struggle to finance that and to make it work. So we are looking at sites in excess of 25,000 square feet to do in the future. But all of that is about building relationships with the local councils.

SEVA: In our experience of the Arts & Culture Finance, we are often investing alongside local authorities as supporting projects, we have worked with the Lambeth Future Work Space Fund. That is about providing funding to create new work spaces in Lambeth. Predictable from the title but it feels that some local authorities are more progressive on this question than others.

Some are really trying to drive forward their culture al policy and funders and trying to stimulate the grass roots activity. Others it feels a little more difficult to break into. If there is any local authorities present here today and would like to have a conversation about this, then getting more projects off the ground, we would be very happy to have a conversation. I don't know if anyone else has views on working with the local authorities?

MARK: I will back up what you said. Our experience over the 9 selected, in fact there were a long list of 50 in 50 different locations and 38 different local authorities. One key consideration that we made to get the final list was how willing or engaged were the local authorities? Not just to put finances in but to support in other ways to advocate for it, to amplify the messaging.

We had one local authority who had committed to putting finance in. We have two others that are looking at it.

We have others that we know that they don't have finances because we know what the situation for the local authorities is, it is as tough as it is for everyone else but we have very good culture partners that are interested in the project to do all that they can to push it locally to identify partners. But it is difficult as obviously a lot of people on the conversation will have a specific place that is important to them that they want to build it in. But if I had advice, finding a willing local authority partner is one of the things that we worked out was key to what we would do.

SEVA: An important point.

BONNIE: There was a question that I think relates to this, how the local projects are tied into broader strategic aims. I think there is a real risk that certain sectors think of themselves as a sector, and then don't understand the context of the other stuff that goes on around them. So, somebody asked about if they have free advice for people setting up businesses. There is, it is not just about art and culture businesses, when I was setting up, I got forth from a local enterprise works that does not exist now, there is a VCO association, there is business sponsored by other authorities and local organisations you have to find a way to tailor it to what you need. So thank you manage famed as social enterprise but you may want to be a co-operative so know the search terms. It is the same with the local authority. To understand what they are trying to achieve. They all have a strategy and obligations that sit alongside of that and business improvement districts, and the local authorities, there are combined authorities, and they all have different pots of funding that are available to them. And the local enterprise partnerships, it is really patchy, which are good and which are not. But normally a there is somebody you can talk to within the council that is engaged within the community and through them find the person who is involved in economic stuff but if you can find out what is going on within the council you can pin what you are doing to it. So, good examples of that I guess are, like these are some of my favourite culture Al organisations that have managed to build on other things needed in the area to get support, Nudge in Plymouth, they are tackling their High Street collapse. So there is nothing on the High Street. They are acquiring buildings along the buildings in High Street in several ways many not on the be the local authority but they are working with the local authority and talking about compulsory purchase orders, going into partnership with leases and doing lots of different things and it is a co-operative council so they got support for the co-operative stuff of Brick Box, in Bradford have set up the People's Property Portfolio in Bradford to tackle the town centre regeneration, how several buildings are acquired by different people as a portfolio of stuff to make the town centre better. And the Places Team at Bradford are like, yeah! As the council wants to do it for them. Onion Collective in Watchet have used culture and arts to build an amazing space on the dockside but that is linked into many other things within the community. Knowle West Media Centre, is a long-standing media centre in a deprived part of Bristol, it has done lots of interventions but now tackling the housing crisis as that is what the community needs. And Ward's Corner in Tottenham are using a community developing plan and a partnership model to take on the lease of a building but the land is owned by TFL they had support from Tottenham council but are trying to do it in a way that combats gentrification. These are problems that the councils have to deal with, if you can find a way of solving that problem with them, they may be interested and then another set up, Kim Wide, who won an MBE, and working together with the local authorities, and discussing how to work better with the communities. You have to engage with people, listen to them and arts and the culture can help a huge amount with that. So, there is lots of positive ways of engaging but you have to think of your agencies not just the thing you want to do but the context of what it is trying to achieve, of which there is a lot to pull out.

SEVA: Thank you. There is a lot of positive comments in the Chat Function. So, look at that. The questions so far have focused on the practical application, how to make it happen. But I wanted to ask an important question around how do we ensure that culture al placemaking is inclusive and accessible to avoid the built falls of gentrification? So if something is ostensible not for profit, there is a risk it can be alienating on an embedded, established community. So, interested to hear your thoughts on making this properly inclusive and sensitive to local people.

Mark?

MARK: I will be brave. Our particular model is that we are protecting culture al businesses that occupy the business. in the background of that, we have a very active equality, diversity and inclusion department and one of the things that we want to tackle over a long period of time and I would like to come to the panel here now and listen to Bonnie and Nichole talk but, there is a failure for, partly through an historic Al accident, a very large number of the venue operators are older, white, male, middle-class. That is their defining characteristic. There are a number of reasons for that the area is poor, there is attitude to risk and adding in the diversification that you want to see and what you have is hard a gentrified sector, what we are doing with the project is how to represent better the communities that are active in music, particularly but active within the local community? I was asked recently could you not change it by creating older venue operators from different communities representing different people, I said we could but they would face the same problems we have with the existing cohort. We have to create conditions where our sector is more accessible to more people with more diverse ideas, different experiences and the way to do that is to create a network where they can take occupation, buildings that are suitable for them to do the work in. So we see this whole piece of work, frankly, as tackling something that is underlying, something that everybody is talking about in music. It is not that we don't have representation but we have representation at pretty low levels.

That when you get into the management, the venue operation, suddenly it becomes very, very homogenous around a particular group that is something that we want to tackle. To provide access routes for people to get the spaces that they need and to get the finances that they need.

SEVA: Thank you, Mark.

Nichole, Bonnie?

NICHOLE: For our Deptford site we were the locals. Matthew has been growing up in the area, running a club for 10 years in Deptford so we are the locals and just secured an asset in the area. We are working on a project at the moment in Purfleet. When we have a design on the building agreed, that we, do it is then how to go out to the local community to engage them and to ensure it is their asset and not just ours so that is something that we will be learning along the way. In terms of the projects, the projects represent the local community. So we have different demographics in Wembley Park to what we have in Sevenoaks. I am nervous so say this, Matthew on the call, he may hang me, we have 140 participants so far, Matthew and I have never turned down advice to support anyone. If anyone calls to ask us about advice, Matthew has been always generous and giving advice no matter the background. Some have taken the Michael about it but we feel that we want to share what we have done. We will always give advice to people that ask for it and we have been down to Bath to consultant on projects there, we just give our lived experience. People take that on or they don't. Again, it is that thing about helping each other and the sector that I am in, the affordable work space there is a massive overdemand, undersupply so we are stripping out the competition, so we set up the LASN, the London' affordable artist studio network. It is about us, with studios, to ensure that the people coming in at the grass roots are supported. Our Chair is Roland, who has been doing it 5 years, taking on projects in London and now working towards his first asset acquisition and we are all helping him. So it really is about trying too just be generous as you can.

There is not ultimately that much competition as we are all bonkers to do what we do, there is no money in it. So it is about trying to be generous. Really.

SEVA: Thank you, Nichole. I'm conscious of time. I think we have got a few more minute, available so that we Can Go Beyond 1.30pm. If there are other questions from the audience. Something that you want to ask, please feel free to post that.

What would be your single biggest piece of advice for cultural entrepreneurs taking ownership assets to the panel? Go on, Nichole, it looks like Bonnie is Iiking this.

NICHOLE: Biggest piece of advice for taking on an asset. You have to know that you have a stable revenue stream. You just have to. Anyone that is going to give money to you needs to know, they call it a debt service ratio coverage, I fall asleep when people talk about it but it is about, if you have a mortgage that is £5,000 a month you must be able to demonstrate that you have £10,000 a month coming in, that it is not wishful thinking but it is stable income and be prudent with planning. So, that anything that is going to come at you, from an angle you didn't expect, that you can, it will make you wobbly but you can hold your course. But it is about knowing that you have stable income, then you have the freedom, if you have the income, you have the freedom to make challenging choices and have courage. I'm about to buy another project with Matthew at Wembley Park and the bank is saying it is tight. It is, and it will be for 6 or 7 years but after that we secured work space for the next 6 generations so worth doing.

SEVA: And anything to add to that, for the projects that are not so far along, or even thinking about getting a mortgage, perhaps there is no revenue stream, it is that testing of the model, prototyping a revenue stream. If there is a business opportunity, test it out on a small scale and build up to something that looks like a self-sustaining business. And the process of building communities, placemaking.

NICHOLE: It is silly, I bought a site for £2.1 million I had to give £420,000 to the tax man. So cash flowing that, little things that you don't know, until you get there, and it is that sort of stuff that, you have to talk to others who have done it, so that when they say, by the way, you can't open a building without a PCO certificate [sic], I didn't know that, that is another £2,500. So to be open for people to drop in the bits of knowledge to you.

SEVA: Great. Bonnie.

BONNIE: Nichole has said the sensible things, have you got a cash flow? It really is important to find others who have done similar things. It is partly about inspiration. Partly about getting real about what is involved. But it is also so that you realise that your idea is not, it is not that it has never been had before and understanding what is involved in doing it, not reinventing the wheel and not peopling alone, it can be lonely trying to set up these things and you can feel out of your depth. Sometimes, it is just really helpful toll have a clan of people around you to inspire and to encourage and to advise you, and people are generous with their time. And it is important to remember if you are taking on an asset, you are a steward. A steward for that asset. It is a big responsibility. But it is also a really big privilege and not a lot of people have that opportunity. We all feel like heroes as we managed to do it against the struggle but the reason, we can do it for many in the arts it is they have a bit of cash behind them that enabled them to go to theatre school, I am not saying everybody, it is a horrible generalisation but many cannot engage at all what we are talking about because of structure Al underinvestment and barriers so there is a responsibility when talking about not gentrifying and being diverse. It is not just an add-on but the understanding that the assets are there to support the wider community wellbeing. It is really important that people do have control and ownership of assets to keep the money circulating but that we must be aware of the people that have the control of the assets that they are broadening it out to the wider community benefit as it is the responsibility of us all to have a properly resilient, socially just economy, right? So carrying that is heavy but there are ways of broadening the network to learn from others, for us to all improve how we do that so it is achieving the change that we want to see. So carry that with you.

See where it takes you.

SEVA: Thank you, Bonnie. Mark, any advice for budding entrepreneurs?

MARK: I think it is such good, sensible. Which will go with the slightly mad advice at the other end. I have had to learn to be patient. Most creative people I know are not patient. So it can be frustrating. You have to keep your inspiration and passion going but you do need to be patient. Another thing, I think that I have gotten very good at now is listening. Because, there is a lot to learn here. There are a lot of people to learn it from. I would say that this panel has been great. I can listen to what Nichole and Bonnie are saying and I would like to listen to them more. I have said it 3 times, I'm in the joust trying to be nice. But there are lots of people out there trying to do it, lots who have been successful doing it, and there is a lot to learn and patience and listening are the two personality traits that I highly recommend. If they had let me do this two or three years ago, I may have failed. I'm well known for being impetuous. Patience and listening are the two traits that I encourage you to have.

SEVA: Great. Thank you, Mark. Any other questions from anyone else? I will mop up the questions in the Q&A box. Is the Nesta arts programme affected about Government, organisation Al reviews, I'm not aware of that review. I don't think that our programmes are affected by that question on asset transfers: I hope that we have talked about acquisition of assets but perhaps not asset transfer as such. It is a broader question we don't have time for.

MARK: We are interested in asset transfers but I really want to hear more from Bonnie. It sounds appealing. I think that Bonnie has set me off down a path to think about. It but it sounds great to us but I think that question of what liability you are requiring, should worry everyone a little bit.

BONNIE: It depends on the local authority. Who owns the assets, who wants to get rid of them and why?

SEVA: Great. OK.

I think that we will have to close there.

Are there final thoughts?

MARK: I think we should say, just do it! That is my final thought.

SEVA: Panellists, thank you for taking the time out of your day to provide your inspiring and valuable feedback.

Thank you to all of our audience who managed to give up an hour of their lunch time to join us. I hope that it has been really useful for you. We welcome your feedback, there is no form Al survey but I think that the email address is somewhere in the slides or the follow-up email. So please send your feedback on perhaps what you may like to see more of in the future. Future webinars and connections that you may like to make or conversations about raising finance. The best of luck with it. We hope to do more of the work around placemaking within the central finance, so stay tuned, Mark, Bonnie, Nichole, thank you so much for your time and wisdom.