For this Business Monday post, we want to share information about the fundraising efforts of Two Queens in Leicester to purchase their building. The Community Share Offer will launch on Friday, 28th June.
Purchasing a building is a big step for any arts organisation or gallery. After registering as a business, non-profit or otherwise, the purchase of property is a major commitment to an arts business. We’re looking at Two Queens in Leicester as a case study for raising funds through the process of Community Share Offer. This information has been taken directly from their website and Instagram post announcing the upcoming launch of the offer.
Also, we just want to support their efforts!
Background
Two Queens, located at 2 Queen Street in Leicester UK, is an artist-run and community-owned gallery and artist studios space based in Leicesterโs Cultural Quarter. It is an independent, grass-roots champion for freedom of artistic expression and the collective believe in access to art that enriches and brings meaning to our lives and art that is created by and for the community in Leicesterโs Cultural Quarter and beyond. The first iteration of Two Queens began in late 2011, when two collectives of recent Fine Art graduates from Loughborough and De Montfort Universities came together to start a new collaborative artist studios and gallery, initially forming as a not-for-profit company limited by guarantee. Between 2012-2015, the volunteers running Two Queens (including all the current senior staff) held 25 exhibitions featuring work by emerging contemporary artists from throughout the UK, including 2023 Turner Prize winner Jesse Darling.
2014 saw the organisation move to occupying our premises on a full lease, and with success at securing funding for public programme, the beginnings of a new, increasingly professionalised phase of Two Queens, including taking on our first staff member, and an increasing focus on learning at the heart of our work. Two Queens, which has always had a strong community of support at the heart of our work, changed their business structure from a not-for-profit company limited by guarantee to a Community Benefit Society in March 2023. Two Queens is registered with the FCA, number 9027.
Community value of Two Queens
As part of the research to launch the Community Share Offer at the end of this month, Two Queens asked the community what Two Queens meant to them. They heard that Two Queens offers a sense of belonging to the community of artists who use the building regularly, as a space for creative expression with real benefits to individual health and wellbeing. They were told that Two Queens puts high-quality, cutting-edge art and culture within easy reach, that would otherwise become exclusive and inaccessible. And they learned that the community values Two Queensโ energy and independence, as a non-institutional grassroots community art space that is engaging, challenging but also welcoming to a wide public audience.
Community Share Offer
Friday, 28 June 2024, will be the launch for the Two Queens Community Share Offer. The aim is to raise enough money to buy their building. To buy it, they are working to raise money through grant funding and through investment from the community to save a valued cultural asset at risk. The Team explains:
โWe need to raise a minimum of ยฃ100,00 through community shares for the purchase of 2 Queen Street to go ahead, but our ideal is to raise ยฃ158,500 as this makes us more financially sustainable. If possible, we would like to raise up to ยฃ313,000 as this would enable us to begin a first phase of capital improvements, to make our building a more welcoming and accessible public space.โ
They invite share investments from a minimum of ยฃ50 up to a maximum of ยฃ15,800, with options for those on low incomes to spread the cost of investment from as little as ยฃ5 a month. โIf investment isnโt for you,’ they say, ‘we will also be welcoming donations.โ
For more information contact Two Queens at info@2queens.com
Further reading on the topic of Community Share Offers:
- Co-operatives UK has in-depth information on numerous case studies involving Community Share Offers and other information.
- Power to Change offers readable information on what Community Share Offers are and how they work.
- As does this information from ethical banking leader, Triodos Bank.
- And here is some information from GOV.UK on the funds available for community investments.
