NAME OF ORGANISATION: Mustard Seed Property

LOCATION: Cornwall

YEAR FOUNDED: 2007

ABOUT: Mustard Seed Property tackles the lack of housing in Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly for vulnerable adults by purchasing and refurbishing properties for adults with learning disabilities, helping them live as independently as possible.

INVESTMENT PURPOSE: To purchase and refurbish properties for adults with learning disabilities.

INVESTMENT AMOUNT: c.£1.2m

DATE OF INVESTMENT: 2007, 2018, 2020

SOURCE OF INVESTMENT: Community Share Offer, Resonance Angel Investor Network

IMPACT: Health, Wellbeing & Social Care; Housing & Homelessness

ABOUT: When MSP was set up in 2007, it was in direct response to a call from people in their sixties and seventies who were trying to plan for a future for their autistic adult children, who were still living at home. After identifying this acute need for housing in Cornwall for vulnerable adults, MSP set up its first community share offer. Now, through its partner charities and social enterprises, Mustard Seed Property acquires and develops properties, which are leased to its partners, that make them available as homes or workplaces for the most vulnerable in our society who would otherwise be at risk of homelessness. Cornwall’s hospitality is world renowned.  Mustard Seed Property hopes to demonstrate that this is a strength, not just for those who can most afford it, but to the most vulnerable in the community.

PURPOSE OF INVESTMENT: A community share offer in 2007 allowed for the purchase and converted an old bed and breakfast property, which positively changed the lives of five families. A following community share offer in 2018 raised £350,000, which purchased another property offering more accommodation, support and care for vulnerable adults with learning disabilities in Cornwall. 2020 saw Mustard Seed reach over 120 new investors with a new share offer allowing a full refurbishment of the recently purchased Redruth property to house 6 people.

Mike Lowe, one of MSP’s directors: “Despite the many unknowns at the peak of the first pandemic lockdown, Mustard Seed Property (MSP) launched its 2020 community share offer. We had no idea of the level of support we would see for our share offer, at such a difficult time for everyone and with so many needs in society being starkly revealed as the COVID-19 crisis developed. So we were absolutely delighted and blown away at the overwhelming response when over 130 new investors joined MSP, enabling us to raise our full target of £600,000.”  

Daniel Brewer, CEO of Resonance: “One of the reasons I love community share issues (and Mustard Seed Property’s in particular) is that they have the power to engage the foundations, the second home owners and the MPs, all of whom we might expect to invest, and have done! But it also includes the retired widow, the farmer, the holidaymaker and the local business. It enables all of us to contribute what we can and treats us as equals: one member one vote. We become, not just investors looking for a positive outcome and a reasonable rate of return, we become something together that we could not achieve on our own.”