Funding and sustainability

Community Ride Hub will never intentionally provide an underpriced service unless the source of the subsidy has already been identified and budgeted.

We can still arrange a journey for somebody when another funder covers it. We simply know whether that journey was funded by a council agreement, an NHS or social-care programme, a grant, a donor, the Community Mobility Fund, or an approved Community Ride Hub subsidy budget. Free to the passenger should never mean free to operate.

For Community Ride Hub Connect, membership contributions and journey charges have not been set. See Membership types.

Internally, every journey still has a full funding requirement covering operating costs, overheads, fleet renewal, contingency and organisational resilience. That is full-cost recovery for a not-for-profit community transport organisation — not a commercial profit surcharge. Any surplus is intended to remain within Community Ride Hub and be reinvested.

Membership and journeys will have a cost, but the amounts have not been set. When they are, charges are meant to cover part of the real cost of each journey. Contracts, training income, grants and the Community Mobility Fund cover the rest — so the gap is visible and funded, not absorbed silently.

We intend to create a Community Mobility Fund where donations and community funding pool to support eligible Connect journeys. A business, resident, housing provider, GP network or employer might contribute; Community Ride Hub — not the donor — decides which eligible community journeys receive support.

Corporate support needs careful structuring so journeys are not incidental to a profit-making activity in a way that would sit poorly with permit rules. Significant sponsorship should be reviewed with appropriate transport and legal advice before acceptance.

Donations and grants should increase impact, fund supported journeys, purchase equipment and help develop services. They should not be the only thing keeping the lights on.

As a company limited by guarantee, Community Ride Hub has no shareholders and cannot distribute a surplus to owners. Being community-based does not mean deliberately finishing every year at zero. A reasonable reinvestment and reserve contribution strengthens vehicles, training, technology, unexpected repairs and future service development.

For permit operations, making a surplus does not by itself prevent a non-commercial model applying, provided evidence shows how that surplus has been or will be reinvested into the organisation. We intend to retain that evidence.

We intend to build a sustainable organisation rather than a fast-growing one: start at a scale we can manage, diversify funding, and expand only when vehicle capacity and secured journey funding support it. Over time we aim to build unrestricted reserves appropriate to our risks — for example working towards months of core operating expenditure — with the formal target set by the Board. Our approach is set out further on Our plan.