Following a unanimous members' vote on 21st May, as part of the organisation’s 15th anniversary celebrations, Redeye is delighted to announce that it will move from being a Company Limited by Guarantee (CLG) to a Community Benefit Society (Bencom).

The proposal was presented to the membership of photographers from the North of England and across the UK. The change was presented as a means of ensuring greater resilience and growth for the organisation at a time when arts organisations are increasingly looking to diversify income.

Redeye has a long history of working in a way that is socially focused – evolving out of a small community of photographers and moving into a community-focused gap that was left by the closing of many photographic labs and organisations in the 1990s. It is now a growing network of engaged and developing photographers and professionals. Through a model of partnership working, the aims are to enhance and develop the wider photography ecology.

“This is a great model for a network organisation operating in the new creative climate. This progressive decision will put us in a stronger position to build our community and raise the necessary funds to deliver major projects in the future.”
Paul Herrmann - Director

Today’s move is about democratisation, with members taking ownership and determining the future direction of Redeye, so that it remains relevant and looks forward.”
Jason Lock - Redeye Board

“Becoming a BenCom offers a groundbreaking alternative to a charitable status model, in the way it positions arts organisation as serving and benefitting the wider community.”
Charlie Baker – Redeye Board

Below is the text of a presentation from Redeye's director Paul Herrmann given before the vote, to explain the purpose of the move.

"For fifteen years, since Redeye started, we've been inclusive, not exclusive. We've completely focussed on serving the whole community of photographers. 

"What is that community? It's self-defined to a great extent, but we take it to include anyone who calls themselves a photographer. 

"We aim to bring that community together; and deliver a programme that strengthens the community and the photographic ecosystem.

"Redeye's become well known for that, and it's probably the key reason we've been successful in seeking funding and support.

"But that programme has always been contingent - dependent on the will of the staff, board and volunteers. There's nothing really in our existing constitution to stop us heading off in a different direction. 

"So, we took extensive advice on how to make the organisation more resilient; whether we needed to change things so that the structure of Redeye aligned better with our aims, while not excluding any of our existing finance and fundraising measures.

"The best advice we had was to become what's called a society for the benefit of the community, or bencom. This is a form of industrial and provident society. It's different to a co-operative, where the mutual benefit is only for the members. In a bencom, the broader community benefits. In our case this means that all photographers and photography would benefit from our activities, not just those who are members - although of course members would continue to get special services. And the organisation would ultimately be answerable to the members.

"To make this change requires the existing members of Redeye to vote to adopt new rules. We have had those rules drafted by a specialist organisation called Co-operative and Mutual Solutions, and I would like to thank the two staff Dave Hollings and Gareth Nash who have helped us most on this. We have not rushed into this. We have been discussing the move for the last three years until we are as convinced as we can be that it's the right thing to do.

"I want to emphasise that this change would really mean business as usual. Most people would probably not notice any huge difference. We are primarily doing it to protect Redeye's very special remit.

"However there are some technical and legal changes which I want to outline.

"Firstly, as a bencom, we would have an asset lock. This would mean that legally we cannot extract Redeye's assets to use for unintended purposes.

"Secondly, as a bencom we could undertake a share issue to raise capital in the future. This means we could raise significant finance without affecting our core purpose. One really interesting example of that recently is FC United of Manchester, who raised money this way to build its new stadium - in the teeth of the recession. Another example is Portland Works in Sheffield who raised money to transform a run down building into a artist workspace.

"Thirdly, we would be somewhat more democratic as an organisation. It would become slightly easier for us to manage a larger membership. The new rules would require a proportion of the board members also to be Redeye members. In fact I think we already fulfill this because the existing board members have joined as members.

"But to me the most important point of the change would be this. It would put out the clear message that we're committed to the photographic community for the long term. In turn that means that the community would feel it can invest in Redeye, not necessarily money but time and knowledge and goodwill, knowing that their investment will continue to benefit the community into the future."