Can the crowd do the work of a grant? Bristol Community Sauna says yes

It started with an Instagram post. Just one word, really: “SAUNA?” An invitation to look at an overgrown former council car park behind St Anne’s House in Bristol and imagine something else entirely.

Eighteen months later, that invitation had become Bristol Community Sauna, a not-for-profit CIC welcoming over 14,000 visitors, building a community of 400 active members, and selling out 81% of its peak-time sessions. It had become, in the words of its own regulars, somewhere people go to feel “restored” and “glowing.”

However, as the sauna has grown, so has its need for more capacity. Not only did the sauna want to accommodate more goers, but also add additional accessibility measures so that the space could remain inclusive for all.

A different kind of blend

That’s the puzzle Bristol & Bath Regional Capital CIC (BBRC) set out to solve. Blended finance usually pairs two things: a loan, which is the relatively straightforward part, and a grant, which depends on timing, criteria, and finding a funder whose priorities line up with yours. BBRC wanted to know whether the crowd could stand in for that grant element, turning community backing itself into the proof point that unlocks investment.

So they built a pilot with Bristol Community Sauna, and ran it through Crowdfunder.

The mechanics were simple: the first £5,000 raised by the community unlocked £25,000 in loan funding from BBRC immediately. From there, every further pound pledged was matched pound for pound, up to £15,000 more. Reach £20,000 from supporters, and the sauna would have £60,000 to work with in total.

Every pledge was doing double duty: funding the project directly, and acting as the evidence that pulled in three times its value from BBRC.

What the crowd actually looks like

More than 300 people backed the campaign. They weren’t just handing over donations, either. They were buying into sauna hats, a golden ticket for free sauna for life, and private hire slots, a real stake in what they were helping build.

What’s most telling isn’t the total, though it’s a good one. It’s who showed up. Analysis of the supporter base found that 84% of backers live within five miles of the sauna, and 62% within two. On top of this, two-thirds of the mapped supporters come from the more deprived half of England, which is exactly the kind of evidence that matters when a project’s whole mission is affordability and access. The people the sauna set out to reach are the people who backed it.

Why this matters beyond one sauna

The campaign succeeded, and Bristol Community Sauna now has the funding behind a bigger sauna, more cold plunge space, and a rest area designed with accessibility properly built in from the start.

But the bigger story is what it proves about the model itself. This pilot is evidence that community participation can genuinely stand in for the grant element in blended finance, opening a route to funding for organisations that create real social value but don’t fit neatly into a traditional grant funder’s criteria. 

It’s a clear demonstration of what happens when a match funding structure is designed around momentum, giving supporters a reason to act early and Bristol Community Sauna’s expansion is proof that this can work in practice. 

Have a similar project in mind?