Category Archives: Funding and fundraising

Third Sector Review + a Breakthrough in social investment

Posted on by

Spent yesterday at the Treasury / Cabinet Office Third Sector consultation (focusing on social enterprise) as part of the Comprehensive Spending Review. All off-record, but thought I would just mention that Ed Miliband (who attended the London SSE Fellowship ceremony last Thursday) quoted Becky Barrett, one of the new Fellows, as an example of those individuals driving change, repeating her immortal words, “I realised frozen potato waffles weren’t going to change the world”. Nuff said, methinks. [more on the ceremony soon]

The consultation was interesting, if (inevitably) too brief, slightly restrictive and too short (again!) of practitioners. And, yes, I know I was only making that worse, but hopefully I was representing our myriad of Fellows as well as SSE itself. As ever with such things, fine and welcome words were heard: the proof will be in the eating….

Another event tonight, the launch of CAN‘s new Breakthrough investment fund, in association with leading international private equity firm Permira. The Telegraph has a write-up, which is worth a read, and the event features that man Ed Miliband again, the chief execs of Permira and CAN + the journalist David Aaronovitch….should be interesting. Amongst the first three organisations to benefit from the new investment/venture philanthropy initiative are Green Works and, intriguingly, TimeBank, the volunteering charity that government helped establish.

Replicas exactas Golden GooseI say intriguingly because the latter choice shows that Permira and CAN are using a broad definition of social enterprise, which is to be welcomed. Time Bank is a charity primarily funded by government, trusts and foundations and corporate sponsors/partners, so will not be some people’s idea of social enterprise; but it may also be taking risks, acting entrepreneurially, grasping opportunities, developing new initiatives and so on, meaning it has a place in the wider world of social entrepreneurship.

Share Button

Unclaimed assets: social investment bank

Posted on by

Seeing as every bit of research there has been puts forward funding as the major barrier for social entrepreneurs achieving what they might, new funding streams are always welcome. So the news that £400 million of unclaimed assets in UK bank accounts are possibly to be used to form a "social investment bank” to help finance
charitable and voluntary projects by "providing seed capital and loan
guarantees". At least that will be the recommendation today of The Commission on Unclaimed Assets…
[read the FT and Guardian take]

It’s not been fully clarified exactly what the fund’s main objectives are, though Ronald Cohen has chaired the commission (of Bridges Community Ventures, who we’ve mentioned a couple of times recently), and reports say it has been based on the US-based Local Initiative Support Corporation, which provides financial advice and funds to community groups and charities, and has invested over $6 billion in the last 25 years.

Incidentally, the £400 million figure is only for accounts that have been dormant for 15 years. The actual amount in unclaimed assets could be in the billions….

UPDATE: piece in Society Guardian by Matthew Pike on this….which talks excitingly of what the UK Social Investment Bank might do:

"Using unclaimed assets funds, the proposed SIB would capitalise and
co-ordinate the efforts of new and existing providers of funding,
finance and support to the sector – covering the full range of needs,
from grants to loans, lease financing, quasi-equity and equity. But it
would also act in the manner of a private investment bank, able to
package and guarantee investment opportunities for private capital as
well."

And there’s a website, UnclaimedAssets.org.uk, where you can respond to the consultation paper (pdf)

Share Button

The Acumen Fund (Fellows)

Posted on by

One blog worth keeping an eye on is the Acumen Fund blog, which is, somewhat unsurprisingly, the blog of the US-based Acumen Fund. It’s a non-profit global venture fund that aims to use "entrepreneurial approaches to solve the problems of global poverty", with a particular focus on health, water and housing.

Most recently, they have announced the first Acumen Fellows, and are introducing them with fuller portraits over the coming weeks. The Fellows programme is centred round the concept that "The world needs to build an ‘entrepreneurial bench’ of top talent with strong financial and operational skills, as well as the moral imagination to build appropriate enterprises with local stakeholders".

Putting aside the interesting concept of an ‘entrepreneurial bench’ for one moment (I’m assuming this is a sporting metaphor for having a good squad of skilled players….), it’s quite an interesting approach. An eight week intensive training course in New York before a 9-month project which they manage and deliver. Though the blurb does come across as these being investment/project managers for the Acumen Fund, they might fit in our ever-broader definition of social entrepreneurs. The missing element (from an SSE point of view) might be that of personal identification/engagement with the project, and, therefore, ‘real’ ownership of that project….but in terms of giving people appropriate skills and confidence and knowledge to go on to achieve things, there’s considerable alignment.

Share Button

Why call yourself a social entrepreneur?

Posted on by

I was reading through the comments of an interesting post over on the Let There Be Light blog, titled Do Social Entrepreneurs exist? Nothing like a provocative title to get the comments flowing.

An interesting comment by Jim Fruchtmann who, I think, runs Benetech, who says there are two reasons to call yourself a social entrepreneur (in his opinion):

"1.  You get to meet people who are much more like you than typical nonprofit or for-profit leaders, and
2.  It’s a fund raising hook."

Is it really that simple? Certainly the amount of hype/buzz around social entrepreneurs and social enterprise at the moment (check Cameron’s recent speeches) gives it a cachet of some sort I guess…but ultimately, I find this fairly reductive. I recently met someone setting up a new initiative that was fairly entrepreneurial and clearly charitable/social in mission….she just wanted to get on with it, but everyone kept mentioning ‘social enterprise’ to her. My advice was to ensure that she had a USP, could make her case, evaluate her work, prove it in a pilot and promote it effectively + have a robust strategic plan. And that legal structure/titles would follow from whatever work/governance/funding she chose to pursue.

There are no great funding pots that become available as a social enterprise / social entrepreneur-led organisation (although some funders might be attracted by applications that are, to use Gilligan-speak, ‘sexed up’ by such words)….the former point though is valid: meeting other people of similar mindset, attitude, drive and commitment. That really IS what it is all about….

Share Button

Lottery funding: an open door?

Posted on by

Ok, so not an open door, but the lottery has created a new front door for people seeking funding from any of its various funds (from UK Sport to Heritage Lottery Fund to Awards for All and Big Lottery Fund). It has the astutely-titled moniker of LotteryFunding.org.uk and, at first try, seems to be fairly usable….

Also worthy of note, in the world of all things lottery, is that Groundwork has won the GMTV people’s vote, and received £1.5 million as a result to transform 25 neighbourhoods across the UK. Congrats to a great charity doing great work.

Finally, Awards for All (the small-scale local community (events) side of the Lottery funding streams) has raised its upper limit to £10k as of April 1st….

Share Button