Supporting social enterprises
We recognise the importance of increasing access to finance for social enterprises, charities and social purpose organisations and the important work of Access – The Foundation for Social Investment.
Increasing supply
In 2022 we continued to focus on the development of blended finance structures, which we hope lead to a lower cost of capital to charities and social enterprises, and therefore encourage more organisations to use social investment.
Research in 2016 identified the number of social enterprises and charities using social investment around 30,000. In 2022, this has grown by 73% to approximately 52,000, with the average first-time investment being sought halving to £50,000 over the past eight years.
Improving access
Good Finance is a collaborative project to help improve access to information on social investment for charities and social enterprises. In 2022, the tool passed the milestone of reaching more than 465,000 unique users, with a new pre-investment support hub; a scoping social investment tool designed to help support networks and membership bodies to improve signposting and understanding.
Improving reach
In 2022, Good Finance built on the Addressing Imbalance programme – a user-led programme that seeks to engage with people who have faced marginalisation, with the aim of improving access to social investment across diverse communities. In September, Good Finance held a hybrid event for over 120 diverse leaders, which showcased the role of social investment in diverse communities and facilitated discussions on how social investment can be made more accessible. The programme also added new partners, including Common Call, The Ubele Initiative, BASE and The Social Innovation Partnership a route to help address the barriers that leaders from under-represented groups or communities find when trying to access finance.