Understanding
We always seek to understand people’s needs first. This means there isn’t a typical process to creating new investments, but there are some common principles and approaches.
-
Social issues
We start by getting to the root of the social issue, focusing on the ones that affect people who are underserved or vulnerable.
-
Enterprises
We then look at how enterprises can and do contribute to tackling these social issues, and where they can be bolstered, replicated or scaled up.
-
Investment
We analyse what financing and other support is needed to help these enterprises deliver better outcomes for more people.
-
Partners
We look at who else is needed for the idea to succeed, what our role is and if we are the right people to help.
We have some practical tools to help create new investment ideas
-
Research
We undertake and commission research to understand the potential for social impact investment to make a real difference in addressing these issues. Recent examples include childhood obesity, mental health ventures and housing needs for vulnerable women.
-
Convening
We organise roundtable discussions, bringing together social enterprises and charities, fund managers and other investors to explore opportunities for collaboration. These can identify gaps in the market that require more capital than is currently available to those organisations.
-
Challenges
We developed the Business Impact Challenge and the Crowd Match Fund to generate new partners and ideas.
-
Call for funds
We sometimes seek fund managers for investment concepts that are clearly defined and where another investor has been identified.
Get in touch
We want to get to the root of social issues together and find new ways to use financial tools to improve lives. If you have a deep understanding of a social issue or have capital that you want to use to create impact, we want to hear from you.