It sounds obvious, but everything around us is the result of design. Even the way we work in the social investment sector is ‘designed’ through a series of conscious and unconscious choices made under a framework of values. The most dominant influence of these design choices is of course the existing financial system. In many ways, the social investment sector has been created in the shadow of traditional finance. But this is a problem as the social investment market is not there to mirror the traditional financial market. It has the much broader, more imaginative (and more difficult to measure) goal of social value.

The mechanisms of traditional finance are designed for purely capitalist businesses — where the single axis is to make profit. Since the VCSE sector is designed to solve social and environmental challenges, it is well-equipped with ‘multi-axis’ thinking to address systematic inequalities. As such, the value of social innovation, charities and enterprise to support communities is becoming well-established in emergent design practice. The design of the supporting financial infrastructure, however, frequently uses the same traditional tools and framing. This results in a reproduction of the values coded into that system. So where does that leave us? The processes and tools we use need to be redesigned to suit the goals we are trying to achieve.

At the Connect Fund we are really interested in digging deeper into methods of participatory or community-led investing that unpick the design of traditional finance and reimagine investment for the benefit of communities first. That is, ‘the practice of investing with meaningful input, decision-making power, and ownership from grassroots stakeholders’.

In the same tradition of participatory action research and co-design, participatory investment essentially means including end-users in design and delivery of investment decisions in a meaningful way. It is important to differentiate here from processes which employ user-centred design, where the client or end-user is the subject of observation as a source for improvements. In the participatory or co-creation process, the end-user is understood as an equal partner and is actively involved throughout the creation process.

At Connect Fund we are really excited to announce funding the first of our projects in the Challenging Power with Participation strand:

Democratic Money

Barking and Dagenham Giving (B&D Giving) will work with The Curiosity Society (TCS) to give ordinary people more control over how money is generated, distributed, and used. B&D Giving will extend the work of their Community Steering Group — CSG, a group of residents that has led the design of their Investment Policy, by onboarding new members and creating an alumni community. It will create a dashboard to monitor the impact of the investments and a digital learning platform to increase community engagement and expand participation. Their long-term partner, Curiosity Society will support partners in different geographical areas to learn from this model and build their own versions of democratic money. This will include testing in three new locations and delivering shareable tools for those seeking to engage in re-imagining financial decision-making.

Impact Custodian Investment Committee

This pilot project from Shift Design will focus on the structure of social investment committees, which predominately favours ‘learned experience’ rather than the ‘lived experience’. The project will mitigate the potential for decision-making bias to misjudge the potential risks and returns and will form an Impact Custodian Investment Committee of individuals with relevant lived experience acting as stewards on behalf of their community. Working with Trust for London to trial using improved assessment criteria and insights that better balance ‘lived experience’ and the ‘learned experience’ of the investment team and due diligence process. Alongside this work, it will assemble a social investor Consortium of 5–7 organisations interested in changing how they make decisions.

If you are interested in applying to the Connect Fund’s Challenging Power with Participation strand take a look at our guidelines.

I read Tariq Fancy’s recent broadside against sustainable investment with interest.  As the former Chief Investment Officer for Sustainable Investing at Blackrock he speaks with considerable authority, and has a better insight into ‘greenwashing’ than many, but I think he does responsible investors a disservice.

Why ESG investing can work

Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) investing may not be a panacea for all the ills of climate change and social injustice, but it is far more than a mere placebo.  At its simplest level investors use ESG to determine the risks associated with individual investments.  Poor governance or environmental or social performance can mean a higher risk for the company, so there is a higher cost of capital.  If investors in the company can engage with management to improve their ESG ‘score’ then the risk reduces and there is a potential financial benefit for investors, as well as the bonus of an environmental and social impact.  If management will not engage with investors then there is a case for selling our shares in the company.  There is growing research that this ESG approach will benefit investors in the long term and from our own experience we have seen the lower financial returns generated by companies which we have divested from for ESG reasons.

Beyond financial gains

For some investors the financial benefit is enough, but there is a growing understanding that we also need to address these issues for the sake of the planet and people.  Many charity investors will consider how they can improve ESG at companies and look for opportunities in companies which are paying attention to ESG issues, particularly those which can demonstrate a positive environmental impact. In addition to this it is essential that we work with policy makers with the aim of creating a structural and regulatory environment that supports the transition to a low carbon economy.

UN Sustainable Development Goals and sustainable growth

A responsible investment approach can have wider benefits.  An approach which takes into account the wider issues of the UN Sustainable Development Goals will drive sustainable growth and reduce the externalities such as pollution and greenhouse gas emissions  which negatively affect national and global economies.  For long term investors in suitably diversified portfolios the overall global economic performance will influence the future value of their portfolio rather than just the performance of individual companies or sectors.

At Barrow Cadbury Trust we have limited funds and resources, but we do believe that by working with other asset owners and our investment managers we can improve our financial return and achieve positive environmental and social change.

Mark O’Kelly
4 October 2021

There is a scene in the popular comedy series ‘Father Ted’ where the hapless  Father Dougal is on an aeroplane staring for some time at a big red button above which a sign reads ‘Do Not Press’.  Father Dougal is sweating like toast on a worktop but not even the complete absence of knowledge of what might happen next prevents him from pressing that button.   Getting involved in social investment was a bit like that …

A random conversation with one of our older service users one wintry afternoon in early 2014 gave me an idea which,  by the time I had driven the 55 mile journey home later that day,  had implanted itself firmly in my mind as ‘A Thoroughly Brilliant Idea’.  Julie (not her real name) was in her 50s,  and had fled a 15 year abusive relationship literally with only the clothes she wore.  She left shortly after the emotional,  financial and psychological abuse she had endured turned into serious physical violence.  Julie went to her local refuge,  but her husband found out where she was so for her own safety,  and that of the other residents,  Julie was referred out of her area,  to EVA.  We don’t like turning anyone away at EVA so we gave Julie a bed space in one of our two existing properties that are geared towards accommodating women aged up to 24.  It soon became apparent that the mix of ages could be problematic for a number of reasons.  Most importantly,  the older women were becoming the ‘mums’,  which was great for the youngsters but meant that the older women were more focussed on the younger women’s welfare rather than their own recovery.  We needed to create a Safe House space for older women,  with a Specialist Support Worker dedicated to empowering and enabling women towards independence.  This needed funding for staff,  funding for the cost of a refurb to a new property, the deposit on a house purchase  and installation of security equipment,  and a loan to purchase a suitably located house.  Simple,  right?

This is how  the ‘45+ Project’ was born …

By the time I arrived at work the following morning,  I had convinced myself it was going to happen,  I just needed several hundred thousand quid…. So,  applications were made to two potential funders and after several phone calls,  visits and emails,  an application was made to Charity Bank to invest in EVA’s purchase of the UK’s first Safe House for women aged over 45.  It was important for EVA that our Investment Manager understood our M.O.  We wanted someone who ‘got’ why we wanted to do it and how it fitted in with our current practice and future plans,  as well as the social value of the project.

I won’t lie to you … there is a LOT of paperwork.  And you think you’ve got it right.  But you haven’t.  It goes back and forth,  back and forth. Understandably,  due diligence processes are wise and necessary.  You need evidence of good governance,  robust financial management systems,  flawless accounting history and a credible Board of Trustees … oh,  did I mention them yet?  Get your Board on board!  And take professional advice. My top tips?

• Know your subject/theme (there will be lots of questions)
• Research the need (the market, target group,  current offer locally)
• Be realistic about your ability to service the loan (can you afford it?!!)

Oh ….  and be prepared to work more hours than usual (I don’t know any CEO who DOESN’T already do this,  but add a few more hours on anyway).  There is no doubt that pulling together all these elements is almost a full-time job in itself,  and there were times when I found myself looking at my Finance Manager and saying,  as I wiped a tear from my eye and some of that toast-sweat from my own brow ‘’please just remind me why we’re doing this?’’

Fast forward around seven months …  all three stakeholders were asking if the OTHER two stakeholders had made a decision.  I found myself saying ‘’will ONE of you PLEASE say ‘yes’!’’  And they did,  one by one,  until they all dove-tailed nicely in the late Summer of 2014.  Forms were signed,  timescales agreed,  funds were drawn down,  and we proudly took possession of the keys to our soon-to-be-fabulously-renovated Safe House.  Building work began (more anxiety and toast-sweat) and we finally opened on Monday 1 June 2015.

By Friday of that same week,  we were full.

We have remained at almost 100% capacity ever since.  The project attracted much local and national media attention and highlighted the issues surrounding the often hidden victims of domestic abuse as it is usually portrayed as only a young women’s matter.  It isn’t.  EVA is proud to have won three runner-up and two winning awards in 2016 for the ’45+ Project’ including Charity Bank’s ‘Greatest Impact’ Award.

Two years later and,  like the impending second-time Mum,  I forgot all about the anxiety,  pain and anguish of childbirth the first time round and decided to do it all over again,  having convinced myself the end result is worth it.  After all,  it can’t have been THAT BAD … can it?

We are now on the home stretch of purchasing a fourth Safe House property,  due to open in early 2018,  but my Finance Manager has threatened to leave if I ever suggest buying another house…

Oh … the big red button?  Father Dougal dumped the plane’s fuel supply and they were forced to rely on a novelty sticky-tape dispenser to save them.  EVA’s fuel tank,  thankfully,  remains undamaged.

Richinda Taylor, CEO,  EVA Women’s Aid, [email protected], www.evawomensaid.org.uk, Facebook:  Eva’s House, Twitter:  @evawomensaid1

The Connect Fund was born this spring. The fourth young fund in the Access Foundation stable, it has slowly found its legs, teetered around the field, and poked its nose into the social investment market. The initial task was to map and consult with many social investment actors to design the new social investment infrastructure fund. We left no stone unturned.

By mid-June, the Connect Fund was ready for its first outing, and debuted to much fanfare. The fund’s stated purpose is to ‘build a better social investment market’ to ensure that small to medium sized charities and social enterprises – that make up the bulk of the social sector – access the right kind of repayable finance to advance their mission.

Dazzling debut with daring debate

A diverse crowd of over 95 people gathered at the Foundry in Vauxhall to hear about the Connect Fund. Its stated objectives are to fill gaps in the architecture of the current social investment market, and to better connect existing voluntary sector infrastructure organisations to social investment.

An engaging debate on the state of social investment took off at the starting gate. Steve Wyler, a trustee of Access, quoted Responsible Finance figures to make the argument that social investment isn’t working. Jeremy Rogers, Chief Investment Officer at Big Society Capital, pointed out that £306m of ‘risk capital’ non-bank investments were made in 2016, including unsecured lending, community shares, charity bonds, social impact bonds, equity and social property funds. David Floyd from Social Spider, followed up with a blog to make sense of it all.

Place your bets

Next up was the first round call for Expressions of Interest (EOI) for grant funding, which ran from June to early July. This funding window had a focus on collaborative initiatives to address current gaps in social investment market infrastructure. A primary purpose was to promote sharing of tools, data and resources to lower transaction costs; increase diversity and innovation; and facilitate learning and feedback to move social investment forward.

In response, the Connect Fund received 62 applications, for a total request amount of £3.25m and an average grant size of £49,849. Of these, approximately 40 are best suited to the aims of this first round EOI, for a total request amount of £2.4m and an average grant size of £60,927. The remaining 22 proposals are better suited to the second round EOI, with a focus on voluntary sector infrastructure and membership organisations, and will be shifted to this second stage.

Looking strong, but keep an eye out

Comparing the field, the fund generated a strong range of proposals. There was a positive turnout across nine separate themes. These include business development, capacity building, data sharing, diversity, market information, networks, shared resources, skill development and standards/templates. A number of collaborative approaches were put forward, and the message on partnership was clearly received.

A good selection of ideas is in the running. The need for diversity was well recognised. A number of proposals showed promise to build staff teams, expand diversity of demand-side recipients, encourage new entrants to the sector, and widen the leadership pipeline for social investment.

Ideas for reducing transaction costs, sharing resources and enhancing market information were put forward. Proposals to increase regional representation and eliminate geographic cold spots also turned up. Of the 62 proposals we received, 42% were from organisations outside of London.

A few gaps in the line-up remain. One task for the Connect Fund is to identify areas that are missing or might need further development. Initiatives to develop a shared diagnostic tool, common due diligence, and technical skill development for the sector have been discussed but did not make an appearance.

Key to form is to build learning groups for initiatives that share a common theme. Data sharing is a perfect example of how a ‘community of practice’ could achieve added value to ensure that projects are mutually beneficial and non-duplicative. Capacity building initiatives also have the potential to be greater than the sum of the parts. The Connect Fund will seek to host or promote learning partnerships to accelerate solutions to shared challenges and extend collaboration across organisations working on related topics.

The current task is to sift through the 40 first-round grant applications on the basis of 10 different criteria to finalise the shortlist. Applicants will be notified by mid-August if they will progress to the next round. Shortlisted proposals will be asked to submit full grant applications for final investment management committee decisions in mid-November.

One to watch

Voluntary sector infrastructure and membership bodies should keep an eye out for the second round EOI which will run from 2 October to 5 November 2017. This funding round is designed to foster enterprise-driven initiatives that can connect places or sectors to social investment. A key objective is to extend the reach of social investment by geography, sector, and on an equalities basis to diversify and widen access to new forms of finance. This will take the form of grants for feasibility studies to explore social investment capacity building, brokering, and advice or scoping of social investment programmes.

The Connect Fund will continue to engage with the social investment market to shift the narrative to focus on the funding realities that mission-driven social organisations face. Social investment is one tool for charities and social enterprises to consider as they explore a pathway to generating income and building more financial resilience. Please get in touch if your organisation has good ideas that the Connect Fund could help to support.

 Jessica Brown, the Connect Fund Manager, wrote this blog originally for the Access Fund website.

Social investment can be complex. At its best, a well-functioning social investment market prioritises impact and catalyses social change. The goal is to start with the beneficiary and maximise social outcomes. In reality, risk, return, and deal structures often take priority – leading to what we call a “finance first” approach. The result is that not enough charities and social enterprises access simple, affordable, repayable finance.

I have heard mixed views on the social investment market. After years of hard work to build the sector, many are discouraged. There are still many challenges. The sustainability of many funds and advisors remains uncertain. Social investment intermediaries struggle to meet the finance needs of the bulk of the social sector. Yet others are bullish about the promise of impact investing, for-profit social businesses, and developing impact funds for mainstream financial markets.

Social innovation is happening in communities all over the UK. Creative solutions to health, homelessness or housing – to name a few – are inspiring. These initiatives need funding. In the ‘new normal’, uncertainty prevails and access to grants or public resources is scarce. Social investment can be a resource for enterprise-driven charities or social enterprises to achieve mission with new revenue streams.

The social investment market has reached a turning point. Investing in social ventures, property initiatives and secured loans has worked reasonably well. But providing charities and social enterprises with low cost, unsecured, blended finance, hasn’t really taken off. The pipeline for new investments is relatively thin. Small to medium sized charities, social enterprises and community businesses form the core of the UK social sector, where real impact is generated. Can we continue to ignore the finance gap?

Social investment has come a long way since 2009 when the Barrow Cadbury Trust made its first foray into the current market. How will the sector define its next phase of development? Should the market move upstream to attract mainstream investors? A “finance first” model that requires market-level returns drives many intermediaries to move in this direction. What happens if social investment becomes disconnected from the communities where impact is created?

Social investment is only a good thing if it keeps social mission at its heart. Values like diversity, equality, social justice, and mission are critical. If we lose sight of these values in the market, where will the “social” be in social investment? The market will simply reflect the existing financial sector.

At this stage, there are more questions than answers. The immature state of the market means there are many resource and infrastructure gaps. Social enterprises need capacity building. More diverse participants with strong connections to places or sectors may be required. No doubt the solution lies in a combination of factors.

Some of these challenges can be addressed by catalysing shared resources and market infrastructure; and by testing new ways for existing voluntary sector infrastructure to engage with social investment. The Connect Fund will strive to support positive solutions to build a better social investment market through a process of consultation and collaboration, underpinned by learning.

Jessica Brown, Connect Fund Manager

14 June 2017

I have lived and worked in Birmingham all my adult life, the last 10 years almost exclusively providing affordable credit as an alternative to high cost credit, firstly running a credit union and then Fair for You.

It’s a generalisation but on the whole our customers are women, in lower income households, with some caring obligation and in part-time work.  ‘Managing mums’ is a term that has been coined in recent months. I would say these women are sassy, switched on, entrepreneurial, hard working, and not really managing very well at all. Or at least they are until something goes wrong when they need access to fair, affordable and well- designed credit.

I have sat in rooms over the last 10 years, hearing my customers talk about the need for financial education, budgeting and debt advice.  I felt strongly throughout those years that they need better alternatives to the credit options that are currently available.

In 2014, a group of us spent hours listening to mums of younger children in Northfield, Birmingham tell us very frankly and openly about their experience with high cost credit. I went in there thinking I knew what Fair for You would look like, and I came out knowing what it had to look like.

Some amazing people and organisations have backed our work over the last three years, but we never lost sight of what we were told, and we delivered what those people needed.

High cost credit isn’t just expensive – all versions of high cost credit have that in common. But the other common trait is that it is designed for the benefit of the lender, and to take maximum extraction from the customers’ financial household.

The term the ‘poverty premium’ is used to describe  the additional costs  low income households – in other words those who have less consumer power – have when purchasing essential goods and services. Whilst the amount of that premium fluctuates in various situations, it is always consistent that the lion’s share is made up of high cost credit i.e. the additional cost of using credit when faced with emergencies.  And the same households need credit when hit by emergencies, as they have less insulation and resilience to what to other people would be relatively minor emergencies.  There seems little point in measures to address poverty in the UK, without removing the poverty premium.

On 22 March we release the third social impact report relating to the work of Fair for You, a national challenger to high cost credit that directly responds to all of the needs we identified in our research. Now I don’t just have the voices of the mums who came to all of the sessions we ran, I have thousands of voices of customers whose financial situation has been changed because they have access to an alternative.  They prove every day, that they don’t need education and advice, they need better alternatives.

Fair for You is on line, available seven days a week, customer focused and a modern solution that uses multi-media communications including social media. Put simply, credit delivered with dignity and respect, designed to meet the lives of mums – and anyone else – who juggles, struggles and are not really managing at all.

And our customers love it – we are so proud to be rated among the highest financial services in the UK according to Trustpilot.

Please check us out and if you can support our work and our drive to change the way we lend to lower income households, then we would love to talk to you.

Angela Clements is the CEO  of Fair for You

Read Centre for Responsible Credit’s Social Impact Report

www.fairforyou.org.uk

www.fairforyou.co.uk

The Barrow Cadbury Trust is very pleased to be partnering with the Access Foundation for the delivery of the new Infrastructure Investment Fund.  With a fund of £1.8m over three years, the  investments and grants we make will strengthen existing infrastructure, bring new entrants into the sector and extend support to organisations that have not previously been able to access social finance.

The new fund is entirely focused on supporting infrastructure (by infrastructure we mean social investment intermediaries and support organisations, plus the shared processes, tools, networks and partnerships that enable best practice).  Our vision is, over the period of the fund, to facilitate the development of a strong, sustainable, collaborative community of support providers. We will be doing this in three ways:

• Making investments in existing infrastructure support agencies, for example to enable them to increase capacity, skill and effectiveness, grow their business or reach new markets, all in ways that increases their strength, resilience and sustainability.
• Extending the reach of the sector, by supporting new entrants (for example CVSs and other local support agencies) and exploring how support can be extended to geographic and sectoral “cold spots”. This element of the work is likely to take the form, initially, of small feasibility studies to explore provision of social investment support, or perhaps delivering a social investment funding programme.
• Thirdly, we will be looking to strengthen the sector by funding research, development and innovation. We expect to grant-fund or invest in a diverse portfolio which could include the development of new tools, standardised systems of data collection, awareness raising and communications, sharing best practice as well as projects to fill other gaps that become clear over the course of the programme.

Of course the availability of advice and support may not be the only factor preventing access to social finance, so there is scope to explore barriers and develop new solutions: blended finance, developing fresh thinking, developing shared tools and collective learning will go a long way towards accelerating change.

Access chose us to deliver this fund because of our expertise in sector infrastructure, our experience in social investment and our approach, which is to work in partnership with those we fund towards a common goal. Our model of working is to focus on a small number of policy areas, where we have deep knowledge, and try to influence decision-makers and practitioners by building an evidence base, advocating for change and ensuring that people affected by social injustices are heard by those in positions of power.  Those guiding principles will be used in developing and delivering the programme.

We expect to launch the new programme in the summer with a call for expressions of interest for a first round of investments.  The next few years will be an exciting time for all of us.

The new fund is entirely focused on supporting infrastructure (by infrastructure we mean social investment intermediaries and support organisations, plus the shared processes, tools, networks and partnerships that enable best practice).  Our vision is, over the period of the fund, to facilitate the development of a strong, sustainable, collaborative community of support providers. We will be doing this in three ways:

• Making investments in existing infrastructure support agencies, for example to enable them to increase capacity, skill and effectiveness, grow their business or reach new markets, all in ways that increases their strength, resilience and sustainability.
• Extending the reach of the sector, by supporting new entrants (for example CVSs and other local support agencies) and exploring how support can be extended to geographic and sectoral “cold spots”. This element of the work is likely to take the form, initially, of small feasibility studies to explore provision of social investment support, or perhaps delivering a social investment funding programme.
• Thirdly, we will be looking to strengthen the sector by funding research, development and innovation. We expect to grant-fund or invest in a diverse portfolio which could include the development of new tools, standardised systems of data collection, awareness raising and communications, sharing best practice as well as projects to fill other gaps that become clear over the course of the programme.

Of course the availability of advice and support may not be the only factor preventing access to social finance, so there is scope to explore barriers and develop new solutions: blended finance, developing fresh thinking, developing shared tools and collective learning will go a long way towards accelerating change.

Access chose us to deliver this fund because of our expertise in sector infrastructure, our experience in social investment and our approach, which is to work in partnership with those we fund towards a common goal. Our model of working is to focus on a small number of policy areas, where we have deep knowledge, and try to influence decision-makers and practitioners by building an evidence base, advocating for change and ensuring that people affected by social injustices are heard by those in positions of power.  Those guiding principles will be used in developing and delivering the programme.

We expect to launch the new programme in the summer with a call for expressions of interest for a first round of investments.  The next few years will be an exciting time for all of us.

When we set up Treebeard Trust in 2011, we adopted the traditional foundation model: invest the assets for financial return and give away the income to charitable causes. We had a vague sense there was something unsatisfactory about this – such a small part of our assets actually deployed to support our mission – but we didn’t articulate it and certainly didn’t see that there was anything we could do about it.

Then we discovered social investment. It was one of those lightbulb moments, where a solution appears before you’ve actually identified the problem, and we leapt at the opportunity. Initially our target was to allocate 20 per cent of our assets in impact investments (we prefer the term ‘impact’ to ‘social’), with the expectation that it would take us five years to get there. As things stand currently, I think we’ll get there in under three.

We thought it would be a challenge to identify attractive opportunities, but in fact the problem has been the opposite: managing the deal flow. We made our first investment in July 2015 and we’re now up to over twenty, covering a broad spectrum of social issues and asset classes (equity, property, debt etc).

We’re excited by both the social impact they create and the financial returns they should deliver. Regarding the latter, we don’t feel we’ve compromised on our financial objectives one iota – in the current environment of zero interest rates and inflated asset prices, we suspect that the average mainstream investment portfolio carries far more risk than is generally appreciated.

More fundamentally, it has radically transformed how we operate. We no longer think of grant-making and investment as separate functions. In fact, we have outlawed the ‘G’ word altogether. It has a ring of patronage about it, a malodorous whiff of munificence. Instead, every cheque we write is an investment.

That’s not to say we don’t still provide funding to charities with no expectation of financial return, but we now refer to this as ‘impact-only investment’.

All of our investments are now subject to an evaluation framework based on their social impact and their financial risk and return profile. In the case of impact-only investments, there is 100 per cent probability that we lose all our money, and we budget 5 per cent of the trust’s assets for these investments – in line with our historic grants budget.

We allocate another 5 per cent to ‘impact first’ investments, where we expect to get our money back, but are willing to accept below market returns and/or above average risk in return for a compelling social impact.

The rest of the portfolio covers a broad spectrum of liquid and illiquid, equity and debt, high risk and low risk investments. With some, the social impact is explicit and powerful, with others it is limited or hard to discern. But in all cases it is at least evaluated, and to the extent that we can enhance the positive impact of the trust’s assets, without compromising its financial stability, we will continue to do so.

We’ve travelled a long way quite quickly, but we’re still a long way from the destination. The system is broken. A world in which individuals and corporations devote themselves to narrow, parochial goals in the expectation that the public and charitable sectors will clean up whatever mess is left in their wake is not sustainable.

Government finances are stretched to the brink of insolvency and charities, reliant on a donation-based funding model, are wholly ill-equipped to fill the gap. History teaches us that human beings are wonderfully resourceful when their backs are against the wall, and we believe we are witnessing just such a moment.

By breaking down the barrier between philanthropy and commerce, social impact investment has the potential to transform modern capitalism and unleash it as a force for good.

Find out more about how trusts, foundations and charities with investable assets can make social investments via the GET INFORMED – Social investment for boards campaign, launched by Big Society Capital.

Barnaby Wiener is a Trustee with the Treebeard Trust.

Please note, the cross-posting of this blog does not represent endorsement or necessarily reflect the view of Barrow Cadbury Trust.  The blog is cross-posted with the aim of contributing to the conversation on social investment.