Barrow Cadbury Trust is pleased to announce a £500k investment in a new social investment fund, the Resilience and Recovery Loan Fund, which will lend to charities and social enterprises with long-term viability but whose expected income and activity has been delayed or disrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic, or they have been rejected by their banks due to their ‘unfamiliar models’. Kick-started by £25m from Big Society Capital it will be run by the Social Investment Business (SIB) which in recent years has given out £180m of loans to 460 charities and social enterprises alongside £133m of grants.

There are currently different sources of loan finance available, aimed at different types of organisations and different size of loans such as the government ‘Bounce Back Loan Scheme’ (BBLS) which will give loans of between £2,000 and £50,000 to small and medium sized businesses, as well as the Growth Fund which provides a blend of loans and grants. RRLF aims to complement these alternative sources with a loan scheme as loan finance will be needed to plug the gaps.

RRLF will lend to organisations that are improving people’s lives across the UK. It will seek to help organisations in three main groupings:

• Survive – Support enterprises with working capital to survive the crisis
• Maintain – Enabling enterprises to meet the increased demand for an existing business model during the crisis
• Revive – Enabling enterprises to recover post-crisis from a pause or reduction of services during the crisis by retaining physical or human assets with working capital support.

RRLF has three participating social lenders – Charity Bank, Big Issue Invest, and Social and Sustainable Capital. Applicants to the Fund will complete a standard application form via SIB’s website. They will have the option of choosing which participating social lender they want to be considered by.

The Chair of Barrow Cadbury Trust, Erica Cadbury said: “We are pleased to announce our investment in this fund which will go some way towards charities and social enterprises surviving the current storm through fast track, patient, and low cost lending”.