Funding
What is Social
Funding?
Charities and social enterprises can use repayable finance and their business acumen to create social value – through business growth, development of assets or expanding working capital to increase scope and scale-up of activities.
Social investment is repayable finance and is used to create a surplus through operational activities, delivering health and wellbeing services, attracting grants and fulfilling contracts, or hosting events. The surplus generated is used to repay the investment.
Investor Readiness -
Coaching Communities
In most cases the community organisations are asked to introduce a more enterprising way of operating, that not only generates extra income, but also achieves greater social value linked to the funders’ objectives.
Coaching Communities is a development programme drawn from business start-up principles:
This analysis will identify the initial focus of the organisation developing the most appropriate structure for the business. This may be a charity, a social enterprise, or a mission-driven, for-profit enterprise (B Corp).
This programme will be driven by a dynamic process incorporating the organisation’s aspirations and ambitions. The structure will direct the most appropriate direction for the organisation to move in.
Adhering to the correct system of rules, practices and processes is essential to the success of any organisation. This course will examine best practice around stakeholder engagement, risk management, financial and legal compliance as well as how to form an effective and strong board of directors/trustees.
Having established the business concept, how an organisation defines its direction, and its strategy, is the difficult part. This course will examine the fundamentals of corporate strategy and will provide participants with the requisite knowledge to growth and sustainability.
Are leaders born or made? This course will look at some the most successful models for volunteering/employee leadership and development and how they can be applied to your organisation.
This course will provide participants with a roadmap to accessing the right levels of investment for your organisation’s ambitions.
Effective communication is one of the key foundations upon which an organisation’s success is built. This course will provide participants with the requisite tools to develop an excellent communication strategy for both internal and external stakeholders
How can you make your marketing message really work? This course will provide the community representatives with the strategic toolkit to help the message reach the right audience and make the message stick.
Developments aligning the business sector with local communities produces economic development, health & wellbeing, education and life opportunity outcomes. Shared Value simultaneously improves the bottom line of businesses and the social objectives of communities.
Employing these principles, accesses funding, business support through partnership and enhanced relationships with the business community.
Getting the right team in your organisation is a key critical success factor. This course examines the best practices for recruitment, retention and engagement of a range of volunteers/employees and how to get the most out of your team.
This course will examine the best practices for identifying and developing new leaders from within your organisation.
The efficient and effective development of the organisation will necessitate the introduction of numerous innovative ways of operating that should include;
- an extended volunteering programme,
- Sportbanking,
- an education establishments partnership,
- and a Community Partnership
Through this process the community organisation will be introduced to an appropriate funding partner and mutually beneficial social objectives will be incorporated into the business planning process.
Preparing the organisation to operate as a social enterprise will increase income streams and increase the social impact that the organisation delivers.
Types of Funding -
Blended Social Investment
(Grant & Loan)
Blended Funding is an investment package that combines a portion of grant that doesn’t need to be repaid; and a loan that does need to be repaid. All the packages are bespoke and specific to the project or organisation and social investor;
One example could be:
An organisation has identified a way of creating new income streams from physical activity programmes linked to their current operations but needs enhanced facilities. If the community organisation wishes to apply for funding they could be offered a ‘blended investment’ of, mixed grant and loan that would be repaid over 5 years or possibly longer.
This provides the organisation with funds to invest, generating the operational surplus needed to repay a portion of the initial loan. The amount of the grant would vary (20-30%) and be dependent on size of loan, length of loan etc. However all funders are specifically looking to help your organisation generate sustainable Social Value.
Community shares
A withdrawable, non-transferrable equity investment into a cooperative or community benefit society. It is a form of equity because the investors get a share of the organisation.
Crowd-funded investment
An investment that is raised via an online platform and not secured against an asset (a building or equipment). A ‘crowd’ of individual investors put (mostly) small amounts towards a loan to your organisation and you repay it on an agreed basis, usually with interest on top.
Social Investment Tax Relief
Social Investment Tax Relief is a tool that can be used in combination with other products.
A tax break for individual investors into charities and social enterprises. Investors get 30% of the cost of their investment off their next income tax bill so, provided certain conditions are met, if an investor makes a £100 investment into your organisation, they can claim £30 back. Investors can’t sell their shares or have their loan repaid for 3 years, although they can receive interest on loans.
Start your
growth today!
If you want to grow your organisation in a planned way, rather than relying on chasing grants each year then give us a call!
