The £10 million Investment and Contract Readiness Fund, being delivered by The Social Investment Business on behalf of the Office for Civil Society will enable social ventures to access new forms of investment and compete for public service contracts.

Grants of between £50,000 and £150,000 are available on a rolling basis to ambitious social ventures who need at least £500,000 investment, or who want to bid for contracts over £1 million. It is hoped that the grants will enable smaller social enterprises to scale up and bid for public service contracts.

Minister for Civil Society Nick Hurd said:
“We want to make it easier for charities and social enterprises to access capital. This fund is for ambitious organisations who want to access social finance but know they are not yet investment ready. It allows them to get the support they need.”

The Fund is focused on enabling social ventures to access specialist support from an approved investment/contract readiness provider with a track record in helping organisations secure social investment or win contracts.

An engaged Investors Panel, including CAF’s Director of Social Investment Stephanie Sturrock, sits at the heart of the Fund, deciding the kind of support that social ventures applicants need to really scale up their operations and impact.

Ventures will need to work in partnership with an approved provider to submit an application to the Fund. The approved providers for the programme so far are ClearlySo, Locality, Resonance and Social Finance. Additional providers are still welcome to apply to participate in the programme.

The Social Investment Business’ Chief Executive, Jonathan Jenkins said:
“The Fund aims to complement the work of Big Society Capital and catalyse a more vibrant impact investment market in the UK. We want social ventures to collaborate with trusted, experienced providers whose work is deemed “investment grade” by our expert panel. We want to encourage both providers and ventures to develop high quality investment / commissioning grade proposals and have dispensed with traditional sector funding windows to allow organisations the opportunity to submit primed proposals on an on-going basis.”

Jim Beirne, CEO of Live Theatre explains why co-investment from CAF Venturesome and Esmée Fairbairn Foundation was the “linchpin” in enabling it to develop new social enterprises that generate unrestricted income to support the ongoing activities of the charity.

Watch the video to learn more about the potential of financing capital projects with debt instead of grants, and read the full case study here.

One of our social investors explains how he supports charities through the CAF Social Impact Fund

CAF Venturesome’s social investment funds are generously supported by philanthropic investors such as Jamie Justham.  Jamie, a successful businessman, was one of the first to invest philanthropic capital in the CAF Social Impact Fund – enabling us to support charities and social enterprises with loans. 

Jamie explains what the fund is about and how it has had an impact on the causes that he cares deeply about:

“After a career in business, my wife and I sold our company and for the first time found we had more money than we needed to live on. We wanted to use that money to help multiple charities in a way that would make a lasting impact.

I didn’t have a clear idea of how charities work at first and it was a revelation to learn from CAF Venturesome about how charities not only rely on donations but often find it difficult to borrow money while they are waiting for grants and funding. Often charity projects have to be completed before the funding is made available, so charities are left in a very difficult position. Through the CAF Social Impact Fund, the funds I had set aside in my CAF Charitable Trust could be used to help with loans to charities. CAF Venturesome has a lot of experience of due diligence and so I felt confident that my money would be in good hands.

There’s a need for this type of social investment as well as straightforward donations. It’s simply a case of making my money work harder so it can have the greatest impact possible.”

Click here to read the full interview with Jamie, and to find out how you can support charities in this way.

Meet the CAF Venturesome team (from left to right): Isabel, Dharisha, Stephanie, Holly, Ann and Casey. 

Click here for our About Us page where you can find out about our roles at Venturesome and a bit of background.   

In 2010, CAF Venturesome invested in The Nepal Trust to help fund a renewable energy project.  The Trust has recently repaid our loan in full, read on for the full story…

The Nepal Trust operates mainly in the North West district of Humla, Nepal; an impoverished area, which lacks access to basic services and from which the nearest road is approx. 10 days walk away.  The Trust works with local communities to enable them to implement sustainable projects which meet basic needs, and strengthen the ability of communities to improve their livelihood.   

Back in 2000, the Trust raised £55K in the UK and approx. £130K locally in Nepal towards a 50 kW Micro Hydro Project, a scheme which would bring clean and renewable energy to 3 villages comprising over 5,000 people, schools, health posts, and community buildings. However, due to the Maoist insurgency, the implementation of the scheme was delayed for almost 10 years. 

In 2010, work was ready to begin but high inflation meant costs had increased.  The Nepal Trust had a funding gap of £15K which needed to be filled quickly in order to complete the project before weather conditions made further work impossible until the following year. 

Venturesome provided a £15K bridging loan repayable over three years from future fundraising.  Given the Trust’s almost 20 year track record in successfully fundraising and implementing community development projects in the remotest parts of the Himalayas, Venturesome was confident in providing a loan.  The project has now been successfully completed and has been inaugurated by the Nepali government.  The loan was repaid in full in March this year. 

“A loan from CAF Venturesome was a great assistance to the Nepal Trust and enabled us to get the job done against all the odds” said Chris Rae, Secretary and acting CEO of The Nepal Trust. 

CAF’s award winning social investment team is growing. We’re currently looking to add an Investment Manager and an Investment Analyst to the team.

This is an exciting opportunity for two entrepreneurial individuals to forge a career in the social investment market. In particular, the Investment Manager will have responsibility for managing our first thematic fund, the Community Land Trust Fund.

For more information please see CAF’s website.

To apply, send your CV and a covering letter that explains why you are suitable for the role, to humanresources@cafonline.org by 5pm on Thursday 12th April.

If you’re at the Social Enterprise Exchange event in Glasgow today, come and visit CAF Venturesome at stand 126 opposite the owls! 

Click here to see Leicester-based social enterprise STRIDE feature on the BBC News. It’s been used it as an example of an organisation providing valuable training and real-life trading opportunities to young people at this time of high unemployment. 

CAF Venturesome has invested £100,000 in STRIDE over two years to help it make the transition from the Future Jobs Fund to a new Apprenticeship scheme. 

Contact Venturesome on 03000 123 300 or at venturesome@cafonline.org

Read what CAF’s Director of Social Investment, Stephanie Sturrock, has to say about hot topics including the Social Value Bill, public awareness of social enterprises and social impact reporting on page 10 of the Social Enterprise supplement that came out in The Independent on Monday.    

London will host the UK’s first urban Community Land Trust (CLT) to develop the site of the former St Clements Hospital in Bow, east London, as the average home costs about £370,000, which is too expensive for most locals. City Hall confirmed that “the site will incorporate London’s first urban community land trust. With the freehold of the site held in trust for the local community, (The HCA London Board) can ensure full participation from the local community in the redevelopment proposals.”

However, the preferred development partner is yet unknown. The East London Community Land Trust (ELCLT) was born from within the community and has been campaigning for this project. It hopes to develop the site and sell some of the homes to locals below their market value. ELCLT’s initial bid with its development partner Igloo was not successful. However, it will enter negotiations with the winning bidder, proposing an adoption of its original tender.

This is an exciting new CLT and it could be replicated in other urban areas. CAF Venturesome currently manages a CLT fund, which we use to invest in the movement but this is traditionally in rural organisations. So we are very excited in the CLT progress and hope to see many more urban CLTs being established around the UK. 

To date, Venturesome has invested in 21 CLT’s, to the tune of around £2.2million. Read more about our fund here.