Venturesome investee recycles standby facility in full

Founded twenty years ago, the Kurdish Human Rights Project (KHRP) addresses under-reported human rights violations in the Kurdish regions.  To date, the organisation has represented and advised on over 500 human rights cases, both challenging cultures and raising awareness of abuses in doing so. 

CAF Venturesome first met KHRP in July 2010, when their funding was uncertain due to the ending of two large grants and the economic crisis.  At the time, KHRP was waiting on four grant decisions which, if successful, would stabilise the financial situation.  However, in the mean time the organisation was using up valuable reserves. 

In response to this, Venturesome offered KHRP a standby facility of £100,000 - a line of credit that they could use if needed (similar to an overdraft). 

The facility gave KHRP the comfort and confidence it needed to move forwards.  It went on to successfully secure grant funding and win the Gruber Prize for Justice in June 2011.  As such, it didn’t need to use the standby facility and it expired undrawn in July 2011. 

Rachel Bernu, Managing Director of KHRP commented “the approachability and support of the Venturesome team in helping us understand how social investment could work for us was invaluable.  Although we never used the loan offered to us, it was extremely worthwhile to have it to hand in making our case for grant applications and renegotiating service agreements.”

If this sounds familiar and you’d like to talk to Venturesome about a standby facility for your organisation, please do contact us, we’d love to hear from you!