Good Finance offers social investment resource for charities and social enterprises
Howard Lake | 12 April 2017 | News
Good Finance, a sector-wide website and collaborative project, is now live, offering resources to help charities and social enterprises make the most of the opportunities of social investment.
The resource has launched following a year of research and design with the sector.
It is funded by Big Society Capital, Access and DCMS, with support from sector partners including NCVO, Social Enterprise UK, Locality, the creative agency Matter & Co, and the social investment organisation Flip Finance.
It aims to:
1. Improve knowledge of social investment, what is it, what it can be used for and the journey & process is requires
2. Enable organisations to make informed decisions, based on their needs and situation, not because of embedded attitudes
3. Help connect organisations to the right investors to talk to base on shared values
The stimulus behind it is to overcome the commonly cited problem that that social investment is confusing and complex to understand.
Good Finance has been live in beta format since the start of the project last year.
The new website contains up to date content and case studies, a tool to help users assess if social investment is right for them and the first ever directory of social investors and advisers.
Kieran Whiteside, the new Project Manager for Good Finance said:
“While the social investment market has continued to grow, charities and social enterprises have often struggled to navigate this challenging and complex world.
‘Our hope is that this new website will help charities and social enterprises feel empowered to make informed and educated investment decisions that are right for them.”
Sarah Wren, CEO of Hertfordshire Independent Living Service, one of the charities that took part in the user-design workshops, said:
“A few years ago we sought social investment to support a period of rapid expansion and growth. At that time it was really difficult to get sound advice about the range of options, and over the intervening years, the range of financial products and options has grown and become increasingly difficult to negotiate.
“We were delighted to help support Good Finance with a user-design project to create clear, simple resources and tools to help social businesses and charities find funding which works for them.”
Helping #charities #coops #socent #communitybiz navigate sometimes befuddling world of Social Investment, @GoodFinanceUK finance coming soon https://t.co/p4mSMzsziz
— Ged Devlin (@DevlinGed) March 29, 2017
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About Howard Lake
Howard Lake is consultant editor of UK Fundraising. He founded the site in 1994 and successfully sold it in 2022. As director of Giving X Ltd he is exploring growing giving on a massive scale.
He is the founder of Fundraising Camp and co-founder of GoodJobs.