Charity Bank receives £2.75mn investment to expand reach
Melanie May | 7 July 2023 | News
Charity Bank is to receive £2.75mn in investment from Access – The Foundation for Social Investment, which has committed the money as part of its Flexible Finance for the Recovery programme.
The funding package will help it reach underfunded charities and social enterprises and comprises a £1mn investment in the shares of the bank and £1.75mn in grant funding.
Charity Bank will use the Access investment with its own funds to develop a portfolio of smaller loans with more flexible terms. The funding from Access will also enable Charity Bank to offer blended finance packages of loans and small grants to its customers. Under the Access-funded loan programme, the bank also expects to significantly increase the range and diversity of organisations supported and will set specific targets for reaching ethnically diverse enterprises and other groups that have experienced exclusion from social investment.
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Ed Siegel, CEO at Charity Bank said:
“We’re excited by the immense impact potential we can unlock as we extend our reach to organisations that in the past have been overlooked by traditional lending criteria. The blended finance programme that we are rolling out as a result of the investment from Access is a key initiative under our updated, impact-led strategy.
“Charity Bank want to be the lender of choice for UK impact-driven organisations whilst also meeting our wider ambitions to increase the diversity of our lending and specifically seek out those organisations that are addressing the greatest needs of our society and our planet.”
Seb Elsworth MBE, Chief Executive at Access said:
“We know that charities and social enterprises can often struggle to access mainstream finance. The investment made in Charity Bank, through our Flexible Finance programme, will broaden the availability of patient and affordable finance available to charities and social enterprises and will help support Charity Bank itself to develop and grow its offer to organisations that have been excluded from social investment in the past.”
In June, Charity Bank announced that it had achieved a record financial result in 2022, with a profit of £2.7mn – and that it would be reinvesting all of it to further its mission and extend its reach to underfunded charities and social enterprises. It also revealed that it had disbursed a record £53.9mn in new loans.
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About Melanie May
Melanie May is a journalist and copywriter specialising in writing both for and about the charity and marketing services sectors since 2001. She can be reached via thepurplepim.com.