This week: Fearless Fund drops grant programme for black women, the Body Shop is rescued from administration, but has lost B Corp status, Draghi slams sustainability reporting laws, and more.
How do you scale up your organisation to achieve more impact? To find out, the head of the UK's Responsible Finance spent a "mind-opening" week in Stanford – returning with three key lessons.
Social enterprises and others can apply for grants of up to £9m as part of the government's new Youth Investment Fund, delivered by Social Investment Business, and set to fund 300 existing or new youth facilities.
England social enterprises can get grants of up to £100,000 to help them “get back on their feet”, under Lottery-funded scheme first set up in 2020, and once again delivered by Big Issue Invest, Key Fund, Resonance, SSE and UnLtd.
How does a social investment intermediary outlive shifting political winds, a global financial crisis, and much more? Matt Smith, CEO of Sheffield-based Key Fund, reflects on two decades of taking risks and staying true to the mission.
PLUS: Access Foundation's flexible finance grantees; Irish government offers €1m for social enterprise awareness-raising; Key Fund reports £447m 'total impact'; Olio and Oddbox lure investors; Social Finance raises $50m; and more.
Government sees clear role for impact investing in driving ‘levelling up’ agenda in face of massive social and economic inequality – and financiers are getting on board with the new concept of equality impact investing.
Damehood for Caroline Mason, the boss of leading grantmaker and social investor Esmée Fairbairn Foundation, plus accolades for many more in New Year Honours – but questions around an award of ‘empire’ persist.
Social investors go ‘back to grants’ with National Lottery-funded Social Enterprise Support Fund, which offers grants of up to £300,000 – and a deadline closing in just one week’s time.
