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 make social investment truly inclusive? Three UK initiatives – Good Finance, Ubele Initiative and CAF Venturesome – working to widen access to support and funding share what they have learned.
England’s social enterprises have just one week to apply for emergency grants of up to £300,000, as the second round of the Social Enterprise Support Fund opens today.
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.
PLUS: Covid-19 updates you may have missed; ANDE invests $1.2m in women-led businesses; Africa’s Novastar Ventures raises $108m; Acumen backs Peruvian edtech platform, and more.
PLUS: BNP Paribas and European Investment Fund create €10m impact bond fund, SIS Ventures' second fundraise, US foundations back affordable food business Everytable, Dutch firm Tony’s Chocolonely secures new investment, and more.
FRC Group has won a string of awards recently, but success hasn't always come easy. CEO Shaun Doran tells us what it takes to lead a social business through ups and downs – and why its strategy includes helping other entrepreneurs too.
A pioneering repayable finance offer aimed at supporting community-led housing schemes is now in its tenth year. As the movement continues to grow, CAF Venturesome's Anne-Helene Sinha reflects on how investors can best support them.
PLUS: Record profits for Belu and Unity Trust Bank; innovative finance for community land trusts; new blended finance for tech companies in emerging markets, and more.
