What's the biggest waste of money in social investment?

It’s easy to get excited about what social investment can do. But now that it’s been around for some years, what needs to improve?

We spoke to some of those attending Good Deals & Beyond Good Business – the social enterprise and social investment conference delivered by Pioneers Post and Hatch Enterprise– to find out where they think social investment is going wrong.

Jack Goldstein, associate at Social Finance, says social investment “can be too inward-looking”. The biggest waste, he believes, is “work that focuses on creating a social investment sector and network but doesn’t involve the enterprises and ultimately the service users we’re trying to help”.

Sam Baumber, managing director at Social Enterprise Academy International, warns against “reinventing the wheel”, and multiple people funding pilot projects, “when actually a lot of the ingredients are known about and have been done before”.

For Jessica Brown, Connect Fund manager at Barrow Cadbury Trust, the challenge is to move on from “navel-gazing” and get on with it: no more reports “gathering dust on bookshelves”.

What’s your biggest bugbear in social investment? Share your thoughts with us on Twitter or on our Facebook page.

Film edited by Hatty Bell.

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