Below you can see a short video about the recent winner of the Charity Bank Most Innovative use of Loan Finance Award. Reviive is not only a winner, but also exists from the act of two charities coming together with common aims, to create a new Community Interest Company.
Reviive provides apprenticeships and placements for beneficiaries of the organisation, as well as working to generate profits to the two charities who provide the nucleus of the initiative.
A great exemplar of how charitable endeavour, through the use of Social Finance, can be the route to a grounded, effective and successful supplier of goods and services. In this case recycled and re-homed furniture.
Mary Locke, a Charity Bank impact assessment specialist, describes social loans as ‘…the grease that helps the wheel to turn’, but that it is not the wheel itself. The Social Finance borrowers do the work. A wonderfully distinct separation for the charitable sector.
Mary makes the point that in the not for profit sector, unlike in the private sector, it is effectiveness in supporting beneficiaries and the broad range of ‘social mission’ objectives that the loan finance should be assessed against for effectiveness.
The Charity Bank loan to Reviive was £50,000. Social Finance achieving great outputs!
The second part of Lord Young’s report on business, delivered as business advisor to the Prime MInister, focuses on the importance of the micro-business in the UK. A key plank to the development of enterprise and sustainability, whether in the social sector or not, is the long term growth of organisations with less than ten members.
Growing Your Business – a report on growing micro-businesses offers insights into the importance of the sector, and how, as community populations flex and employment rates fluctuate, it is the micro-business that inexorably feeds the enterprise seed-bed activity of the nation.
The report, publish in May 2013, does contain some reference to the social economy, although not significantly, however the index of resources and the layout of strategies for growth are highly applicable to any ambitious social business organisation.
The report focuses on three key strategic areas for enterprise growth…
Confidence – in the small enterprise embracing the belief that they can make it happen. Particularly important in a groundbreaking Social Business.
Capability – Mapping and deploying your key skills, as well as recognising the ones you do not have, is a key factor in growth. The report clearly evidences that asking for external help is a key indicator of business ambition, but also a key factor in growth and sustainability.
Coherence – a belief that support for micro-business, particularly in the social sector, is ‘…designed and marketed in way they understand, trust and can find…’.
SEEM can play a key part in this role, disseminating good practice, articulating the needs of the sector in a language understood across the piece, as well as working with members and partners to stimulate social finance initiatives and growth across all elements of the sector.
Lord Young covers several key areas on marketing issues in this regard. Do the government articulate or disseminate loans and finance information for any sector widely and effectively?
Is public sector procurement significantly focused on a one stop shop approach, and are procurement processes properly understood, both in the social sector, as well as by the public sector when looking back at us?
This ‘single market’ response to all forms of procurement is of particular importance to the social sector, we would argue. Small or ‘social’ does not necessarily mean unprofessional or ineffective. Do local authorities and other major procuring organisations in the public sector still, even in the summer of 2013, fully appreciate the latent delivery capability of the micro-social sector?
The ‘using what we have better’ section of the report is particularly telling in this regard. Exploit your Social Business potential to the full. Talk to SEEM.
Kitchenette , an innovative ‘kitchen incubator’ resource in London, have recently produced a report for Nesta highlighting the opportunities and pitfalls of developing catering enterprise. How to best to support and fund innovation in the sector?
A Steak in the Economy offers insights into how important catering and hospitality is, but the work Kitchenette does perhaps also highlights how under-nourished the imagination of the sector can be in developing new ideas and approaches to food entrepreneurship.
The data evidenced in the report shows how perilous sustainability can be in the hospitality sector. The very high cost of retail property and high street outlets, combined with high levels of staff churn and shifting tastes in traditional market segments, means the five year survival rate for food based enterprise is dismally low in the U.K.
However, amidst the weight of tradition, this author would argue, continue some fantastic opportunities for a new, lightweight, agile and responsive approach.
Filling the local empty retail space with a pop-up cafe or restaurant? Read the case studies in the report to see how establishing ‘the minimum viable product’, a technology start-up concept, can help deliver innovation.
The report stresses the importance of social media in developing reputation, a customer base and as a lever in scaling enterprise. If everybody is a critic (…we have all eaten the greatest burger or falafel…) use the technology to turn this to business advantage. Share the great reports of good food delivered with everyone.
When we network we like to eat and drink together. Low capital cost entry into a sector should be counterbalanced by an imaginative customer proposition. Food can be a binding agent across communities in a local social centre. Food can be a creative output for a young team, seeking confidence and skills as they explore the world and their own capabilities.
A while ago The Guardian ran a series of lengthy articles on the emergent USA street food movement. No lack of enterprise or quality was evident in the outlets reviewed.
Quality, food safety standards and a crisp, potent and telling business pitch are a given, whichever entry route to market the entrepreneurial spirit takes. Here’s to embracing the Kitchenette concept and to seeing social finance help create more steak holders!
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The money is to be dedicated to the creation of jobs in deprived areas. The CDFA will distribute the money to its members, who lend to social enterprises, businesses and individuals in the target geographical locations.
The new funds, some £12 million, is made up of a £6 million grant from the RGF, with a further £6 million loan sourced from Unity Trust. This new money is additional to the £60 million fund already administered by the CDFA.
The CDFA recently published research that illustrated a conservative unfulfilled finance demand of £1.3 billion from the SME sector. It is part of this unmet need that the Government’s Regional Growth Fund addresses. A £3.2 billion fund operating across England from 2011 to 2017. It supports projects and programmes that lever private sector investment to create economic growth and sustainable employment. You can find out how the RGF works in detail here.
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