The Social Investment Business have indicated they may be getting ready to launch funds that serve social businesses outside the charity and traditional social enterprise sector.

Jonathan Jenkins of the The Social Investment Business, the UK’s largest social business lender, indicated at a recent speech, at a Somerset House Big Society Network event, stated that his organisation was looking at securing funding for businesses that have with-profit profiles, that could benefit from finance streams that are different from SIB’s core government funds.

This is an interesting development in the sector, with a major player in social finance now looking to support a wider category of socially minded businesses that value their social bottom line, as well as generate shareholder value.

In a sophisticated social business support landscape, this is a timely indication that the sector is moving towards a wider recognition of enterprises with ‘community sensibility’, but who can still perform and deliver within a more traditional business matrix.

To endorse this view Big Society Capital, at the same Somerset House event, opined that perhaps eight new funds of substance, based on these wider application criteria, might appear in the marketplace in 2014.

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