As a major funder of the voluntary and community sector, BIG has significant interests and responsibilities in the emerging area of social investment; we have for instance already jointly funded a study into ways of promoting social investment.
But discussions of the idea of social investment reveal that there are differing views about whether and when organisations are ready to receive investment of this sort. Because of this, discussions, definitions and concepts are not always clear – a situation that is likely to hold back the development of the social investment market.
So early in 2012 we commissioned a partnership between Clearly So and New Philanthropy Capital to investigate the following:
- What does ‘investment-ready’ mean, and to whom?
- What barriers do VCS groups and potential investors (among others) see to making groups investment-ready?
- What support do groups need to become ready for investment, and how can BIG and other funders best support them to achieve that goal?
The study found that different stakeholders did indeed have different views.
- Investors and intermediaries felt that there was a need to develop understanding of the concept of social investment and to improve financial management and marketing. Some intermediaries highlighted the change of culture needed in the sector to take advantage of the new, more commercial possibilities.
- Voluntary and community groups had a range of views, depending on their interest in social investment and whether they had tried to get investment. The report discusses this range in more detail.
- All stakeholders highlighted the need for more information, training and signposting, and the report suggests some ways of responding to this.
Read the full report
Read our summary of the findings
Full survey data
Case studies
Please contact us if you have any questions or comments.