Business School

  • Would your social enterprise fail this two-number sustainability test?

    EXPERT INSIGHT: Although most social enterprises think they’re financially sustainable, most of them are not, argues Thaddaeus Hubbard. He has devised a simple sustainability test.

  • When your living room is a micro-art gallery: How South African townships are building a community-owned creative economy

    EXPERT INSIGHT: The Maboneng Township Arts Experience has flipped the extractive tourism approach to retain visitors’ spending in their host communities. It’s a generation’s work, explains Siphiwe Ngwenya.

  • Cathy Benwell, founder of A Good Thing: ‘Every donation creates a relationship’

    Good Leaders Podcast: Could every unwanted laptop, pillow or sofa spark something bigger? A Good Thing’s co-founder Cathy Benwell tells Tim West how her circular economy social business turns would-be waste into social impact.

  • Social enterprise and impact investing events in 2026 and beyond

    Ready to network, learn and get inspired? Don't book your diary without the Pioneers Post roundup of impact economy events coming soon – for social entrepreneurs, impact investors and all those working within the global impact economy.

  • Pioneers Post Business School: How to do good business, better

    The tools and insight you need to do good business, better. Get expert advice, practical insight and frontline examples on key business management topics from our network of social business practitioners and advisors. 

Collection: The Gathering

Prioritising Impact: Do I want you in my sandbox?

In this debate, two ‘teams’ took opposing (and in some cases deliberately exaggerated) positions to explore how we could resolve the tensions between investors with very different motivations and viewpoints – those focused on philanthropic (“impact first”) and commercial (“finance first”) capital. 

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Collection: The Gathering

Connecting to the social sector: Oiling the wheels

What are we doing to ease the investment journey for investees? Though many social enterprises and charities are satisfied with their social investment application process, this session discovered that there are some unhappy customers – and explored where some social investors might be going wrong… 

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Collection: The Gathering

Connecting to the social sector: Opportunities for social investment & Economic development in Leicester

CASE, the Co-operative and Social Enterprise Development Agency in Leicester, hosted a session to explore the next steps for impact investing in Leicestershire – the ‘host’ county for this edition of The Gathering. In particular, the discussion considered why the county is currently a ‘cold spot’ for social investment and how repayable finance, public money and philanthropic funding can be maximised to help achieve social change for the people of Leicester and Leicestershire.

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Collection: The Gathering

Connecting to the social sector: Democratising social finance

With the chaos caused by the 2008 financial crash paired with continuing development in finance technology, more people have been moving away from traditional savings markets to explore how they can become investors. This session explored this shift towards “democratisation” through a range of different social investment platforms and initiatives. 

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Collection: The Gathering

Connecting to the social sector: Encouraging new voices

How can we make social investment more accessible to a diverse client base? The Encouraging New Voices session shone a spotlight on a number of initiatives addressing a lack of diversity in the social investment sector. The Diversity Forum, Voice4Change, Dartington Hall Trust and Hatch shared their perspectives on what needs to be done to move the sector closer to solving this issue. 

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