Mission-led businesses are more resilient and grow faster than the UK average, but they still only represent a small fraction of the UK’s business landscape, reveals study of Companies House data produced by Allia Impact and Beauhurst Insights.
INTERVIEW: The founding CEO of FASE knows what it means to do impact-first investing that works for social enterprises. As he takes on one of the most influential European impact investing roles, he shares his vision with Pioneers Post.
OPINION: If impact investment is about improving people’s lives, why are those people's voices often absent from investment decisions? Capital is being allocated on incomplete information.
British Business Bank announces £90m commitment across 10 microfunds led by teams from diverse backgrounds, including three that received funding and support from Pathway Fund’s incubator programme.
New research quantifies “tradeoff” between impact and financial return for the first time, but warns not to confuse cost of creating impact with fund inefficiency and calls for more philanthropic capital to back impact-first investing.
Locally-rooted and entrepreneur-led, with zero interest and ‘social’ repayment options – Kindred has created a flexible financing solution that’s strengthening dozens of social ventures.
Social enterprises and others can apply for grants of up to £9m as part of the government's new Youth Investment Fund, delivered by Social Investment Business, and set to fund 300 existing or new youth facilities.
ACF, School for Social Entrepreneurs and Access Foundation set up taskforce to boost earned income through grants – billed “the missing piece in the finance jigsaw” – by building on success of match trading.
Certifying as a B Corp isn't easy, even for the most experienced ethical businesses. But should the bar be higher? The latest in our Awkward Questions series puts forward some important challenges. Plus, an overlooked solution to messy metrics.
Social Value International adds explicit requirement to ‘be responsive’ – as too few organisations have reached the stage of managing, not just measuring, their impact.
The B Corp idea disrupted entrenched narratives in business. But certification of companies like Nespresso shows that it must now evolve to embrace newer, bolder ideas in business – or risk being adapted to the needs of the “old economy”.
PLUS: EdTech Provider APDS gains US$7m to 'transform the correctional system'; new report calls for US$6trn in impact investing improve urban slums; Wysa raises US$20m to expand AI-powered mental health services, and more.
New study by Global Steering Group for Impact Investment calls for a change in viewpoint from seeing slums and their inhabitants as a problem and instead acknowledging the potential to transform urban liabilities into assets.
When organisations select their preferred impact metrics in isolation from others, it wastes time and makes it difficult to compare results with others. A promising solution: indices.
