Social investment has now been an active policy area in the UK for more than two decades. Has it turned out as hoped? Has social investment created the envisaged {...}
Relief In Sight: Making Social Investment Tax Relief Work Better
Social Investment Tax Relief (SITR) is a potentially useful tool that is not currently widely used. We believe there is significant untapped potential for SITR to offer additionality within {...}
A radical strategy of public investment into our social fabric
In September, Matt Robinson set out a great overview of an agenda for the Office of Civil Society (OCS) in its new home of the Department of Culture, Media {...}
“If we were UnLtd, this would be our business plan”
If UnLtd is serious about supporting a whole marketplace of social entrepreneurship it will need to seriously wrestle with the challenge that there cannot only be one major player {...}
All aboard the supertanker for the ride to the mainstream
Ah UnLtd. Do we love you or hate you? Are you the social investment Starship Enterprise or Death Star? Can we do anything to build on your successes and {...}
Rethinking Social Investment in Scotland
Senscot attended an event this week in Glasgow. The event, titled ‘Re-thinking Social Investment in Scotland’, was hosted by Matt Fountain (Freedom Bakery) and Flip Finance. 20 or so {...}
The what nows, wherefores and what ifs
You can forgive civil servants in the Office for Civil Society (OCS) having a stronger than usual bout of back-to-school blues right now. After 10 years of residence within {...}
Do Britain’s banks have a social conscience? New RBS report says yes
Do Britain’s banks have a social conscience? Well a new report suggests they do. Data provided by RBS and analysed by the social research company Social Spider says UK {...}
Report challenges social investment specialists to be clearer
A report by David Floyd and Dan Gregory (for RBS) – ‘The Forest for the Trees’ – estimates that mainstream banks have around £3bn in outstanding lending to third {...}
Nearest cash points
It is likely that mainstream banks are lending far more money to social enterprises and charities than the ‘social investment market’. That’s the headline news from The Forest For The {...}
Need money for your social venture? Try the banks…
A new report for RBS written by social investment and social enterprise commentators Dan Gregory and David Floyd has found that social investment by mainstream banks could eclipse that {...}
New report should prompt major re-evaluation of social investment
Last week saw a report issued by Social Spider’s on social investment “The Forest for the Trees”. Do banks understand charities? One of the issues that the report highlights {...}
Becoming genuinely UnLtd
UnLtd faces the difficult challenge of huge expectations that come with having a gigantic endowment and the ability to have a ‘forever’ business model. This comes with its own {...}
Report: UK banks are lending £3bn to social organisations
A report commissioned by RBS has estimated that banks in the UK have over £3bn invested in outstanding lending to social organisations, and that there is no evidence that {...}
Forest For The Trees: UK banks’ investment in a social purpose
Flip Finance’s David Floyd and Dan Gregory were commissioned by RBS to write a report highlighting the significant level of existing investment in the social sector by mainstream banks and {...}
DIY Social Investment / Manchester
On 6 July 2016, we worked with three enterprises at MadLab in Manchester to help them to understand how they can ‘DIY’ their own social investment deals. Jonathan Atkinson {...}
DIY Social Investment / London
On 01 June 2016, we worked with a number of social enterprises in London to help them to understand how they can ‘DIY’ their own social investment deals. The {...}
A Social Entrepreneur’s Guide to Social Investment Tax Relief
There can be a lot of information to consume to fully understand Social Investment Tax Relief (SITR) but it doesn’t need to be too taxing! Matt Fountain, Freedom Bakery founder and Flip Finance team {...}
DIY Social Investment / Sheffield
On 23 March, we worked with a couple of social enterprises in Sheffield to help them to understand how they can ‘DIY’ their own social investment deals. Flip Finance team {...}
Social Impact Bonds, designed by some of our leading thinkers
This week the Minister for the Third Sector announced his intention to make Social Impact Bonds the most talked about funding mechanism for government social projects. We are delighted {...}
DIY Social Investment / London
On 03 February 2016, we worked with three social enterprises in London to help them to understand how they can ‘DIY’ their own social investment deals. Birdsong and Mindapples {...}
Is Big Society Capital really a wholesaler?
Since its launch in 2012, Big Society Capital has regularly been described as the ‘World’s First Social Investment Bank’. While it is not literally a bank, the ‘financial institution’ is {...}
It’s the Social, stupid
It is exciting times for Big Society Capital and if I were the new Chief Exec, I would have difficulty in knowing where to focus as I try to {...}
DIY Social Investment / London
On 02 December 2015, we held a Sprint focussed on ‘DIY Social Investment’ and worked with three social enterprises to help them to understand how they can ‘DIY’ their own social {...}
‘Social Investment’ or ‘Impact Investing’?
Social investment is often spoken about as if it is the same thing as impact investing. Organisations as influential as the OECD describe the terms as ‘interchangeable’[1], and the {...}
CIVA Invests – creating a new social investment fund
On 04 November 2015 Flip Finance ran a Sprint where 15 people came together to assist the Centre for Innovation in Voluntary Action (CIVA) develop its approach to social investment. Below is {...}
A whole heap of nothing?
So, all change at the top for Big Society Capital. The big question is whether this change offers Big Society Capital the chance to revisit the central question at the {...}
Choices and constraints for a change of tactics
Last Thursday, the news broke that Cliff Prior, currently Chief Executive at UnLtd is set for a transfer to the manager’s chair over at Big Society Capital (BSC). Many {...}
Unconventional tales of raising social finance
In October 2015 we popped up at Transition Bristol‘s New Economy Summit, where we organised a ‘show and tell’ evening for local social entrepreneurs who had raised finance in less than {...}
Flip’s first Sprint – the beginnings of ‘DIY Social Investment’
Sprints are regular meet ups where we apply a range of methodologies to a question or defined challenge, usually related to social investment, and where a collaborative and ‘investee-focussed’ {...}
After The Gold Rush: The Alternative Commission on Social Investment
The Alternative Commission on Social Investment is an initiative set-up to investigate what’s wrong with the UK social investment market and to make practical suggestions for how the market {...}
Social Investment Explained
Flip Finance’s David Floyd and Dan Gregory co-wrote this handy guide back in 2014, which aims to give social organisations “an overview of the UK social investment market and {...}