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Four large housing associations create new £3m social enterprise fund
Four of the UK’s biggest housing associations have teamed up to create a new £3m fund aimed at providing loans to social enterprise initiatives that boost the communities in which they operate.
Clarion, Orbit, L&Q and Peabody have joined forces for the new Community Impact Partnership initiative which will allow social enterprises and charities to bid for loans and direct grants between £25,000 and £150,000 to support programmes that provide social and economic benefits.
The first social enterprise to secure funding through the programme is Hastings-based employment company The Work People.
The Work People, which provides services to get unemployed people back into work, secured £107,000 over the next five years – including £37,500 in direct grant and £69,500 in loan funding.
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David Hinton, managing director of The Work People, which helped 1,600 people with careers advice last year, said the money would take the organisation to the next level.
Successful applicants for Community Impact Partnership will see their funding distributed through a mixture of direct grant and loans at rates of 7%.
Loans can be repaid over a maximum of five years, with recipients being given repayment holidays of up to 12 months.
The areas in which the funding will be targeted are where the housing associations hold most stock: London, the South East, the East and the Midlands.
The £3m will run until 2021 and successful applicants will also be able to access skills development and mentoring from the four partners.
The new fund will be in addition to the £30m that these four housing associations currently invest every year in social enterprise and charitable projects covering their combined portfolio of 400,000 houses.
Penny Hembrow, chair of the Community Impact Partnership, said: “Our vision is to provide finance to those enterprises with a social mission who plan to take their businesses to the next level.
“We want to provide the right finance and support at the right time as organisations grow and move to their next stage.”
