Social Investors

The investors we seek:

Funding innovative community-based social enterprises from an early stage in their development through to operational and financial sustainability will require investors willing and able to provide ultra-patient risk capital and who are looking to incorporate social returns into the risk / return mix. This could be in the timing of social returns, the quantum of them, or both.

The social enterprises we are looking to identify, support and fund will deliver high social returns from a very early stage – even during pilot / R&D phases. Investment in these should be attractive to those individuals with strong social motivations and who are interested in supporting disruptive innovation in order to meet social need more effectively.

We believe that this type of investment is likely to appeal to those investors who are looking to:

• Fund R&D work to develop innovative solutions to social problems.
• Support the development of social enterprises that have products or services which effectively meet social need so that they can become sustainable organisations and continue to deliver social outcomes over the long-term without depending on grants or donations.
• Accept only social return on their investment in the early years, followed by financial returns which directly relate to the success of the organisation once it has become financially sustainable. Blended returns will be high but will be heavily skewed towards social return in the early years with modest but stable financial returns possible in later years