GoodFinance

Shaun Doran, CEO FRC Group, shares the good, bad and ugly story of their road to social investment. FRC Group used social investment to tackle furniture poverty. Shaun takes a close look at why organisations should consider social investment and the changes that need to happen for this to work.

David Jenkins, Managing Director Arts at The Mill CIC, talks about the role social investment played in renovating property in Wigan to be used by the community with arts and culture.

Rachel from Hulme Community Garden Centre shares their story of using community shares. They have 80% earned income and 20% grant funding, and support from Power to Change’s Community Shares Booster Programme. Rachel shares her tips on the importance of marketing and looks at why they considered social investment.

Vinelife Church share their experience of being a faith-based organisation taking on a secured loan.

Pastor Phil smith talks about the secured loan that Vinelife Church took and how it helped Vinelife Church stabilise their income and carry on supporting their community.

At Let's Talk Good Finance in Leicester, we heard from Yasin El Ashrafi, whose won several accolades with his social enterprise, HQ CAN (Creative Arts Network) and HQ Recording. HQ works with local disadvantaged people and helps them to experience and progress in the music industry.

Listen to the podcast to hear about how they got HQ Recording started with investment in the form of blended finance (part loan and part grant)from The Key Fund. Yasin also talks about the support he had from CASE and Voluntary Action Leicestershire - as well as offering his top tip for others considering taking out a loan. It also features a music clip from HQ (more of that can be found: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cKNr-IcN7C4)

At Let's Talk Good Finance in York, we heard from Sam Leach who is co-founder and director of Spark York (www.sparkyork.org), a community-led social enterprise who used social investment to regenerate a brownfield space and turn it into retail space.

Listen to the podcast to hear how they got started and the different types of investment and funding they got, which includes:

• Blended finance from Key Fund and Power to Change

• Loans from BE Fund

• Investment from individuals using Social Investment Tax Relief (SITR)as well as philanthropic donations.

To do

At Let's Talk Good Finance in Braintree, CEO Matt King of mental health & wellbeing charity Trust Links (www.trustlinks.org) talks about their experience of taking on social investment via a loan from Charity Bank (www.charitybank.org).

Listen to hear:

At Let's Talk Good Finance in Salford, Alexis Johnson from charity Walk the Plank talks about their experience of taking on social investment via a bridging loan from the Arts Impact Fund. Listen to hear what it involved as well as the opportunities and challenges they have faced to be more sustainable in the long-term.