Take a look at this great, inspiring, short video from our borrower Organised Kaos!
Organised Kaos began as a youth outreach project in 2007, and has now grown into an innovative and award-winning social business based in Gwaun Cae Gurwen, in the heart of South West Wales.
Organised KAOS is a contemporary Welsh Circus Company transforming lives and creating opportunities. Embedded in their communities, they Keep Adolescents Off the Streets and develop pathways for local Welsh talent, through outreach, regular classes, events and festivals.
We’ve been proud to support Organised Kaos since 2015 and have seen the results of their incredible work – the make a real difference to the people they work with and they put on an *amazing* show!
Organised Kaos are available to perform at events worldwide, including for you! Book them for your staff parties, corporate launches, open days, celebrations and events and get a guaranteed social return on your investment.
Social investors are developing a pilot fund to support charities and social enterprises navigating rising energy costs by improving their energy resilience.
They need your help to make sure the solutions designed are effective and impactful. This includes understanding what you’re experiencing and what you think support should look like.
The cost-of-living crisis has enabled a ‘perfect storm’ for social enterprises, charities and community organisations, as they battle ever-increasing demand for services alongside a decline in fundraising and grants. In fact, 82% of Charity Leaders are concerned about the increased cost of utilities, including energy bills, rent and fuel.
Good Finance are committed to empowering frontline organisations – those seeing the true impact of the crisis – to have their say on the future of financial support for energy resilience and what that should look like.
The survey is open to any charity, social enterprise or community organisation and takes no longer than 7 minutes to complete.
Results will be collated and shared directly with the social investors that are currently working to build a funding support package that really works for the sector.
Leaseholders of Glenkerry House have secured funds for a series of works required to maintain iconic ‘brutalist’ building in East London.
A Grade II listed building, Glenkerry House situated in Poplar within the London Borough of Tower Hamlets was designed by celebrated modernist architect Ernő Goldfinger (the inspiration for the name of a villain in Ian Fleming’s James Bond books) with the purpose of providing access to co-operative housing schemes to communities in the Greater London area. Completed in 1977, Glenkerry House was established as a Community Leasehold Housing Co-operative by the Greater London Secondary Housing Association and by 1980 was handed over to an elected Management Committee of residents.
Glenkerry House – designed by modernist architect Ernő Goldfinger
Fast forward to 2022 and residents, alongside Lamberts Chartered Surveyors, have outlined a series of property improvements based on an assessment of the communal maintenance needs of the building. Works, consisting of the external redecoration of the thirteen-storey block, together with sundry repairs to timber, concrete, and subsidiary roofs, commenced in July 2022 following delays to the plans due to pandemic restrictions.
Obtaining loans from Co-operative & Community Finance and Co-op Loan Fund (managed by CCF) to contribute to the financing of the property improvements has meant payment to contractors can be secured.
Membership of Glenkerry Co-operative Housing Association is automatically given to property leaseholders with an understanding and commitment to co-operative values and ownership being part of the application criteria.
In a joint statement Matt Beannie, Secretary and Kieran Crilly, Treasurer of Glenkerry Co-operative Housing Association said: “The value of these loans to the Association has been the commencement of much needed and welcomed improvements to our home, that ensures the continued sustainability of our unique housing model, and the revitalisation of an iconic piece of Brutalist architecture.”
Kevin Lloyd-Evans, Lending and Relationship Manager at Co-operative & Community Finance said: “We are delighted to be able to support Glenkerry Housing Co-operative. Housing Co-operatives offer an excellent opportunity to meet the affordable housing need in the UK. However, the sector is massively under resourced. Helping Co-operatives prove the model works is vitality important. London’s lack of affordable housing is well known. Our finance amount tends to be small however catalytic in nature.”
Find out more about Glenkerry Co-operative Housing Association by visiting their website.
Meet our new Trustees! We are profiling three brilliant new Trustees, elected to our Board at our June AGM.
Here we talk to Susan Connor, a Funding Manager in The National Lottery Community Fund, about her experience of working in social finance, and why she chose to join us.
‘My work now is within the social investment team though I’ve been with the Fund for 16 years, and in that time, I’ve worked on a few different programs. Within my current role, I’ve worked in areas including social impact bonds, infrastructure programmes and for the last six or seven years, I’ve been managing the Growth Fund – a blended finance programme. So my experience of social finance here has been varied.
I’m really interested in the way we at the Fund, and the sector more broadly, provides support for VCSEs. When research showed there was a need for smaller loan deals for social enterprises, we worked to develop The Growth Fund and it’s run in partnership with Big Society Capital, and delivered by Access The Foundation for Social Investment. Essentially, it was designed to provide the finance that charities and social enterprises need for growth or for diversifying their business models. By blending loans (from BSC) and grants, (from the Fund) in the form of small, flexible, unsecured loans it became more accessible for organisations that might not have considered social investment before…. So the Growth Fund makes up to £150k available; it’s a really different scale to what’s been on offer before.
Social finance is so important, in that it can provide an opportunity for organisations to take back a lot of control as to how they use money. Grant money comes with restrictions, and it is often project based. Social finance gives that little bit more freedom for an organisation to diversify their income and try out something in a slightly different way than they may have thought of before. Because of that it’s really exciting – an organisation which has a fantastic idea can jump on it straight away.
I’ve seen some fantastic projects develop. One organisation I remember was looking at erecting a straw bale building. As we chatted, I realised they didn’t have a sense of how much money they were making – they didn’t recognise that the money they were bringing in from providing school services was income. It was great to work with them, to draw out their ideas a little more so that they could see this could be used to grow. And another project, early on – it was coffee shop training ex offenders to be baristas. They were looking for a really low amount of money, under £10k, as social investment. It was such a tiny amount, and they wouldn’t have got it anywhere else.
The Growth Fund is coming to an end in its current form and the learning from it is already being implemented by others in the sector, to develop new funds and products, I’m looking forward to seeing what comes next, and how my experience can play into my new part in CCF.
Locals look to improve the wellbeing and social glue of the community through the purchasing of their village pub with help from Co-operative & Community Finance’s ‘More Than a Pub’ finance package.
The Prince of Wales pub has served its community for hundreds of years dating back as far as the 17th century.
Located in hamlet of Newtown in St Martin within the Lizard Peninsula of South West Cornwall, The Prince of Wales pub has served its community for hundreds of years dating back as far as the 17th century as the village’s only pub. After closure during the pandemic in 2020, locals have come together to organise the purchase of the pub developing a business that is community driven and provides customers with greater opportunities for connection.
A survey was conducted by residents towards the end of 2020 and following a swell of support from the village for community ownership, ‘Friends of the Newtown St Martin Pub Ltd’ was formed as a Community Benefit Society in February 2021. Along with a community share offer and help from Co-operative & Community Finance’s ‘More Than a Pub’ finance package, the society has been able to obtain the funds necessary for the freehold purchase of the pub as a community asset.
Food, live music, and a family room have been put forward by the community as important elements in the pub’s development. Regular activities such as quiz nights, Young Farmers socials and being used for the local darts team and Euchre club (which lapsed after the pub’s closure) are set to resume. The society also hopes to revive an informal ‘Trades’ evening hosted by the pub which brought together tradespeople across the area one evening a week as well as creating new clubs for gardeners, writers, a book club and cinema club. After identifying individuals in the village with significant caring responsibilities, a carer’s support club is another opportunity to use the pub to bring the community together along with potential plans for a shop within the pub to service the village.
Katie Nightingale, Chairperson of Friends of the Newtown St Martin Pub said: “Whilst this journey has been long and arduous, we simply could not have achieved what we have without the incredible support from Co-operative & Community Finance. The process can be complex at times and the expert advice provided was truly invaluable. Our community is absolutely thrilled at what we have achieved and the re-opening of the pub will make a huge difference to our villages and surrounding areas.”
The Prince of Wales pub, Newtown-in-St-Martin
The loan finance from Co-operative and Community Finance is the very last loan from the original ‘More Than a Pub’ programme, a loan product created specifically to support Community Pubs, alongside a grant from the Plunkett Foundation funded by a Power to Change and the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG). Co-operative and Community Finance were also able to provide extra finance from their ‘More than a Pub’ legacy fund and the pub group were successful in receiving a grant from the Community Ownership Fund. Tim Coomer, Business Development Manager Co-operative & Community Finance said: “This Pub group have been on quite a journey, and we are ecstatic that their hard work, perseverance, and determination has paid off in the end. The Prince of Wales is in a pretty pub in a beautiful part of the country, but this belies some of the real issues faced in rural Cornwall, where isolation, low wages, second home ownership and high costs of living can make it a challenging place to live for many. The Prince of Wales is a pub at the heart of its community and long may it be a success.”
The legacy ‘More Than a Pub Fund’ provides loan finance of between £75,000 to £150,000 available to Community Owned Pubs at a discounted rate of interest for members of the Plunkett Foundation, length of term ranges from five to twenty years. We can also help support groups access grant funding to help get them develop their business plans and pay for surveys, etc… through the Reach Fund. Please contact Co-operative & Community Finance for the full terms and conditions, and to discuss how your Community Owned Pub venture can be supported.
You can find out more about Friends of Newtown St Martin Pub by visiting their website.
Meet our new Trustees! We are profiling three brilliant new Trustees, elected to our Board at our June AGM.
Here we talk to Owen Dowsett, a Senior Consultant at the British Council, about his experience of working in the field of social finance, and why he chose to join us.
My current job is based around the Investment Climate Reform Facility. This supports organisations in African, Caribbean and Pacific countries to create better conditions for businesses to thrive and for women’s economic empowerment and inclusion, which in turn boosts economic growth and sustainable development at large. For the first two years of my role at the British Council I was part of the global social enterprise programme. This took an ecosystem approach, not supporting social enterprises or entrepreneurs directly, but informing policy and education and finance systems to build the conditions for social enterprises to thrive.
My previous job was within the Equality Impact Investing Project and that was all about trying to bridge the gap between the equality sector and social investment in the UK, looking at how social investors could better promote equality using a number of different strategies. These strategies often involve looking at the diversity of people invested in, and their teams, or how their work promotes equality. CCF and its target borrowers offer another aspect which I’m interested in which goes beyond the who and what described above and looks at how borrowers are organised, ie, democratically, often with flat structures – this is where at least some of the equality impact lies.
I’ve seen time and again that there is an interest on both sides – there is a keenness to invest and a demand for the investment. I think it’s really important to be clear that while there is a need for capital for income for all sorts of organisations, social investment isn’t suited to every organisation. There was historically a risk that this was being positioned as a direction for everyone which could have justified the reduction in grants etc – we have to remember that there are and always will be projects that can’t work with repayable finance. But for those that suit it, there are lots of things that can be done to turn what they do into something that pays back. That can happen through all kinds of models – for example, services could be chargeable at different rates in different sectors to subside the work with key beneficiaries. The main thing is that investors and investees need to be willing to express needs and concerns, and ask questions, especially when things are unknown. And both need to hear those of the other party.
The opportunity with CCF felt really attractive to me. As a lot of my work at the British Council is and has been international, I’ve missed having a focus in the UK. And I live in Bristol, where CCF is headquartered, so that’s even more local to me! I am very keen to learn about cooperatives – even though they are such a globally accepted model, I’ve not really engaged with them before. I’m really looking forward to learning more about the cooperative sector – how it works, what coops feel like and look like on the ground, and meeting the people within them.’
We’re pleased to be working with Owen – welcome to the team! Meet the rest ofour Trustees here
