I joined the team at Good Finance in June 2021 whilst completing my Level 3 Digital Marketing Apprenticeship with Multiverse. During this time, I’ve had the opportunity to develop my skill-set whilst learning about some of the incredible and life-changing work that charities and social enterprises are carrying out across the UK. The time has really flown in and as I prepare for the next step in my career, I wanted to reflect on some of my key learnings from the last 18 months…

It’s been several months since we hosted the Addressing Imbalance Live event. Since then, as a team we’ve reflected on many of the learnings that have come from the event and tried to understand how we can translate these into real actions. Our ‘Big, Hairy, Audacious Goals’ as Patricia Hamzahee described them. Image

TAKE ME TO THE SURVEY.  Social investors are developing a pilot fund to support charities and social enterprises navigating rising energy costs by improving their energy resilience.  Have your say on how you’ve been impacted and what support you need.

Back in September, we hosted the first Addressing Imbalance Live event. Image

Locality, a Good Finance partner, supports local community organisations to be strong and successful. Lewis Garland, Content and Media Officer for Locality, explores the impact of the cost of living crisis on their members and the users they serve.  
 

Annie Constable, Senior Digital Marketing and Communications Officer at Good Finance explores how charities and social enterprises can best communicate with their customers/consumers through the cost-of-living crisis.

The thought of starting your own Social Enterprise, Charity or Community Organisation can be daunting and, as with many things, there’s no one-size-fits-all solution. Henna Patel, Digital Marketing Officer at School for Social Entrepreneurs, explores 10 steps to help guide you towards start-up success… 
 

The Good Finance team reflect on our away day to Norwich where we visited various charities and social enterprises, to learn about their mission, listen to the challenges they face and to see first hand the positive impact they have on their community.  Image

Lucy Findlay MBE, Managing Director of Social Enterprise Mark CIC, explores degrowth in the context of social investment. 

On Saturday, the Dormant Assets consultation was launched to help the government make an informed decision on what should happen with the £738m+ made available via the scheme. At Good Finance, we are supporting the Community Enterprise Growth Plan. This post explores what that is and crucially, what it means for social enterprises, charities and community organisations…

Melanie Mills, Managing Director of Social Sector Engagements reflects on the learnings of our recent Impact Hub and explores 5 key lessons from 5 years of Good Finance…

This piece, contributed by Eloise Malone FRSA, Executive Creative Director from Effervescent, explores the role of lived experience and how to be ready for social investment when investment is a whole new world for you. 

A recent report from Social Enterprise UK: No Going Back: The State of Social Enterprise Report 2021 highlighted that 55% of people from racialised communities feel discouraged from applying for social investment and 44% of disabled founders expect their applications to be rejected. As a result of the wide range of research which points to similar findings as well as feedback from our Addressing Imbalance partners, last month we hosted our first Investor Clinic.  Image

Research shows a gap in the world of financial institutions and enterprises. At Good Finance we are asking … where is the diversity of people, experience and thought on investment committees in the social investment sector? And what can we do to change this?

We're on a mission to bust social investment jargon once and for all, breaking down barriers and empowering users to access information, but we need your help...

In light of #MentalHealthAwarenessWeek, Henna at School for Social Entrepreneurs (SSE) explores how social entrepreneurs can beat loneliness and social isolation through supporting each other and their own financial wellbeing. 

We’re looking for knowledgeable individuals with expertise across a variety of areas to join our Steering Group! 

We’re looking for knowledgeable individuals with interest in social investment and experience of content creation, e-learning or project management to join our team working on key projects.  

The Addressing Imbalance programme launched in 2021 with the aim of connecting and engaging with organisations led by diverse founders, to address the barriers to accessing investment that they face disproportionately. Our goal is to provide learning and resources to empower leaders with the tools they need to make an informed decision when considering social investment.

In this post, we bust 7 social investment myths we hear time and time again from our users!
 

For International Women’s Day and Women’s History Month 2022, the School for Social Entrepreneurs had a chat with five changemakers in the social enterprise scene to hear about their journeys and how they’re breaking the bias.

In light of #IWD2022, we, along with our co-funders, ACCESS, have shared the inspiring leaders within the social investment sector that #BreakTheBias every single day.
 

Introducing our brand-new Scoping Social Investment tool, designed for membership bodies, community/voluntary networks and social sector support organisations. 

Becky Pickin, Group Development Officer at Dudley CVS, shares her thoughts and reflections following the recent Let's Talk Good Finance: Risk, Resilience and Social Investment event!