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! 

At the end of 2021 some of the country’s leading social enterprises gathered at London’s iconic Guildhall for the UK Social Enterprise Awards. The Awards were a chance to come together and celebrate the incredible work of the social enterprise community.

Henna at School for Social Entrepreneurs spoke to three social entrepreneurs in the region who’ve used social investment to increase impact and income, to learn about their experiences.
 

We explore 12 top tips from Social Enterprises and Charities that have ‘been there’, ‘done that’ and ‘got the T-shirt’ when it comes to securing social investment. 

Social Enterprise UK’s latest State of the Sector report titled ‘No Going Back’ was recently published, and in this post, we explore the key finance themes and takeaways for the rest of 2021 and beyond... 
 

COP26 is currently taking place in Glasgow, where world leaders will wrestle with the urgent issue of the climate crisis. To mark the occasion, Hannah Roberts, Marketing Officer at Locality, a national network supporting community organisations to be strong and successful, speaks to two members of Locality who took on social investment to finance their environmental work.

Welcome to the new release of the Outcomes Matrix! We’re super excited to launch the updated and refreshed version.  In this blog post we’ll be exploring what it is, what it does and what it means for you!