Introducing our brand-new Scoping Social Investment tool, designed for membership bodies, community/voluntary networks and social sector support organisations.
It’s all about you
At Good Finance we are all about our users. Everything we do is focused on supporting social enterprises, charities and community businesses to understand whether social investment is the right tool to help them create impact.
With over 350,000 unique users of Good Finance and numbers of users doubling in 2021 compared to 2020, there is clear evidence around how social investment can be used to buy an asset, cashflow a contract or to develop new products and services.
Infrastructure - and we don’t mean roads and rail
The ecosystem of support for social enterprises, charities, community businesses and voluntary and community sector organisations are always the first port of call for advice, guidance and signposting. Many are membership bodies, networks focused around social issue areas like: homelessness, furniture reuse and health and wellbeing just as some examples or capacity builders and business support organisations. Their expertise in all things social sector is both wide and varied and almost all know a thing or two about funding and, in particular, grants.
Over the past couple of years we have seen a real increase in approaches to Good Finance from local and national infrastructure whose members and customers want to know more about the widest range of funding and finance.
We are always happy to work in partnership but the big question for any organisation supporting others is often: 'Where do you start?'
How do you know or get a sense of where your own organisation and the market you serve is, in terms of readiness to learn about social investment?
Getting a grip
We first recognised this challenge when The Connect Fund launched its very first round of funding, initially thinking if there was a programme in place to help engage and increase understanding about social investment then surely the market must be ready for it?
We learned the hard way that the age-old rule about assuming anything is likely to catch you out.
We worked with NAVCA - The National Association for Voluntary Action and its members to find a way to help infrastructure, networks and membership organisations to answer these questions. We developed a tool with questions that are weighted based on the needs of those who provide support to others.
Helping you to help others
Scoping Social Investment is a practical, free tool which helps those that support others to navigate all the different resources and tools available (and there are lots), tailoring them to match where your members and customers are on their journey.
To do this, you answer a series of questions and end up with a customised persona best suited to your needs.
Simply put, we want social enterprises, charites, community businesses and the voluntary and community sector to thrive and we know that social investment has a part to play in that context. If your organisation wants to be comfortable able to signpost and support others about social investment then try out the Scoping Social Investment Tool today!
We'd love to know what you think!