Our Impact: Five years of Good Finance

Five years of Good Finance

Good Finance is celebrating 5 years since its launch in April 2017. Watch the animation to follow our journey from the very beginning, all the way through to today.

Over the past 5 years, we've experienced various milestones and achievements.

Our mission has always been to be the go-to trusted source of information on social investment for charities and social enterprises. A big thank you to our users, partners and supporters who make it possible for us to deliver on our mission.

Scroll down to explore our impact hub and how you can make the most of our tools and resources, as well as becoming a part of what’s next for Good Finance…

Our website: explore our interactive tools

Over 375,000 users visited the Good Finance website

The Good Finance website exists to help inform and educate social enterprises and charities about repayable finance and better connect them with social investors. Read on to explore our key tools, and the impact they’ve had on our users.

More than 5,000 of you used the "Is It Right for Us" tool

A quick and easy tool that helps organisations at the very start of their journey to determine whether or not social investment is a viable option. ‘Is It Right For Us’ helps us to demonstrate that social investment isn’t right for everyone, and is usually best implemented as part of a wider financial toolkit.

Since launch, this diagnostic tool has empowered more than five and a half thousand users to make an informed decision on repayable finance.

Try it now!

Over 4,000 people explored the Cost of Capital Calculator

Our Cost of Capital tool was created as a direct result of feedback we received from a social investor in terms of helping potential investees better understand cost of capital rates - a fantastic example of our user-led, collaborative approach.

Users can input loan terms such as duration, upfront costs and the proposed cost of capital rate to calculate the overall cost of social investment, as well as a breakdown of the monthly costs.

Since the launch in March 2021, over 4,000 users have engaged with our ‘Cost of Capital’ hub.

Learn more about Cost of Capital!

Updated and refreshed Outcomes Matrix

The Outcomes Matrix is a social impact measurement tool that helps users to plan, measure and communicate the impact they deliver in four quick and easy steps. Read more about how it was developed and our partners here.

The tool was updated in Autumn 2021 to incorporate an intersectional approach, further supporting our users to explore equality, diversity and inclusion in the context of impact measurement.

Download your own unique Outcome Matrix!

Learn more about Social Investment

Our content: learn all about social investment in context

In addition to tools and resources, the Good Finance website is host to various elements of our engagement activity, including blogs, casestudies and podcasts, all of which are shared via our key social media channels.

140+ Blogs

Since the very first blog was posted on 12th April 2017, we have gone on to publish more than 140 blogs, including guest posts, partner collaborations, interviews, features and more.

Our top 5 most popular blogs since then are as follows:

Explore our full collection of blogs!

90+ Case Studies

A big part of what we do at Good Finance is sharing peer stories and that includes our extensive collection of case studies. True to our mission, we require five key bits of information for each social investment story - loan duration, cost of capital, turnover, amount borrowed and type - so as to be transparent about the process.

Since April 2017, we have published 92 case studies. They can be submitted by both social investors and charities or social enterprises via this form. Help us reach triple digits and tell your story today!

Our five most visited cases tudies are as follows:

Browse the full range of casestudies!

65+ Podcasts

In 2018, we launched our podcast series via Soundcloud. The podcasts cover a range of topics and feature lots of social entrepreneurs talking honestly and openly about their experiences with repayable finance.

The podcasts provide a direct connection between users considering social investment and those that have ‘been there, done that, got the t shirt’, who are more than happy to share their journey - warts and all!

Since the launch, we’ve published 67 podcasts which have had over 6.5k listens. The most listened to podcast are as follows:

Listen to more podcasts!

All of the content above is shared regularly via our social media channels, for which we have more than 10,000 followers cumulatively, across Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Instagram.

Follow us today to make sure you see the latest social investment news, updates and events, straight to your feed.

Follow us on Twitter

Our Programmes: dive deeper into social investment

More recently, we have extended the Good Finance offering to include engagement programmes. An opportunity for our users to fully explore social investment and the contextual factors that affect the sector, they have proved very popular thus far - and there’s more in the pipeline for later in 2022 and beyond.

100+ Social Investment Unpicked cohort members

Our e-Learning, cohort-led programme Social Investment Unpicked consists of four modules and was first created to help our users to better understand the history, role and context of social investment in the UK.

Since launching in August 2020, we’ve now had over 100 learners graduate from the course and we gather feedback from each cohort to iterate and improve on user experience.

Learn more and register your interest for the next cohort!

8 Addressing Imbalance partners

The Addressing Imbalance programme launched in 2021 with the aim of connecting and engaging with minority-led organisations, who face disproportionate barriers to accessing social investment.

Ultimately, we want to see a higher percentage of social investments throughout the UK being made into diverse organisations and a reduction in those reporting barriers to access in comparison to their counterparts.

Through the programme, we work in partnership with more than 8 organisations, with our second call for partners already well underway.

Explore Addressing Imbalance

Explore more resources

Join us at events

From in person events across the country with Good Finance Live to the more recent shift to virtual events and Let’s Talk Good Finance webinars, we’ve hosted more than 50 events for those wanting to learn more about social investment.

We typically invite social investees to talk to their experiences of repayable finance alongside social investors to talk honestly about their experiences, including their learnings.

We work collaboratively and welcome the opportunity to partner with other organisations within the sector to host events on specific topics. Previous examples include Art, Culture and Finance, Housing, Risk/Resilience and Governance.

Browse our upcoming events

“As part of the founding team and its first Project Manager, I remember what it was like for social enterprises and charities before Good Finance; there was so much misinformation out there, people didn’t know where to get advice and they often had to navigate the confusing landscape by themselves. The transformation that it’s had on the sector is remarkable."

Kieran Whiteside, Policy Designer at Camden Council

“Good Finance make things easily accessible and understandable; the resources they have online are great too. They are always willing to work with us on developing new sessions for the sector and our staff so the support is appropriate and relevant. Happy 5th Anniversary!”

Roger Winhall, Head of Funding at National Lottery Community Fund

“Social investment exists to support social enterprises and charities and Good Finance is playing a vital role in making the often complex social enterprise landscape easier to understand and navigate. It is a fantastic tool for any social enterprise wondering whether social investment is right for them or just wanting to know what it is all about."

Shehan Perera, Head of Content at Social Enterprise UK

“It’s been great to see how Good Finance has grown over the past five years and the significant role that it now plays in helping charities and social enterprises to navigate the social investment market. With its range of high-quality information and resources it’s always the first place that we signpost organisations to if they’re thinking about social investment or just want to learn more about it!”

Helena Tuxworth, Programme Manager at ACCESS - The Foundation for Social Investment

“Good Finance takes the mystery out of social investment. It makes it easier to understand and less scary. As a partner of Good Finance, I love working with the team. They are so knowledgeable and passionate about what they do, it is an absolute joy to work with them.”

Ali Ward, General Manager at Social Enterprise Yorkshire and Humber