Big Society Finance Fund: A celebration of the innovation in the social investment market today

Date: 07.04.2011 17:00 - 18:00

Location: NESTA, 1 Plough Place, London, EC4A 1DE

Watch the event videos

NESTA’s Big Society Finance Fund was set up to prototype wholesale social investment activities with the aim of demonstrating the role that the Big Society Bank could play. We have reached the end of this work and held this event to celebrate and discuss the wide variety of products and services that we have supported. We presented two new pieces of research conducted by the Fairbanking Foundation with Ipsos MORI and New Philanthropy Capital which provide a vital evidence base for the development of the social investment market.

The speakers at the event were Sir John Gieve from Vocalink, Iona Joy from New Philanthropy Capital, Antony Elliott from the FairBanking Foundation and NESTA's Joe Ludlow.

Iona Joy began the evening by setting out the key findings from NPC's research into demand for capital. She highlighted that the order of magnitude for demand from the Big Society Bank was likely to be £100s millions, not billions and that most demand is for soft, patient capital. Iona stressed that such investment still requires discipline in the use of funds.

Antony Elliott shared the high level findings from his report "Investing for the Good of Society". He identified those with more than £100,000 of investment assets, who demonstrate social / ethical values as being more likely to invest particularly if they are under 45. Antony shared some of the insight gained into the motivations of people with an interest in social investments - including wanting to feel engaged with the social enterprises being funded and being an early adopter.

Joe Ludlow described the work of the Big Society Finance Fund and the twenty investments in the portfolio. He announced that NESTA has selected four projects to work with more closely, in order to deepen our understanding of the legal, regulatory and practical issues involved in making these sorts of investments. Joe also talked about the role of the Big Society Bank and concluded that if the Bank is a strategic investor focused on building existing and new intermediaries, this will create a substantial opportunity for the whole social investment market to accelerate its development.