We reviewed three applications at Round One*, two of which will proceeded on to the due diligence stage.

These were one proposal for a county-wide fund which had come from a Community Foundation in partnership with a lender, and one from an established SIFI looking to develop a regionally focused fund targeting a couple of specific impact areas. The third application will not proceed.

We have undertaken due diligence on one further application which we brought back to the JIC for feedback on the process and the presentation of the final investment documents for the committee. The JIC suggested some minor changes to the presentation of information at this stage. This is one of the larger applications we have received to date and, as I mentioned in my last blog, we will wait until the end of August to review a number of these larger applications together before making any final investment decisions. Therefore this application will come back to the next committee.

The total grant ask made in the applications considered at the meeting was just over £6.5m.

The JIC also reviewed the pipeline of enquiries and expressions of interest we have received and were encouraged by the variety of organisations seeking to play a role in on-lending to the sector, including other Community Foundations, local infrastructure bodies and housing associations. It was acknowledged though that cementing these relationships to prepare for making an application and going through the investment process will take some time.

At Access we are thinking about how best we can support these partnerships to come together. As a first step we are inviting anyone who would like to be listed on our site as being interested in being part of a partnership to apply to send a very short summary of their role info@access-si.org.uk

*The composition of the JIC, terms of reference, an explanation of our two stage investment process and other related policies are all available to view from this page.