Prospecting the Future: Social Enterprise and Finance Data from 2011 – 2015

The report provided a snapshot of social enterprises operating in the UK and their finances. We funded this research in order increase understanding of this of and for the sector and to increase the accessibility of the data.

The research provided an in-depth analysis of a large existing dataset from in-depth surveys, looking longitudinally over a number of years and incorporating factors such as scale and geography in determining which organisations had taken on social investment and had done so successfully. It also considered how grants and loans were related within the sector, which was of obvious interest to us in the early design of our programmes. 

The report found that social enterprises are increasingly in need of working capital to finance their operations and deliver contracts, as cash flow was a key issue for many. It highlighted a number of needs for consideration, such as the demand for smaller, ‘riskier’ amounts of capital and the importance of grant as ‘a part of the mix’, which were key elements in the design of our Growth Fund.