Our impact on charities and social enterprises

We help charities and social enterprises, particularly those in underserved places and communities or led by marginalised leaders, to access the right finance and support. This helps them to trade, build resilience, and increase their impact. 

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Blended finance programmes, delivered by our partners, have been shown to overcome a range of barriers (see ‘the problem we’re trying to solve’ section for more information on these) and ensure finance reaches organisations previously unable to access social investment. 

A review of grant subsidy for blended finance, commissioned by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, found that these funds have opened up social investment to smaller, community-level organisations working predominantly in the 30 per cent most deprived places in the country. This has enabled many of these organisations to scale up, expand their reach, and better achieve their social and environmental goals.

“Grant subsidy into blended finance for VCSEs has the potential to be an important delivery mechanism for the government’s wider policy objective to ‘level up’ disadvantaged communities.”

Expanding the reach of social investment

Why small deals matter 

One of the key tools we use is blended finance, enabling smaller deals that better serve the needs of charities and social enterprises, particularly smaller organisations or those based in more deprived areas. 

In 2023 Access blended finance deals enabled investments 7x smaller than the rest of the social investment market.

The Social Enterprise UK biannual survey data has been a key part of the case for Access’ role in the market. It helps us understand the challenges faced by social enterprises in the UK, and where we are making progress. In 2011 the access to debt or equity finance was the number one barrier for 44% of social enterprises, and by 2021 this was the case for just 6%.  

In 2023, social enterprises were typically looking for investments of around £80k, yet the average deal in the wider social investment market in 2022, excluding Access investments, was £837k– ten times the size. The average Access deal, by contrast, was £116k, and in 2022, £81.5k. 

Access to Finance

KPI 1: More investment flows to charities and social enterprises who would not otherwise be able to access appropriate finance

This KPI is about understanding whether our funding is helping social investment to reach the right organisations, and therefore widening access to social investment. This is measured by comparing our data to that of the wider social investment market and also through analysing our own data to understand whether our blended finance funds are reaching organisations who have not received social investment before. 

This KPI matters to us because charities and social enterprises are often not being served by social investment market, and therefore need different products. If our work is not helping finance to reach the organisations traditionally excluded from social investment, then we are not succeeding as an organisation. 

We are currently rated green for this KPI. 

Lydia Levy Director of Impact and Evaluation

Reaching underserved places 

Our blended finance and enterprise development funding is reaching charities and social enterprises in the most deprived areas, which have historically struggled to access suitable funding, whether through social investment or grants.  

We measure the reach of our funding using the Index of Multiple Deprivation (IMD) and compare it to the broader social investment market to assess our impact. While IMD is not the only way of measuring deprivation in England, it is the most comprehensive and consistent data set.

Reaching underserved communities

We want to ensure our funding reaches organisations led by diverse individuals (‘led by’ means that more than 50% of the leadership team identifies as being from that group). 

We’ve recently significantly increased the amount of data we collect on this. Reaching diverse-led organisations matters because these are groups that have historically struggled to access the finance they need.

We also have more recent data from our Flexible Finance programme (data current up to March 2024) which intentionally targets underserved parts of the market, such as Black and minoritised communities.  Early analysis shows that it has delivered 3.5 times more investment to these communities than other Access programmes, with 34% going to organisations that are Black and minoritised led. Noting that all of our programmes are at different stages of deployment, which makes a like-for-like comparison challenging. 

We benchmark whether our funding is reaching organisations led by minoritised individuals against the demographics of the most deprived parts of the country. For example, the 2021 census data shows that 26% of the individuals in these areas identify as black and minoritised, far higher than the England-wide average. Our current data shows us that we are meeting this target on Flexible Finance, but have work to do on other programmes across our portfolio.

Reaching underserved groups

KPI 2: Proportionally more of our money is flowing to underserved communities and to organisations led by protected groups

This KPI looks at the other side of our reach, whether our funding is flowing to underserved communities and organisations led by protected groups. This matters to us because again, we have a mandate to make sure that organisations that have been historically excluded from funding, such as those led by black and minoritised individuals, women, LGBTQI+ individuals and those with a disability are able to access funding. Additionally our funding should be reaching the most deprived parts of the country, here defined as the 30% most deprived areas as rated by the index for multiple deprivation (IMD). 

The KPI is based on two metrics, one measuring whether 50% of our funding is currently going into IMD 1-3, with IMD decile 1 receiving the most. We are currently meeting this target.

The second metric is focused on whether the proportion of our money going to organisations led by protected groups is increasing year on year, benchmarked agains the average demographics of IMD 1-3. We are not currently meeting this, but are close on some protected groups, specifically women, and black and minoritised individuals. 

Lydia Levy Director of Impact and Evaluation

We’ve also focused on reaching black and minoritised communities in our enterprise development work, with one of the focus sectors specifically working with organisations led by diverse leaders to develop their trading models. This has resulted in £1.29m of grant being used to provide specialised support to 50 different organisations. Early results from the Enterprise Development Programme evaluation showed that 97% of organisations who had participated in the programme rated their confidence and understanding around trading and enterprise as positive or very positive in comparison to when they started the programme.

We also recognise that there are limitations to using IMD as a measure of reach, and are continuing to explore other ways of understanding it. This will likely include trying to understand if we are reaching Left-behind areas, more rural communities, and if we have a good geographic spread to our funding. We will build this work into future versions of data dashboards and our impact report.

At Access, we focus on building resilience at all levels. This means increasing the resilience of the charities and social enterprises we fund, strengthening the organisations that provide finance and the wider social investment market they operate in. 

A more resilient system at every level can better withstand shocks like the Covid-19 pandemic, or the Cost-of-Living crisis, and brings us closer to a future where our support is no longer needed. More resilient organisations are equally better placed to respond to opportunities when they arise, whether that be the opportunity to expand their impact, trading or diversify their activities. 

Building Resilience 

KPI 3: Organisations that have been supported through our programmes/funding are more financially resilient than they were before or would otherwise be.         

This KPI looks at whether the charities and social enterprises we are funding are more resilient after receiving support from us. This matters because more resilient charities and social enterprises will be better able to cope with shocks (such as Covid-19 or the cost of living crisis) and will be able to more effectively deliver impact in their communities. For more information on how we understand financial resilience, please see the ‘How we measure resilience’ box below. 

This KPI is measured using two metrics – firstly financial resilience survey data from our programme evaluations, on which we are currently scoring amber, and secondly results from our 12-month follow-on monitoring, for which we do not yet have scores, given when most of our investment were made, for which we are also scoring amber. 

Lydia Levy Director of Impact and Evaluation

We gather data on the resilience of the charities and social enterprises receiving funding through our quarterly programme monitoring and evaluations. This consistently shows that our enterprise development and blended finance programmes improve the financial resilience of the organisations participating in them.

Our Emergency Lending Programme during the Covid-19 pandemic produced some particularly interesting results. A year after investment, a survey showed that not only did the funding help charities and social enterprises get through the crisis, but many were also able to grow and diversify as a result.

The annual Ecorys Growth Fund Evaluation survey of VCSEs looks at a number of measures of resilience, including whether the investment has helped them to reduce their reliance on grants. Most years the data demonstrates that it has done. 

Our programme evaluations are also showing promising findings- with both blended finance and enterprise development support helping VCSEs to improve their resilience on key metrics.

We have built the financial resilience of the charities and social enterprises we fund through our programmes, helping them to plan for the future and handle unexpected challenges or shocks.

Measuring financial resilience is complex, and we are always working to improve how we do it. You can find our KPIs below, and we will continue to evolve our thinking and approach to this.

We think that measuring resilience after receivingin social investment involves triangulating:

• Publicly available data – financial accounts and balance sheets
• Organisation’s self-assessment (mostly through surveys)
• Assessment from fund managers or social investors
• Qualitative insights on what financial resilience means to an organisation

We’re working closely with Better Society Capital to improve how we measure resilience, but also have work to do to understand some of the ‘why’ around how organisation’s build their financial resilience. We hope to explore this more in our ongoing evaluation of our Blended Finance programmes.

Boosting growth and job creation

Beyond helping organisations to weather crises, resilient organisations are more likely to grow, and then increase their number of full-time employees. 

An independent evaluation of the Growth Fund found that almost half of organisations surveyed felt that the investment helped them to “significantly improve” their income and a further 25% said that it “slightly improved” their income. Many attributed these income increases to diversifying revenue streams. evidence suggests this translated into job creation – with analysis of a sub-sample of 157 VCSEs (where data was available) showing that 42% increased their full-time employees after receiving Growth Fund investment.

Developing enterprise models and supporting organisations to be investment ready 

How we develop enterprise

Our Enterprise Development programme has supported 325 organisations across six different sectors to develop their trading ideas, become more resilient and deliver more impact to their communities. The programme has only recently finished, and the full independent evaluation results are not yet available, but emerging insights suggest that the programme results include:

• Improved confidence around and ambition to trade, with 97% rating their confidence as positive or very positive following the programme, and 96% rating their ambition to trade as positive or very positive
• Interviews with EDP participants found that the programme was seen as responsive, flexible and human, with it enhancing finance, marketing, governance and social impact for them. Robust business and marketing plans helped many organisations to find investment and funding, and to grow their businesses. 

Access programmes and funding have supported organisations at many stages of their journey, from when they are first starting to consider trading as an option, all the way to them being ready to take on social investment.

We know there is also a need for charities and social enterprises to receive investment readiness support, to bridge the gap between exploring accessing finance, and being ready to take on social investment. 

Access’ Reach Fund has provided this since 2016, with 1120 grants totalling £13.7m awarded up to the end of 2024. An independent evaluation of The Reach Fund between October 2018-December 2020 found that 58% of organisations went on to access social investment following their involvement in the programme and for each £1 of grant spent, at least £7.37 of investment was secured, with £5.2m of grants raising £38.5m of investments.  

Creating jobs and opportunities 

CAST

“We help our young people gain useful skills for employment, such as how to use tools safely and carry out basic construction and horticulture tasks. But we also help with their confidence.”

CAST support young people to develop their skills through fishing and hands-on work in nature. Based in an ex-colliery village in Nottinghamshire, they took on social investment from Key Fund to buy their own building and take on five staff members.