Using all the tools in our toolbox

Our funding falls into three core categories:

Blended Finance – combining our grants with loans and investment from others, we help social investment providers to offer the affordable, patient and flexible investment which charities and social enterprises most need.

Enterprise grants - supporting charities and social enterprises to increase and diversify income through enterprise activity

Market development – building a social investment market fit for the future

Find out more about our programmes and funds.

While we are designing our programmes and waiting for our money to be needed by our partners, we invest it. Rather than pursuing the greatest return, we think about how those investments also support our mission. We call this the ‘Total Impact’ approach – and put simply, this means looking at all the different ways we can achieve impact.

As a result, where possible and within certain set parameters, Access invests in charities and social enterprises delivering social impact in the UK.

In 2024, we published our latest Endowment Impact Report:

• 53% was directly invested in organisations delivering social impact
• 35% was directly invested in UK charities and social enterprises

Find out more about how we invest our endowment.

Access works with partners to shape the wider environment for charities and social enterprises. We do this by convening key networks and actively supporting many others.

Our focus is on instigating and accelerating change—responding to the real, long-term needs of charities and social enterprises.

We champion the ongoing need for subsidy to deliver blended finance, support the development of the blended finance ecosystem, and the flow of capital into it. We collaborate with other asset owners to align their investments with their mission and impact goals. Together with our partners, we also help grow the movement for enterprise grant-making, highlighting the essential role of enterprise in building resilience.

Find out more about the networks we convene, fund, and actively participate in.

Learning is at the centre of our work at Access. Our impact measurement helps us understand whether charities and social enterprises are accessing the finance they need to sustain or grow their impact. We use the learning and insights from this to share what is and isn’t working  With our partners and beyond.

To be successful, our learning needs to be accessible, actionable and targeted. We want our learning to lead to real, positive changes for our partners and the wider sector, and improve the support that charities and social enterprises are receiving.

We also believe that as a funder we have a responsibility to be transparent around where our money is flowing to, and we do this in our quarterly dashboards. 

Explore our latest dashboard for up-to-date programme data.