Social investment and Dormant Assets

Dormant Assets allocation to social investment

• We are now open to funding applications from social investors and intermediaries.
• This follows confirmation from the Government that £87.5 million will be allocated to Access for social investment.
• Our Investment Policy, application forms, application guidance and other relevant documents can be found on this page
• Please note Access funds social investors and intermediaries, not charities or social enterprises directly. If you are a charity or social enterprise looking for social investment, visit Good Finance.

On 15 October 2025, the Government issued a Policy Direction confirming an allocation of £87.5 million of Dormant Assets to Access to grow social investment in underserved places and communities, including: 

• At least £12.5 million earmarked to support youth-focused organisations
• £12 million of scale-up funding for a Black and Ethnically Minoritised-led social investment fund, Pathway Fund. Pathway aim to publish the results of their regional consultation later this month and will set out their own plans on 11 November.

Access will oversee this allocation of £87.5 million of Dormant Assets funding to social investment, working closely with partners to deliver on the Dormant Assets Strategy and the aspirations set out in the Community Enterprise Growth Plan (CEGP). 

The CEGP aims to increase investment in community enterprises and mission-driven businesses, particularly in the places and communities most affected by long-term economic decline. 

In June 2025 Access published a draft Investment Approach, setting out how we proposed to use the 2025 Dormant Assets allocation to contribute to the CEGP’s vision. 

We invited feedback on this via a six-week consultation, during which 75 organisations shared very helpful, detailed feedback. 

We summarised this feedback and the ways in which it informed our subsequent Investment Policy in this Post-consultation report, published in August 2025. 

We are open to applications from social investors and other intermediaries. 

Access is a wholesaler of grant subsidy into social investment funds and other initiatives.  This means that we do not fund charities and social enterprises directly – we fund the social investors and other intermediaries that do. If you are a charity or social enterprise seeking social investment please visit goodfinance.org.uk for information. 

If you are a social investor or intermediary and are interested in applying, here are a few things to be aware of (more detail on all of these can be found in the Investment Policy and guidance documents – see section below): 

• Our Investment Policy sets out the range of things that we are open to funding.
• The policy also indicates approximately how we might imagine splitting the money between different spend areas (e.g. blended finance, enterprise grants, etc) but these amounts are indications only and are not fixed.
• With the exception of the £12m allocation to Pathway Fund and a couple of other carve-outs as detailed in the Investment Policy, we are managing the money as one single, flexible pot from which to fund a wide range of different funds, programmes and activities.
• We are running one continuous application process over a four-year period, not stop-start application windows. More information on how we will allocate money gradually throughout the four-year period can be found in Section 6.2 of our Investment Policy.
• You do not need to rush to apply. However, if you already know that you might like to apply at some stage then we would encourage you to let us know sooner rather than later where possible, so that we can add you to our pipeline and make our Investment Committee aware of your potential interest. This will help us to manage demand and to support you and all applicants more effectively.
• All funding decisions will be made by our Investment Committee. We will endeavour to hold IC meetings as frequently as is required, however at times of high demand it is possible that IC agendas may fill up and your proposal may need to wait for a future meeting.
• If you have preferred timelines for your application, we would encourage you to speak to your Relationship Manager early to make us aware so that we can do our best to facilitate those or inform you if that will not be possible (please see below for further details on Investment Committee dates). If you do not yet have a Relationship Manager, please email us and we will be in touch.
• There are four different application stages but applicants do not need to move through all of these in a linear way – you can skip any stages that are not relevant to you. Please download our Application Stages Guidance below and reach out to the Access team for further guidance.
• The Access team are available to support you through the process, including an offer of optional co-development support if that is welcome. Co-development support does not guarantee that your application will be approved by our Investment Committee, but we aim to help you to make the strongest case you can.
• Although you do not need to rush to apply, we do expect to receive a lot of interest and queries during the first few weeks after we open to applications. We will do our best to respond promptly, but please bear with us if this takes a little longer than usual during peak periods.

Please click below to download the following documents. 

We suggest reading the ‘Investment Policy’ and the ‘Application Stages Guidance’ documents first, then reaching out to your Access Relationship Manager to discuss which application stage might be right for you. If you do not yet have a Relationship Manager, please email us and we will be in touch. 

Once you have decided which application stage is right for you, you can download the relevant application form and application guidance from the documents below. 

• Investment Policy
• Application Stages Guidance
• Enquiry form
• Enquiry form guidance
• Stage 1 & Stage 2 application form
• Stage 1 & Stage 2 application form guidance
• Top-up application form
• Top-up application form guidance

Please note that as this is a four-year application period, all of the above documents are subject to occasional change. We do not expect to need to make material changes, but if we ever do then we will make clear in the relevant document(s) and on this website page that we have done so. We may however occasionally make small tweaks to application forms, or to guidance documents in particular, in order to provide further clarity for applicants in response to your questions and feedback. Each document has a version number and date at the top so that you can easily see when it was published. 

We would encourage organisations who are interested in applying for funding to read the Investment Policy and the Application Stages Guidance first and then to reach out to us for a chat before you embark on the application process. This is so that we can: 

• answer any questions you may have about the Investment Policy or about what may or may not be eligible – or a strong enough strategic fit – for us to consider funding
• talk you through the application process and help you to decide which application stage might be the right starting point for you
• understand your ambitions and how we can best support you through the process (including talking you through the optional co-development support that we can offer if this is of interest)
• talk to you about typical application timelines and understand whether you have any preferred timeframes in mind at this stage 

We would also welcome conversations with any organisations who may be interested in co-funding enterprise grants or blended finance activity with us (you can get in touch here).

Our Investment Committee will usually meet between once a month and once a quarter, depending on the volume of applications to be considered. Below is a list of IC meeting dates that are currently scheduled. These dates are provided for information only and are subject to change or cancellation. 

Please keep your Access Relationship Manager updated on the progress of your application so that, when the time comes, they can work with you to agree an IC date with you. 

Completed applications will need to be submitted well in advance of the IC date that you are aiming for, to enable the Access team to review your application and to confirm that it is ready to go to IC. 

We cannot guarantee that applications will always be able to be brought to the next IC meeting or to the IC date of your choice – this will depend on the readiness of the application and the extent to which there is room on IC agendas. 

If/ when you have a preferred timeline in mind for your application, please let your Relationship Manager know as early as possible so that they can advise you on what may be possible. 

IC meetings currently scheduled: 

• Friday 21 November 2025
• Friday 12 December 2025
• Friday 16 January 2026
• Friday 13 February 2026
• Friday 13 March 2026

Further dates will be added once scheduled. 

We will be accepting applications between 2025 and 2029 (please see Investment Policy section 6.2 for further details on how we will allocate our funding over time).