Investing our endowment

"As far as possible, we align our investments with our mission. Using our "bull's eye model", we target socially and environmentally focused organisations while generating the returns needed to support our grant making.

"Much of this approach has been in place since we started investing in 2016. Our latest results show that investing in high-impact areas is not only possible but also profitable, even in challenging economic times."

Emilie Goodall Access's Endowment Committee

Investing our endowment

Access was originally funded by £60m endowment given by the Cabinet Office in 2015 (this relationship has since moved to the Department for Culture, Media and Sport – DCMS). This funded capacity-building programmes which help charities and social enterprises to engage with the social investment market and become investment-ready. 

Rather than simply holding these funds in the bank before they are given in grants, we use them to make investments which will achieve as much social impact as possible, before being repaid and then used to make grants.

In defining the impact we are seeking to achieve, we developed a set of priorities for how the endowment should be invested which align closely with our mission of increasing the flow of capital to charities and social enterprises. This is known as our bull’s eye model.

Rathbones manage the endowment for us and invest principally in social and ethical fixed-income investments such as charity bonds and other ethical bonds. Over time our ambition is to shift as much as possible of the capital in the endowment to being invested at the centre of the bull’s eye.

Our endowment has both a positive impact and good financial performance, outperforming the target benchmarks detailed in our investment policy statement.

Highlights of our impact in 2023 include our investments supporting:

• A more inclusive society and economy: including the provision of support or accommodation to 73 individuals with learning disabilities and management of 50 social housing properties
• Positive climate action and energy security: including renewable energy generation to power 122 average UK homes, avoiding 142 tonnes of GHG emissions

Access takes a 'total impact' approach to its operations, including investing our endowment.

This means that we consider the social and environmental impact of all of our work, including the investments we hold in our portfolio.

This Cabinet Office paper details this approach and provides examples from other trusts and foundations. We work with and learn from others who are considering or have adopted this approach and will share findings.

We manage our dormant asset funds through our Capital Preservation Fund. We hold this cash for less time, typically drawing it down from the lottery on a 12-18 month basis. 

To best align our needs for liquidity, income, and impact, we place the funds in a range of term deposit accounts with leading social banks: Triodos, Unity, Charity Bank, and Reliance Bank.

Outside of our programmes, Access doesn’t buy a huge amount. However, we still seek to apply our total impact approach across our procurement, for example:

• We source catering for our Away Days from social enterprises such as Blend Kitchen,  Crisis and Unity Kitchen
• Our printing has been done by Jericho Print and Social Enterprise Printing Ltd
• External meetings are held in social enterprise venues such as Black South West Network, CAN Mezzanine, The LIFT and The Foundry
• Our web developers, GreenNet, are a value-driven collective