Blog
Progress, partnership and what comes next
Seb Elsworth, CEO, reflects on Access’s role, progress and priorities following the Oversight Trust’s independent review.
Connect Fund
Overview
The Connect Fund is now closed.
The Connect Fund was set up to strengthen the social investment market to better meet the needs of charities and social enterprises in England.
It was a £6.3 million fund that the Barrow Cadbury Trust managed in partnership with Access between 2017-2024. The fund is now closed.
How the programme was funded
The Connect Fund was funded through our endowment. Recognising the key importance of investing in infrastructure, the Access Board agreed to set 10% of our endowment aside to support this Fund.
Partner
Insights
Most of the grant spend went to organisations based in London, as this was a fund to support infrastructure organisations, which are often national in scope and have their headquarters in London. The benefits of the Fund were spread around the country in terms of actual delivery, and the Fund directly supported many local and regionally focused infrastructure organisations.
-
£5.28m
disbursed, mostly in grants
-
88
projects benefitted
-
£38k
average grant size
-
Final Reflections from the Connect Fund
Connect Fund Manager Ruby Frankland shares some of the learning from the fund for social investment infrastructure.
-
Connect Fund webpage
Connect Fund Partners, Barrow Cadbury Trust, have complied a back catalogue of tools, reports and resources developed by the Connect Fund’s grant partners to share and support learning about the social investment market.
-
Summary evaluation of the Connect Fund
A summary evaluation report ‘Connect Fund Learning and Evaluation 2027-24’ was published in January 2025.
-
Full evaluation of the Connect Fund