Invitation to Tender - Grant Management Services - Pre and Post Investment Support

1pm on Tuesday 02 December 2025

Access is tendering for a partner to deliver grant management services for its pre and post investment support activity.

At this point Access only requires grants management services for one pre-existing programme which sits within that strand of work, the Reach Fund, for the period April 2026 to March 2030. This is the focus throughout this ITT. However, when appointing a prospective service provider we will reserve the right to extend the scope and/or the duration of pre and post investment support activity and associated grant management services required, if a mutual agreement can be reached between Access and the service provider.

The Reach Fund has been a key tenet of Access’s pre-investment support since 2016. Specifically, it provides support for charities and social enterprises who are already close to the point of taking on social investment. The small and flexible ‘investment readiness’ grants (typically in the range of £5 – 15k) aim to give the charity and social enterprises significant agency in terms of how the grant is spent, often giving opportunity for accessing external skills and investing in capacity to fully engage in the upskilling process. 

The aims of the Fund are: 
• to increase the number and value of investments secured by charities and social enterprises in England; 
• to increase the number of charities and social enterprises who are able to take on social investment for the first time; 
• to increase the diversity of charities and social enterprises who are able to take on social investment; 
• to support more charities and social enterprises to be better informed about how social investment is relevant for them. 

The Reach Fund to this point has been funded from the £60m endowment which was provided to Access from the UK Government in 2015 (originally from the Cabinet Office and now managed by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport). It will continue to be funded by this endowment until it is spent down, likely lasting until Autumn 2026. Beyond this, Reach Fund will be funded by the allocation of New Dormant Assets for 2025 – 2028.

Please review the Invitation to Tender document for all information on the scope and specification of services required.

If you have any questions about the ITT you should contact Greg Woolley, Programme Manager at Access - greg.woolley@access-si.org.uk 

Responses must be submitted in Word and PDF format to info@access-si.org.uk by 13:00 on 02 December 2025. Full requirements and instructions are provided in the attached ITT document.

This will be updated if and as we receive questions.