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A once-in-a-decade opportunity for social entrepreneurs

A once-in-a-decade opportunity for social entrepreneurs

Written by

Ruth Coustick-Deal

External Affairs Lead

There is an opportunity to secure millions in funding for social businesses

The country faces huge challenges. We’re still living through a pandemic, and now the cost-of-living crisis and impacts of the climate crisis are hitting communities across the UK too.  

Every day we work with social entrepreneurs who have real solutions and responses to these issues. Whether they are leading social enterprises, trading charities or community-based businesses – they are helping communities rebuild, create jobs and solving social, environmental and economic problems.  

But they don’t have equitable access to the financial backing they need to make that work as effective as it could possibly be.  

We have a once in a decade opportunity to influence how £738m worth of new money is spent on good causes in England, to provide this very backing. 

How is this possible?

This money is being released through new “dormant assets” – essentially bank accounts and shares that have been long forgotten about. When this unused money has been untouched for long enough, the government can direct it into good causes.  

The Department for Digital, Culture Media & Sport (DCMS) is currently expanding the list of qualifying assets, such as insurance and pensions, which brings the new total available to around £880million, with £738m for England up for debate.  

Their survey on how the money could be used is open now until 9****th October. 

We know that funding like this can make a big difference to social entrepreneurs and has already been of benefit for the last decade. This funding has previously gone to organisations such as Access – the foundation for social investment, which has provided financial support to social entrepreneurs via organisations like UnLtd. 

And last year, the Inclusive Recovery Fund run by us and Comic Relief also came from dormant assets, supporting over 120 social entrepreneurs with £4.75million. 

Your voice is needed

Your voice is the most important one for the government to hear on this opportunity. 

We would like social entrepreneurs like you to benefit, but the government need to hear and understand the difference social investment and other finance for social ventures will make. 

The consultation asks whether social investment should remain as one of the causes eligible for dormant assets, and we strongly believe the answer is absolutely yes.  

Act now: Respond to the survey

  • It should take you about 30 mins to fill in their survey. 
  • You also do not have to answer every question, you can always put “not applicable”. 
  • You can download and pre-read all the questions and prepare your answers before you go through the form.

 

We can help you with your response.  

  • We’ll be running a webinar on Thurs 8th September to answer your questions and support anyone working through the consultation.  
  • You can email our Policy Lead for any support on filling in your consultation response ([email protected])
  • We’ll be updating this with more help to support your application over the next few weeks, including our own response, and some question-by-question guidance.

 

This is the best opportunity to secure a game-changing amount of funding for social businesses, particularly those in communities that have been deprived of investment.

Can you endorse UnLtd's consultation response?

In our response to the survey, we’re asking government for this money to be brought back to life by being spent growing social businesses across the UK. 

We’re doing this in collaboration with friends and partners from across our sector, in a proposal on how the money could be used: the Community Enterprise Growth Plan.  

We’re confident that this shared plan for the sector will lead to real change in communities across the UK.  
 
If you’d like to see these policies introduced, back the Community Enterprise Growth Plan in your consultation response: 

  • Deploying £50m a year of new Dormant Assets over the next 10 years into community and social business. 
  • Supporting charities and social enterprises to access suitable, affordable finance through blended finance (which is a combination of grants and loan – bust more social investment jargon here) to make repayable finance more accessible. 
  • Providing start-up funding for a £50m Black-led social investment fund, as per the recommendations of the recent Adebowale Commission on Social Investment to tackle the inequality facing Black-led social enterprises. 
  • Supporting a network of Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFIs) that offer affordable finance to those unable to access mainstream banks and lending. 
  • Matching the dormant assets with private and philanthropic funds, so that the money can be recycled over time to double the benefit of investing in social business. 
  • Providing personalised business support
  • Ensuring all of this is delivered to the places and communities most in need of investment.

 

Act now: Respond to the survey