Scottish Government launches £50m Housing Charity Bond with Social Investment charity Allia

A charity bond allows investors to donate all or part of the interest on the investment with a chosen charity. This is the second housing charity bond between the Scottish Government and Allia and results in £18.9m investment matched with £6.7m grant funding in 15/16 with another £25m in 16/17. All the money is available to Scottish Housing Associations to build new houses...Read More

OSCR launches a new 'Banking for Charities' information and guidance sheet

OSCR has worked with the British Bankers Association(BBA), SCVO and others to develop this guidance for charity trustees and managers as a response to the growing concern from charities about issues with banks and banking in general. Charities can magnify their impact by using ethical or social banks, so the values of a bank are also important...Read More

The UK government launches a new Social Investment Strategy.

The UK government has just launched a new social investment strategy. Rather ominously, it would appear that the strategy is focused on social investment to deliver even more public services using the Social Impact Bond mechanism. It also focuses on the impact of the new Charities(Protection and Social Investment) Act to allow all third sector bodies to make social investments into other third sector organisations - an ideal that is at the very heart of the SCRT model...Read More

Social Enterprise UK research highlights 

SE UK has just released research into social enterprises and financial data for the period 2011-2015. This forms a useful juxtaposition to the BSC research particularly as it focuses on the financial needs of grassroots organisations and looks at geography,type and size of organisation. It shows that the average amount of finance required is less than £70k, highlighting that the age of the organisation does reflect the finance requirements.....Read More