Announcing our first round Connect Fund grants! These successful grant awards focussed on shared initiatives to fill gaps in market architecture. The quality of applications was very high, with a range of approaches to data sharing, skill development, capacity building, networks and development of new standards.

The Connect Fund received over 63 proposals from fund managers, advisors, brokers and other social investment intermediaries in June 2017. These were sifted down to 19 grant proposals that progressed to full grant applications. The Barrow Cadbury Investment Management Committee met in November 2017 and awarded £740,000 to 17 grant applications, with an average grant award of £43,500. 31% of these successful grants were to organisations based outside London.

You read more about the detail of these successful Connect Fund grants. A key aspect of the Connect Fund will be to link these projects together and to other partners working on related issues in the social investment market.

The focus of these successful grant awards was on collaborative solutions across 8 theme areas, including: business development, capacity building, data sharing, diversity, networks, market information, skill development, and standards. The full list of successful grant recipients are:

1. Key Fund – Connect to Invest – Developing the market in the North East and Cumbria – £50,000
2. Homeless Link – Social Investment Management Platform (Feasibility) – £10,000
3. Eastside Primetimers – Investment Plus: Post Investment Support – £59,750
4. Northern Social Investment Group – Social Equity Associates – Post Investment Support – £60,000
5. Finance for Sustainability – Community Partners – £60,000
6. Open Data Services Co-op – Sharing Social Investment Data – £30,000
7. Social Enterprise UK – Social Investment Performance Data Exchange – £22,000
8. Dartington Hall Trust – Equality Impact Investing – £29,525
9. TSIC – The Gathering Working Group – Improving Social Investor Diversity & Inclusion – £55,100
10. Social Business International – E3M Local Alchemy Events – £40,000
11. Social Enterprise UK – Social Investment Forum – £30,000
12. TSIC – Amplifying the Impact of Women in Social Finance (WISF) – £54,570
13. Pioneers Post – Social Investment Market Information – £60,000
14. Social Spider CIC – Social Investment Intelligence Network (SIIN) – £33,000
15. Responsible Finance – Growing our Potential: Developing Leadership – £60,291
16. The Community Shares Company – Community Shares E-Course – £25,000
17. Co-operatives UK – Establishing a Community Shares Standards Board – £60,000