Project: North East – Investing for social impact
Grant: £44,240 

Voluntary Organisations’ Network North East (VONNE) is a registered charity that acts as the support body for the voluntary, community and social enterprise (VCSE) sector in the North East. Its mission is to support and promote a thriving, effective VCSE sector in the North East of England. One of its key activities is to engage and collaborate with external stakeholders to support the sector to be effective, ambitious and enterprising.

VONNE will work with key VCSE stakeholders to transform attitudes to social investment in the North East. This project is trialling new approaches to engagement and support of the VCSE sector to adopt more enterprising models of operation, leading to a greater appetite for social investment for sustainability and growth. Underpinning the range of activities detailed below will be the creation of a regional social investment strategy. The strategy will be informed by research evidence as well as the North East Enterprise Framework, which illustrates the growth journey of VCSE organisations.

VONNE will bring together a network of regional social investors and intermediaries to share challenges, opportunities, and develop a regional social investment strategy. VONNE will create a ‘buddy’ system to support new investees with colleagues from within the sector who have already raised investment; fund and support this and use the learning to create new resources and inform the investment landscape.