Project: Equality Impact Investing 
City: Totnes   Grant: £29,525

The Dartington Hall Trust is a social justice organisation that aims to stimulate and nurture thinking and activities that support a more sustainable, connected and just world. This project brings together two key DHT elements – The School for Social Entrepreneurs (SSE) Dartington which delivers social enterprise support and investment and the new Centre for Social Justice Innovation (CSJI) at the Dartington Hall Trust. The common objective is to increase levels of UK social justice innovation via the tool of social investment.

The CSJI will carry out a structured research project to answer questions about social investment and equality in an evidence-based way, raise awareness and increase engagement of the social investment sector in delivering equality impact. The research will result in a report, resources and an equality impact framework tool for use by social investment funds and Voluntary, Community and Social Enterprise (VCSEs). This research is the first phase of a larger programme to investigate equality impact investing as a new area of potential activity, which will see CSJI partner with the SSE at Dartington and the Equality and Diversity Forum.

As a result of the research, CSJI wants the UK social investment sector to be more aware of how its constitution, culture and investments impact on equality outcomes, and better able to ensure that this impact is positive.