Project: The Lived Experience Recovery Toolkit (ALRT)

Grant: £26,000

New Leaf New Life (NLNL) will convene a cohort of social enterprise leaders from across Newcastle and Sunderland that had secured social investment for the first time prior to Covid-19 and have since been trying to deliver vital services in disadvantaged communities. They will participate in a series of action learning sessions to share challenges, create solutions and gain new insights into the impact of Covid-19 on their own organisation and others. The process will give social investors a perspective that they would not get through traditional research methods or customer feedback approaches and inform them about how they could amend their offer or approach, and how they could structure products to meet the needs of investees. This will also give social investors an opportunity to give their perspective to help current or potential investees understand better what the investors are looking for. The insights and learnings will be used to produce a learning report and case studies for social investors.

NLNL is aiming to put user voices at the heart of the social investment process, to influence and shape the work of social investors with existing clients and new clients in the future. The project will stimulate new perspectives on the type of products social investors could offer to meet needs, the role of support and how this can make a difference to the repayment of loans, and how grant and social investment can be used together to support organisations.