Project: Social Equity Associates 
City: Wigan   Grant: £60,000

Northern Social Investment Group (NSIG) is a social enterprise consultancy consisting of a group of social entrepreneurs, business consultants and financial technicians who work together to encourage more and better social investment transactions in the North of England. NSIG works primarily with social entrepreneurs – but also with funders and policy makers to build sustainable social enterprises with appropriate social finance.

The aim of the project is to develop a network of trained “social equity partners” (SEPs) or non-executive directors to work in partnership with social enterprises that have secured investment to manage and help implement social investment.  The SEPs will bring focus to social investment activity and assist with areas such as governance, financial control, management and impact measurement.

The objective of the project is to carry out a small pilot with 15 organisations to test whether professional post-investment support at the board level can make social investment more effective than short term consultancy interventions. Post-investment initiatives such as this, if effective, could work to strengthen the sector and lower the cost of lending in the future.