Impact: 200 social enterprises benefit from Social Investment Scotland funding

More than 200 social enterprises and charities and five million people have benefitted from the funding provided by Social Investment Scotland (SIS) during the past year, a new report today reveals.

Between April 2022 and March 2023, active loans and investments by SIS totalled more than £47.5 million across 201 social enterprises and third-sector providers, an increase from £41m in the previous year. SIS activities, either directly or indirectly, benefited some 5.4 million people collectively in Scotland, England and Wales - an increase of more than a fifth compared to 2021-22, according to the “responsible” finance provider’s latest impact report.

Almost one-third of the charities and social enterprises SIS worked with last year secured loans under £50,000, highlighting the key role the organisation plays in connecting smaller, local charities and community groups with critical finance, bosses said. Funded activities span all of Scotland’s 32 local authorities.

Alastair Davis, chief executive of Social Investment Scotland, said: “If we are going to create a fairer, greener and more equal society, we need to keep turning up the volume, encouraging more stakeholders, social entrepreneurs, businesses and consumers to support Scotland’s transition to a wellbeing economy.

Fair for You is one of the third sector organisations to have benefitted from SIS support.

“Over the past year, SIS has been bolder and more innovative in the ways we collaborate with our partners and other stakeholders to support organisations making an impact all over Scotland - and beyond. Our increased impact is the result of combined efforts to make a real measurable and sustainable difference to people’s lives.”

During the year under review, more than 900 people participated in training events and workshops provided by SIS’s market-building team. These included Circular Economy 360, a partnership with Zero Waste Scotland, the Ambitions Programme of leadership development, supported by the Postcode Innovation Trust, and CultureXcelerator, which offered strategic support for creative industries, in collaboration with Creative Scotland.

In 2022-23, SIS also led the launch of Financial Inclusion for Scotland, a group of Scotland’s leading policymakers and professionals from the private, charity and not-for-profit sectors who have come together to tackle financial exclusion.

In response to the ongoing cost of living crisis, SIS supported Fair for You with a £350,000 loan from the Scottish Community Lenders Investment Fund to help with a pilot programme which has so far directly impacted 280 people living in Glasgow. The initiative was designed to support up to 1,000 households at risk of financial exclusion to access flexible, affordable credit to purchase essential white goods such as washing machines, fridge-freezers and cookers. Previous independent evaluations of Fair for You’s work show that similar schemes deliver significant social impact.

Simon Dukes, chief executive of Fair For You, said: “Social lending requires social investment, and Fair for You has received invaluable support from Social Investment Scotland for many years. The lives of tens of thousands of families across all four nations of the UK have been changed for the better as a result of a loan from Fair for You.”

Social Investment Scotland was established in 2001 to provide a new finance model for charities and social enterprises. Since then it has invested more than £133m.

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