Charities awarded £680k to help attract investment and contracts

Grants worth £684,000 have been handed out to 15 charities and social enterprises to help them attract further funding by improving how they manage and evidence the social impact of their work.

The money is the final set of grants to be handed out through the Impact Management Programme’s Impact for Growth fund.

In total 41 charities and social enterprises have received a total of £1.8m from the programme, which helps not-for-profit groups improve how they measure and provide evidence of the impact of their work to social investors and commissioners.

The latest 15 grantees include Art Against Knives, which runs creative projects in disadvantaged areas of London to prevent young people becoming victims or perpetrators of violent crimes.

Another is Action East Devon, which supports and develops services for vulnerable people. It will use its grant to help increase its understanding of its target population and review how it measures outcomes to ensure it is closely aligned to commissioners’ requirements.

The Impact Management Programme is managed by a partnership of New Philanthropy Capital (NPC), Social Investment Business, Impetus-PEF, NCVO, Social Value UK, Social Enterprise UK and technology organisation Hactar. It is funded by Power to Change and Access - The Foundation for Social Investment.

“The programme provides a chance for charities and social enterprises to improve their impact management practice to be able to take on social investment or bid for a contract and therefore scale what they do,” said Access chief executive Seb Elsworth.

“This is about more than counting outputs; rather it will help charities and social enterprises to better understand and manage their performance and resources to improve services for their users.”

Rob Abercrombie, NPC’s director of research and consulting added: “We are excited to see how these funded projects develop and what it tells us about the link between improved impact management, diversifying income and improved services for beneficiaries.
“Our grantees will be encouraged to share their experiences and we will publish our learning for the benefit of the whole sector too.”

The average grant handed out is £45,000 and the first grantees started their projects in autumn 2017.

Among those to already receive a funding through the programme is the London Irish Centre Charity (LICC).

The charity’s chief executive Sean Kennedy said: “I think this programme has been transformational for LICC. This process has enabled us to become more effective and deliver greater impact to the wider Irish community.”