HOW ACCURATE WERE OUR 2018 SOCIAL INVESTMENT PREDICTIONS?
25 January 2019
This week, NESTA released their annual predictions for the coming year on all things technology, innovation and system changes. It was around this time last year where we put together some predictions for social investment in 2018.
So here goes: a run through of our 2018 predictions (spoiler alert: not all of them came through…)
1 Political uncertainty hits the sector
A resounding yes for this prediction. In a year where we've had the on-going car crash that is Brexit, there has been very little political headspace to progress the dialogue with government on social investment (and not forgetting a lot of other policy areas).
There was little in the way of leadership and contingency planning from the Government around the potential impact of Brexit on the third sector, causing huge swathes of uncertainty (for instance, do we need to re-create EU Funds that support parts of the UK but in a Brexit form?).
That’s not to say there were no political advances for social investment in 2018. We had the Government’s response to an industry-led report on social investment and continued Government commitment to work with the investment and savings industry to support the launch of further social impact investment funds.
(Editor note: We thought we’d score Amir for his predictive powers. A strong start with 5/5 for this one)
2 The growth of place-based funding programmes
Slow going on this prediction. Whilst the aim to grow this as a route to making more funding throughout the UK is still there, the implementation has not been. 2018 did see the launch of a few interesting place-based funding programmes, such as the first stages of the Big Lottery’s Placed Based Social Action.
However, there still appears to be a lot to do, and it will be interesting to see what comes out of Big Society Capital’s focus on developing place-based social investment, and how the further increase of funding being made available from dormant accounts by the Government could go towards supporting the growth of place-based funding. It’s worth highlighting that CAF Venturesome’s place-based SE-Assist fund, now in its fifth year, ran successful cohorts in Wales and Greater Brighton in 2018.
Score: 2/5
3 Blockchain
You might be surprised to know that blockchain has not taken over the world just yet. Last year we did see more discussions taking place around the usage of this technology in relation to social good. There are clearly potential benefits to how blockchain could support the development of social investment ranging from transparency, impact measurement and decreasing the cost of providing finance. However, we're still far from having an understanding how blockchain can work with social investment, despite the launch of several social blockchain platforms such as Alice and Disberse.
A bit of patience is required before we can say the words ‘blockchain-backed social investment funds’, however Big Issue’s ‘The Big Exchange’ platform that aims to use blockchain will be an interesting one to follow on this.
Score: 3/5
4 Growing diversity of funders
Over the past year I've seen more and more organisations look to enter the impact investing space with a lot of interest from new players.
Having attended various conferences and events these organisations range from financial institutions, asset management firms and foundations. All these potential entrants are coming at this in different ways, and with that comes different expectations around what they expect to do in the sector (ranging from those looking at a returns-based model vs. a pure impact perspective).
With the recent political uncertainty there has been a more cautious approach however, the broader trend is positive and one in which this diversity of funders will only grow.
Score: 4/5
5 User-led design in the structure of funding and commissioning
Again, one which there is significant interest and support for, but which is showing a slower than expected growth. The stand-out development of this in 2018 was the exciting ‘Leaders with Lived In Experience’ pilot that was launched by UnLtd with a grant from the Big Lottery Fund.
Whilst there wasn’t a huge development in the way commissioning changed in 2018, the new announcement from the Government around changes to its procurement practices to boost social value considerations and reduce barriers for social enterprises was a welcome development - and one that could have an impact on the potential demand for social investment.
Score: 3/5
6 The big data rush
Unfortunately no California-esque rush on this one, but the push towards a more transparent and open sector is still ongoing. There was an interesting move by Social Investment Business, which committed to value the social impact of its programmes and improve the transparency of its programmes.
As part of my role sitting on the steering group for the Social Impact Investment Group, we have been discussing how we can do more to share learnings, develop platforms for learning and share information between practitioners in the social investment sector. One to keep an eye on for 2019 and beyond!
Score: 3/5