1. Helping individuals give to charity
  2. Making charities stronger
  3. CAF Venturesome >
  4. Governance >
  5. Global Alliance >
  6. Campaigns and Public Affairs >
  7. Research >
  8. Blog Home >
  9. CAF Resilience programme >
  10. Careers >
  11. Media office >
    1. CAF welcomes party leaders’ commitments to Legacy 10 campaign
    2. CAF welcomes launch of Give More campaign
    3. New online tool for charities makes social investment simple
    4. Religious donors give more than double those of no faith
    5. Paul Cheng moves on from CAF
    6. Ted Hart appointed new CEO of CAF America
    7. CAF respond to arts donation figures
    8. Government urged to foster stronger giving culture
    9. Tax changes could strangle major donations - says charity
    10. Motherhood can change our giving
    11. CAF and Legal & General to launch pioneering local social investment scheme
    12. Charity staff in Kent help bring in £37,000 for Sport Relief
    13. CAF leads campaign with NCVO to drop ‘charity tax’
    14. Philanthropists say Budget change will slash charitable donations
    15. CAF responds to Chancellor's comments about tax relief
    16. Top charity execs: Government cap on tax relief will hit donations from major donors
    17. Poll reveals scale of backbench discontent on charity tax changes
    18. CAF responds to comments made by Treasury minister David Gauke
    19. South London music charity keeps up their good work
    20. Fewer than one in four support Government tax relief cap on charitable donations
    21. CAF congratulates winners of 2012 Business Charity Awards
    22. The Sunday Times Giving List 2012
    23. Charity Awards 2012 shortlist
    24. Charity Tax cap will cost society up to £1.5 billion a year
    25. Pasty tax and caravan tax: charity tax must be next to save “Big Society” says charity
    26. Our response to Government u-turn on charity tax
    27. Her Majesty’s Charity Work is an Example to the World
    28. HALO Trust wins top award at Charity Awards 2012
    29. Government announces endowment funds to arts organisations
    30. CAF comments on Government's announcement on Giving
    31. Donations to Armed Forces charities surge, while giving to other charities dips
    32. United Score in First Premiership Battle as Britain’s First League of Giving is Revealed
    33. CAF Social Impact Fund supports 80,000 in a year, as demand for charity funding grows
    34. Community sports clubs and charities face 15% slump in income – despite 'Olympic Effect'
    35. Make people with disabilities role models say public as Paralympic Effect takes hold – poll
    36. Payroll Giving organisations seek ways to work together
    37. Banking reforms will cost charities millions, say charity leaders
    38. Ed Balls Tops CAF's Generation Game
    39. Charities face generation time-bomb, as younger people lose the habit of giving – report
    40. Government-backed programme to fund ‘good causes’ launches
    41. Government payment by results reforms risk leaving charities in the cold – report
    42. Banking Reform Bill will leave charity cash at risk
    43. CAF responds to PM's announcement on payment-by-results contracts
    44. CAF contact centre 7th in top industry award
    45. Donations to charity fall by 20% as fewer people give, UK Giving 2012 finds
    46. Charities Aid Foundation backing this year’s Children in Need
  12. Events >
  13. Publications >
  14. CAF Glossary of terms
  15. Security centre >

Media office

CAF is one of Europe’s largest charitable foundations. We produce research on charities and charitable giving, develop policy ideas and work with people, companies and charities to help good causes thrive.

Our Media team provides journalists with comments, interviews and information. We can be contacted 24/7 and have an ISDN line for broadcast interviews. Call us on 03000 123 286.

Press releases

Contact our Media team

Press office direct line (24 hours): 03000 123 286

Angharad Thomas
Head of Media Relations
Telephone: 03000123 245
Email Angharad
  
Anthony Gale
Senior Media Relations Officer
Telephone: 03000 123 225
Email Anthony
   
Dan Slipper
Media Relations Executive
Telephone: 03000 123 271
Email Dan

 

Don’t ignore charity needs on social investment – report

17 September 2014

Government shouldn’t ignore the needs of charities when it comes to social investment, says a new report released today.

Social investment is an approach with huge potential, but policy makers are in danger of focusing too much on a grand future vision and new ideas for models which promise to give investors both social returns and commercial-rate financial returns.

The reality is charities are more in need of practical, less glamorous forms of investment, such as affordable repayable finance, and investors should sometimes be prepared to sacrifice financial benefits in order to create a wider social impact, says the paper.

'Returns Policy? What the next decade holds for social investment', released by the Charities Aid Foundation, which helps people and businesses support the causes they care about, and provides financial services designed for the charitable sector, is part of their Giving Thought discussion series, and is published as the G8 Social Impact Investment Taskforce releases its results.

It also states that social investment shouldn’t just be about the super rich and government should do more to build awareness and encourage charities themselves to use their resources to invest in social impact.

CAF has been on the frontline of social investment for over ten years. Its social investment arm CAF Venturesome was launched in 2002 and has made over 400 deals, with a particular focus on the philanthropic end of the market.

CAF’s Social Impact Fund allows investors to lend money to organisations multiple times, maximising the impact of their investments and allowing them to help many charities and social enterprises.

Like the G8 taskforce, the CAF report makes eight recommendations to guide policymaking:

  • Grant funding should be used to help charities build skills and infrastructure to become ‘investment ready’
  • Payment-by-results contracts need to be designed carefully to work for charities and social enterprises
  • Charities and social enterprises should be supported to take advantage of the new rights to challenge local service delivery and buy community assets
  • We shouldn’t ignore the philanthropic end of social investment or the need for capital funding with little or no expectation of financial return beyond the capital itself
  • Social investors should not be expected to subsidise private gain for commercial investors or public sector commissioners
  • Charities and charitable trusts should be encouraged to consider social investment
  • Local authorities should become social investors
  • Companies should embrace social investment

Rhodri Davies, Programme Leader of Giving Thought at the Charities Aid Foundation, said: “It’s great that the G8 has been looking into the future of social investment and its increasing role in meeting the needs of communities and voluntary organisations around the world.

“With grant funding falling away and growing demand for public service delivery from the voluntary sector, social investment is definitely becoming an increasingly important source of income for charities and social enterprises everywhere.

“But we can’t get too carried away pursuing a grand vision of a future when the reality at the moment is that charities primary need is simply access to affordable repayable finance. This may have low returns for investors but will ultimately create the widest impact.”

Media contacts

For more information please contact a member of our media team.

Back to top