CAF VENTURESOME EVENT

Celebrating inspirational social impact through CAF Venturesome

THE MAIN EVENT

On Tuesday 6 February 2018, we celebrated social impact at Whitechapel Gallery – a charity we are proud to have supported. CAF Venturesome joined together charities and social enterprises, alongside funders from across the social enterprise and private sectors, to showcase the amazing social impact achieved by the organisations we have supported.

The Whitechapel Gallery was founded in 1901 to bring great art to people of east London and now plays a unique role in the capital’s cultural landscape – and as it turns out, the Whitechapel Gallery was one of CAF Venturesome’s first 100 investments and we were thrilled to host our event there for this reason.

We had the privilege of welcoming two amazing speakers to the event from Prisoners Abroad and Change Please, to share their personal insights and presentations to help us bring social investment and social impact to life. The stories from these organisations and others who have been helped through CAF Venturesome in the room, were incredible to hear first hand. We are already talking at CAF about how to get a Change Please coffee cart into our Kings Hill head office.

PRISONERS ABROAD

This year marks the 40th anniversary of Prisoners Abroad. This brilliant charity was introduced at the event by Richard Price, Chairman of the organisation and Adrian, a service user of Prisoners Abroad. Prisoners Abroad is a human rights and welfare charity providing humanitarian aid, advice and emotional support to British people affected by overseas imprisonment.

Richard stressed how Prisoners Abroad provide an essential service, translating human rights law into practical life-saving actions and how they are the only ones providing this service to British citizens overseas.

“I am delighted to have this opportunity of thanking CAF Venturesome for their support and the significant impact this has meant in enabling us to continue our work, especially with those released from prison back to the UK.”

To explain the “why and how” this matters, Prisoners Abroad introduced Adrian, one of their former service users, to the audience. He delivered a moving and eloquent speech, explaining his perspective of the support he was provided by Prisoners Abroad.

CHANGE PLEASE

The audience was further inspired as they were introduced to Cemal Ezel, Founder of Change Please. This incredible charity tackles the growing problem of homelessness in the UK, in the face of budget cuts and the increasing cost of living.

Change Please trains people who are homeless as baristas and provides each person with a London Living Wage job, housing, a bank account and mental health support. The model aims to work with a small number of people at a time and offer them a life changing intervention, designed to support them to move onto employment and more stable housing.

Change Please was launched in November 2015 and since then, it has grown rapidly, securing bars in offices of major corporates and retail sales through Sainsbury’s.

MEET THE SOCIAL ENTERPRISES AND CHARITIES

CAF Venturesome were delighted to invite such a diverse set of organisations to the event, ranging from the Congregation from Marian Mission to major homeless charities:

Aspire Gloucestershire improves lives and communities by delivering services for socially excluded and vulnerable people to unlock their potential and open up new possibilities.
Elevation Networks Trust is a multi-award winning youth employment charity that develops the leadership potential in talented young people, in Nottingham.
Headliners (UK) is a charity which gives young people a voice by using journalism and media as a tool for learning, exploring issues and campaigning for change in their communities.
Herefordshire Vennture provides substantive volunteer led initiatives to address local social needs.
Hub Islington is an active network with co-working space, a shared office, events space and a lively community.
Hubbub Foundation UK is on innovation hub. It takes a fresh approach to solving environmental issues focusing on fashion, food, homes and neighbourhoods.
IAC: The Centre for Adoption is a voluntary adoption agency that undertakes all the required work in respect of preparation, assessment and approval of intercountry adopters. Their mission is to place children from all parts of the world, both in the UK and overseas, in loving families and to work in a fair, transparent and professional manner with all individuals who seek our professional services.
Marian Mission for the Poor is the Congregation from Marian Mission, based in Leytonstone, and provides childcare and educational services to the local community.
Naked House Community Builders is a not-for-profit developer building a new type of affordable housing for generation rent.
Old Spike Roastery is a social enterprise coffee roaster and retailer that operates from Peckham, London. Set up in early 2015, Old Spike hires homeless people to work in its business as coffee roasters and baristas. It aims to lift individuals out of homelessness by offering training, jobs and support for housing through its commercial activities.
Promoting Equality in African Schools was set up in 2008 to permanently widen access to high quality education by building and running a network of sustainable secondary schools in Africa.
Ripe Enterprises is a social enterprise primarily focused on providing English language classes, qualifications and employment support for mainly Black, Asian, and Minority Ethnic (BAME) communities across London that are either unemployed or significantly underemployed.
Rural Urban Synthesis Society is a volunteer-led Community Land Trust based in south London. It was founded in 2009 with the mission of creating sustainable neighbourhoods and genuinely affordable homes.
Street Impact London is a social impact bond managed by St. Mungo’s, designed to provide emergency help for people experiencing homelessness and those at risk of homelessness across east and south east London.
The Foyer Federation is a not-for-profit organisation that helps to transform the circumstances of young people who have faced barriers in their lives.

The event and speeches demonstrated the importance of providing affordable and flexible repayable finance to charities and social enterprises, in order for them to achieve a high social impact. Holly Piper, our Head of CAF Venturesome, stressed how our wholly-philanthropic social investment funds allow CAF Venturesome to support high impact social organisations with the risk-bearing social investment they need.

THANK YOU

We were delighted to welcome over 80 guests to this special evening and on behalf of all of us at CAF, thank you to those guests who joined us and thank you all for your support for those charities and social enterprises; we are delighted and privileged to help you support them.

If you would like to hear more about the event, social investment or the incredible charities and social enterprises CAF Venturesome support, please do not hesitate to contact us.

CAF Venturesome team, March 2018