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News on our funds
Communitybuilders endowment
Up until 1 April 2011 the Adventure Capital Fund (ACF) managed the Communitybuilders Fund in partnership with The Social Investment Business and Community Alliance (made up of the Development Trusts Association and bassac - now merged to become Locality) and Community Matters, on behalf of the Department for Communities and Local Government and the Office for Civil Society.
Communitybuilders has now been endowed to the ACF. This means that as of 1 April 2011 the fund is now owned and administered by the ACF. This is fantastic news for community groups as the endowment creates an evergreen fund which will be a source funding for the sector the foreseeable future. Going forward the fund will continue to support community groups as it does now, and we’ll be exploring more ways it can support the sector.
Decentralisation Minister Greg Clark said of the endowment:
“We need to make sure that every penny available goes to voluntary and community groups at the best time for them, and that they can access support from across the board. They shouldn’t be forced to distort their plans because of central red tape. The endowment fund for Communitybuilders is a victory for common sense as it means that projects will continue to operate and set up future investment opportunities.
“It is a time of change for the sector but with this comes new freedoms, such as less time spent assessing, analysing and reporting back to Whitehall and more time spent on drawing up flexible plans with community leaders on locally led-projects.”
The fund is not yet open to new applications but we expect to be able to reopen within a few months.
Social Enterprise Investment Fund (SEIF)
Secretary of State for Health Andrew Lansley announced on 30 March that there will be at least £10m available via the SEIF in the financial year 2011/12.
We are currently working together with the Department of Health to finalise details of what kinds of financial products and support will be available in 2011/12 and how we can make the application process as accessible and easy to use as possible. We’ll be letting people know all the specifics - including information about proposed dates for application windows – as soon as it’s all confirmed.
To find out more about the types of organisations the SEIF has supported so far you can visit our SEIF in Action page. There you can see videos, photos and a map of the organisations who have received SEIF investment in the past. You can also see recent news stories featuring SEIF investees and their work and listen to podcasts of social entrepreneurs talking about how a SEIF investment helped them to develop their services.
We will be keeping people updated about developments – including application windows – via this newsletter and social media. You can follow us on Twitter and Facebook.