Social Investment Business


Social Investment Business is a UK registered charity and trading company that offers loans, grants and other financial products to charities and social enterprises.
SIB manages one of the largest social investment portfolios in the UK. Its foundation pioneered community investment in the UK and, to date, has leveraged over £30 million from corporate and public sector organisations.
In 2016, Hazel Blears was appointed as the new Chair of SIB, replacing Sir Stephen Bubb.

Activities

SIB has over 13 years of experience in social investment and has played an important role in helping develop the social investment market in the UK. Since 2002, SIB has supported over 1,200 social sector organisations across England, and has disbursed over £390 million in grants and loans.
SIB is a market leader in developing and implementing investment readiness programmes, having first designed and delivered the 14 million ‘Investment and Contract Readiness Fund’ for the UK Cabinet Office from 2012-15. To date, the fund helped raise over £230 million in deals.
More recently, SIB has managed and delivered Big Potential, Big Lottery Fund’s £20m fund aimed at improving the sustainability, capacity and scale of voluntary, community and social enterprise organisations and the £1.9 million ‘Impact Readiness Fund’.
SIB has also shared data on the performance of its investees, producing its own analysis and thought leadership reports as well as conducting external evaluations. SIB integrates data collection and analysis into all of its funds, as evidenced by the evaluations and data packs made publicly available on the performance of the Investment and Contract Readiness Fund, Futurebuilders England Fund and their participation in the EngagedX analysis ‘Social Investment through a data lens’

History

SIB was originally formed from the Adventure Capital Fund, a demonstration project with £3.3m Home Office investment to support community enterprises with loans, grants and support. After obtaining charitable status and taking on the management of several high profile funds the Social Investment Business Group was formed in 2009.
Social Investment Business is the trading name for the Social Investment Business Foundation, Social Investment Business Limited and Futurebuilders-England Limited. Together these organisations represent the SIB Group.

Examples of Funded Projects