March 20th 2023 - Press Release
I’m happy to see the government has continued to harness the Dormant Assets Fund for the
U.K. social impact space with a further £880M investment. In particular the focus on harnessing social investment is most welcome. As a co-founder of the Pathway Fund I’m excited to work with communities up and down the country, government, BSC, Access Fund, Social Enterprise UK and others to see how we develop a social investment space that is accessible for all, especially black and minoritised communities.
The data shows that we are leaving social impact and impact returns on the table by not making our social investment space more accessible. It is great to see the recommendations of the Adebowale Commission acknowledged and recognised - and we hope this will lead to a step change in approach for the social investment space.
The Pathway Fund is well positioned as the first black and minoritised wholesaler fund in the U.K. to help develop new and existing enterprises and social investment finance intermediaries who can collaborate and access social investment in effective and innovative ways to grow the impact of social enterprise in the UK.
The Community Enterprise Growth Plan is a chance to build on the Dormant Asset approach and take social investment to the next level over the next 10-20 years. It’s been a pleasure being part of the journey and the hope is that this work will continue and deliver impact and value for all.
The creation of a Community Wealth Fund is an exciting development forward in steps to put communities first - with scope to grow and improve local access to focused resources - with local residents empowered and hopefully creating real impact and growth in those areas.
Finally, the £76M allocated to immediately tackling the cost of living crisis for enterprises up and down the country is a welcome step. At Pathway we also look forward to working with Fair 4 Finance, Big Society Capital and Access Fund on this work.
Now the hard work begins.
Stephen