City Funds at The Future Economy Network ‘Evolving Cities’ Event: ‘Working Together: Businesses & Communities’

Bristol’s City Funds governing board member, Sally Britton, spoke today at ‘The Evolving Cities’ event organised by The Future Economy Network on the theme of ‘Working Together: Businesses & Communities’.

Speaking as a representative of the Bristol & Bath Regional Capital eco-system, Sally identified some of the issues for both investors & investees of impact investment – still a relatively new way of working for both investors & charities, community interest companies & community benefit organisations:

• Mainstream investors often don’t understand the way the charity & CIC sectors work & are more comfortable with the traditional organisational forms they are used to working with.
• Real impact investing needs real understanding of what the positive impacts will be & how they can be measured.
• Charities & CICs may struggle to understand the benefits of loan funding over grant funding but there may offer greater freedom & opportunities to be entrepreneurial; opportunities to attract additional matched funding & easier ways to scale-up projects & trial new approaches

Sally also referred to ‘City Labs’, a new way in which Bristol & Bath Regional Capital, Quartet Community Foundation & City Funds can bring ‘Expert Citizens’ with lived experience of a topic together with people with other relevant expertise, to contribute to develop an idea (which is in line with the Bristol One City Plan priorities), therefore maximising the chances of a successful application for funding, either through investment, grant or blended funding.

Watch the event here:

[button link=”bit.ly/2TyWzpn” newwindow=”yes”] Future Economy Network – Event Videos On Demand[/button]