Our objectives and achievements

The focus of our efforts is to grow our charitable activities in a responsible way so that we achieve long term sustainability. We believe we can only do this by supporting the growth of the charity and social enterprise sector as a whole. To achieve that goal, we have four main objectives.

• Leading the way
• Supporting deprived areas
• Responsible lending
• Working in partnership

Leading the way

We aim to be one of the leading providers of loan finance to organisations having a major social impact on their communities. Social enterprises and charities form a growing sector of the economy and many need loan finance to support that growth.

We plan to grow our investment in social enterprises and charities by 20% a year.

Supporting deprived areas

We aim to have the majority of our loans supporting clients who operate in very deprived areas. Social enterprises and charities operating in the most deprived parts of the country have a positive impact on their communities.

Currently over 60% of our existing loans are to organisations operating in one of the 25% most deprived boroughs or wards in England.

We plan to maintain this proportion in our future lending.

Responsible lending

We aim to ensure that borrowing is the right option for our potential clients. We believe that giving good advice is a key part of our activities.

In the last year as well as making 14 new loans, we advised a further 110 social enterprises about their funding arrangements.

We will continue to ensure that the vast majority of our clients are able to service their loan repayments without causing them financial stress.

Working in partnership

We aim to have partnership relationships between our clients and our regional directors. We maintain regular contact with all our clients, helping them to build a sustainable business.

So far we have established directors in five regions.  Their local knowledge is crucial. Last year they made 200 visits to existing clients.

We plan to see all our clients twice a year and, depending on their need, some more frequently.