Centre for Charity Effectiveness
Intellectual leadership: developing talent, enhancing performance
Cass Business School Launches Free Guide to Social Investment
25 May 2016 – Cass Centre for Charity Effectiveness (Cass CCE) has launched a free guide
to social investment, which is part of its ‘Tools for Success’ series, together with a diagnostic
toolkit to help charities decide if social investment is right for them.
This accessible and informative guide, funded by City Bridge Trust, will help nonprofits think
through social investment, whether they are investment ready and how they can consider
using it as part of their funding options to deliver sustainability and impact.
Organisations can access the guide by completing a quick questionnaire. They will receive
immediate feedback and will be able to benchmark their results against other organisations.
Big Society Capitali estimates the UK social investment market is worth £1.5 billion, yet
whilst the market is growing, many organisations are still uncertain if social investment is the
right finance option for them. Many are unsure how to use it, how to engage investors and
what investors are looking for.
Mark Salway, director of social finance at Cass CCE and joint author of the guide said:
“Having spent 16 months looking at social investment, the clear problem has been a lack of
understanding. Many charities and not-for-profits are baffled by the complexity and hype
surrounding social investment, so this toolkit is a simple guide for demystifying this new
funding opportunity.”
The guide is divided into sections; what is social investment, becoming aware of social
investment, engaging with and preparing for social investment, using social investment, and
delivering impact.
This is the latest guide in Cass CCE’s ‘Tools for Success’ series, which features 12 guides
ranging from Governance, Compliance and Finance to Operations, People and SelfAssessment. Tools for success is intended for use by any small voluntary and community
organisation wishing to invest in its long-term sustainability.
It will be formally launched at the Global Donors Forum on the 25th May and at Honorary
Treasury’s Forum symposium on the 5th July.
Organisations can download a free copy of the guide here
http://www.cass.city.ac.uk/research-and-faculty/centres/cce/knowledge-sharing/tools-forsuccess
Centre for Charity Effectiveness
Intellectual leadership: developing talent, enhancing performance
-EndsMedia enquiries:
Kathryn Hughes, Kayak PR
Tel: 0208 549 3879/07801 823 839
[email protected]
Notes to Editors:
The Centre for Charity Effectiveness at Cass (Cass CCE) is the leading nonprofit and
philanthropy centre in the UK. It has delivered positive transformation and has significantly
enhanced the performance of hundreds of organisations and thousands of individuals across
the nonprofit sector.
www.cass.city.ac.uk/cce @CassCCE
Cass Business School, which is part of City University London, delivers innovative,
relevant and forward-looking education, consultancy and research.
Cass is located in the heart of one of the world’s leading financial centres. It has strong links
to both the City of London and its corporate, financial and professional service firms, as well
as to the thriving entrepreneurial hub of Tech City – located close to the School.
Cass MBA, specialist Masters and undergraduate degrees have a global reputation for
excellence and the School supports nearly 100 PhD students.
Cass offers one of the widest portfolios of specialist Masters programmes in Europe. It also
has the largest faculties of Finance and Actuarial Science and Insurance in the region.
The Research Excellence Framework 2014 rated 84% of Cass Business and Management
research as being of world-leading (4 star) or internationally excellent (3 star) quality and
placed Cass in the top six in the UK. As examples of recent independent rankings of its
research, Cass is ranked third in Europe for its finance research; second in Europe and
eleventh in the world for banking research; and first in Europe and second in the world for
actuarial science research.
Cass is a place where students, academics, industry experts, business leaders and policy
makers can enrich each other's thinking.
www.cass.city.ac.uk @cassbusiness
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