Social investment

Social investment means lending money to create social change.

Unlike a grant, the money is repayable with a small amount of interest. But unlike a bank loan, profit isn't the priority – impact is. For us, it’s not just a coincidence that 'social' comes before 'investment'.

We use social investment to make our money work harder for London. Because it's repayable, we can recycle the same funds again and again. It also lets us support a wider range of projects than our grant programmes allow – including work that tackles poverty in but doesn't fit neatly into our grant criteria, like capital projects.

Most of our social investments come in the form of loans. This means we provide you with money that you pay back to us, at a small interest. As well as loans, we can also explore equity - which means we invest in your organisation in return for a stake in it, rather than expecting regular repayments. Please reach out to us, and we'll discuss options with you.

We charge a small amount of interest on our loans. This means you pay us back slightly more than we lent you.

We do this to protect the value of our fund, so we can keep supporting organisations long-term.

Because our focus is on impact, the interest we charge is low. Our rates are set at a case by case basis, based on what you can afford. They're typically about 3-4%.

Our social investment is for organisations based and working in London with a clear social mission.

You must also have been operating for at least a year, and be able to provide a business and financial plan.
We particularly want to invest in organisations that:

• Are led by people with lived experience of the issue they’re working on
• Have struggled to attract suitable finance elsewhere
• Can grow their impact
• Align with our grantmaking priorities: the housing crisis, racial justice, disability justice, the poverty premium, decent work and social security.

We’re flexible about the size and length of loans we give – our main focus is on impact. In 2024 we gave loans ranging from £50,000 to £500,000, with an average loan of £190,000.