In July 2022, we were thrilled to host the inaugural Enterprise Grants Task Force, chaired by Carol Mack, CEO of ACF. This exciting new development follows on from the Match Trading Task Force - a group of trusts and foundations, with a secretariat from the School for Social Entrepreneurs (SSE), which has met since 2018.
The Task Force came together to explore how best to support voluntary, community and social enterprise (VCSE) organisations in their drive towards financial resilience and sustainability through trading. In particular, the group guided the development of the Match Trading model of grant-making.
A recap on Match Trading
Match Trading is a pioneering example of grant-giving to boost enterprising activities within social purpose organisations. The initiative was piloted in 2015 by SSE, with initial and continued support from The National Lottery Community Fund and Lloyds Banking Group, who were swiftly joined by Power to Change, the Scottish Government, Access Foundation, Esmée Fairbairn Foundation, Rank Foundation and more. Fast-forward seven years and SSE’s initiative, which matches pound for pound an uplift in trading income, up to a maximum amount, has supported over 750 organisations across the UK.
Data from three of our Match Trading programmes demonstrates that the approach, coupled with a learning programme, supports at least a 64% uplift in trading income within one year, and that this uplift is sustained in subsequent years. A control group study by Power to Change also revealed that Match Trading grants drive an increase in income from trading as a proportion of total revenue – a 9.5% shift in this ‘trading ratio’ compared to traditional grants.
Sector Support and the Task Force
The dedicated work of the Match Trading Task Force over the last four years developed practice, including adjustments in response to Covid-19. Along the way the group formed new collaborations with other partners, such as Guy's and St Thomas’ Foundation and The National Lottery Heritage Fund, an ongoing research partnership with the Marshall Institute at LSE and support from central Government, including a reference to Match Trading in the Danny Kruger report which fed into the Levelling Up agenda and White Paper in 2021 - 2022.
Developing into an Enterprise Grants Task Force
After this period and a number of deep dive discussions, the Task Force membership concluded that it would make sense to widen the scope of the Task Force. As well as continuing to grow Match Trading practice, we wanted to understand other activity aimed at encouraging resilience and sustainability in VCSE organisations through trading. With post-Covid constraints on foundation budgets and a need for social purpose trading organisations to build their own sustainability and reduce dependence on traditional impact-based grants, the Enterprise Grants concept was born.
Enterprise Grants can also be viewed as a pipeline to the social investment market. By boosting an organisation’s trading ability and coupling it with a learning programme that enhances leaders’ business, marketing and sales skills, enterprising grants such as Match Trading can propel some to apply for social investment. We know that many social purpose organisations working in deprived areas may always need some traditional grants - but enterprising grants can significantly reduce that burden.
We are particularly interested in those working in the more deprived areas and where economic challenges of working in broken markets are more pronounced.
Making Change Happen
The Task Force continues to meet quarterly, for meetings lasting 1 hour 30 minutes, hosted by The School for Social Entrepreneurs and supported by a steering group including SSE, Access Foundation and the Association of Charitable Foundations. The membership of the Task Force remains a valuable mixture, including representation from corporates, research and infrastructure bodies as well as funders. With regular attendance and focused sessions, the Task Force has developed organically to be an authentically collaborative working group.
We meet to contribute to best practice, bubble up new ideas and share opportunities and issues from both funders and those working on the front line. We are focused as a group on making change happen and benefiting social purpose organisations who are interested in driving their traded income. We are particularly interested in those working in the more deprived areas and where economic challenges of working in broken markets are more pronounced.
By widening the Task Force’s remit to explore the broader agenda of all grants that we can term ‘enterprising’, our membership aims to accelerate good practice that we already know about, including Match Trading, Access Foundation’s Enterprise Development Programme and many Funder Plus initiatives.
Enterprise Grants Task Force objectives
The Enterprise Grants Task Force has set itself four main objectives over the next three years:
- Defining and naming the field
- Scoping and sizing the field
- Defining principles of good practice in enterprise grant-making
- Setting an ambition for the funding and foundation sector to grow the field of enterprise grant-making over the following decade.
As we broaden the Task Force's remit, we are currently seeking a new Chairperson. We are also registering expressions of interest from other funders, in anticipation of the Task Force potentially extending its membership in 2023. Visit our collaboration opportunity page on the Funders Collaborative Hub for all the details.
