Investment and Contract Readiness Fund

  • About the fund
  • About us and the Fund
  • Definition of Social Venture
  • Eligibility
  • Apply
ABOUT THE FUND
The Investment and Contract Readiness Fund is a £10 million fund which was launched in May 2012 by the Office for Civil Society and is managed by The Social Investment Business.   It aims to ensure social ventures are better equipped to secure new forms of investment and compete for public service contracts.
The Fund provides grants to social ventures that have the potential for high growth and delivering positive social impact.  The grant will pay for the purchase of specific capacity building support to help facilitate that growth.
The Investment and Contract Readiness Fund is a key to developing the social investment market. The Office for Civil Society has brought together a group of the leading social investors in the country to help shape the programme. These investors decide who can provide sufficiently high quality business support and also which social ventures should receive grants. The likelihood of organisations successfully attracting investment after they have had support is therefore maximised. 
You can find out more about the fund at http://www.beinvestmentready.org.uk

ABOUT US AND THE FUND
Banks Cannell LLP is an accredited ICRF provider.
We offer support, guidance and assistance to social ventures to develop realistic proposals to become investment and contract ready.  We partner with a social venture in order to submit an application, including working together on an investment or contract readiness plan with milestones which will form the basis of applications.
We are particularly interested in working with organisations who work in the areas of health, social care and education. 

DEFINITION OF SOCIAL VENTURES
The Fund aims to enable more social ventures to secure more social investment, and to increase the number of social ventures who are able to compete for and win public service contracts. It welcomes applications from social ventures that tackle social problems, are financially sustainable and want to scale up. 
The Fund defines social ventures to include:
  • registered charities
  • social enterprises
  • community and voluntary organisations
  • social businesses
  • mutuals 
  • co-operatives
  • businesses delivering social value
This Fund is not just restricted to non-profit organisations; for- profit organisations who deliver social impact are also eligible.

ELIGIBILITY
If you are in a social venture which is interested in working with us to submit a grant application, you will need to comply with the Fund’s eligibility requirements:
  1. Your venture must be based in and working in England.
  2. The grant requested must be an amount between £50,000 and £150,000 (we will work with you to determine precisely how much grant to apply for)
  3. Having considered the State Aid implications of seeking the ICRF grant, you must be satisfied that the application for your organisation, if successful, would be compliant.
  4. You are seeking to raise investment of at least £500,000 (external returnable money) to develop services, or win contracts of at least £1million and the work will be completed within 18 months.
  5. You may only use the grant to fund costs associated with becoming investment and/or contract ready.  You may not use it to fund core costs of running your social venture although up to 40% of the grant can be used to fund additional costs of becoming investment or contract ready.
  6. You must use the grant primarily to fund revenue costs, with no expenditure on capital items with a value in excess of £5,000.
  7. The proposal for which you are seeking funding must not be religious nor party political in nature. This does not exclude faith groups from applying for social purposes.

APPLY TO BANKS CANNELL LLP
If you would like to explore working in partnership with us to build your investment or contract readiness capacity with support from the Fund please contact us at: icrf@bankscannell.co.uk.
In your email please tell us a little about your organisation:
  • Its background, trading history, social impact
  • What you would like to achieve with our support (e.g. specific investment you are seeking or contract you are looking to secure)
  • What support you would like from us
 And please enclose where you can:
  • Your business plan
  • Your last annual report
  • Your last three years’ audited accounts