Can Business provide the blueprint for Cameron's Big Society?

With the government making sweeping cuts to frontline services there is a growing school of thought that it is the business community that needs to take the lead in helping fund charities and social enterprises that fight economic disadvantage.

A new type of funding has grown up in the charitable sector called Venture Philanthropy. It takes the principals and practices of Venture Capitalism and applies it to the charity sector, providing funding, management support and consultancy.

Impetus Trust are one such organisation. The charities they support have grown their average annual income by 31% year on year, eight times the sector average. This has enabled them to expand the services they provide and so increase the number of people they help each year. Their portfolio of charities is now helping over 250,000 people a year.

To ensure these schemes succeed, Impetus Trust will on Monday urge the government to adopt the principals of the Obama administration's Social Innovation Fund. This would see it channel money from its Big Society Bank through intermediaries, like Impetus Trust, who would match the money with private funding. It wants the government to select a range of intermediary organisations that can collectively offer a full range of funding, including grants, equity and quasi-equity, loans and bonds.

But does business have all the answers? And what can we in the UK learn from a similar scheme already in operation in the US?

Joining our presenter in the studio will be the Chief Executive of Impetus Trust Daniela Barone Soares, and two CEOs of charities that are in the Trust portfolio; Matt Stevenson Dodd of Street League and Rachel Carr from IntoUniversity.

So join our guests live online at www.studiotalk.tv on Monday November 29th at 15:00 GMT

For more information visit www.impetus.org.uk

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• private equity/venture capital
• social enterprise
• execu-teering
• leverage
• pro bono volunteering
• philanthropy
• grantmaking
• social return on investment