Social enterprises often receive a significant proportion of their income from grant funding. Charitable trusts/foundations, government and European funds can go to supporting certain activities.
This is often considered as ‘free money’ but in most cases it comes with ‘strings attached’ in the form of monitoring reports and the expectation of certain outputs and outcomes. This can sometimes lead to ‘mission drift’ whereby an organisation is pulled away from its core activities because of the need to chase grants.
Grants can also be used a ‘start-up’ funding to set an emerging social enterprise on its way. This is sometimes done in partnership (this
helps funders to share risks), after a period of market testing/feasibility assessment and in conjunction with a robust business plan. In some cases, loan finance of some sort is also sought as part of this phase, or to support expansion and growth.
It is therefore essential that the governance is robust (see Getting Started) and that the appropriate funding is sought to suit an enterprises legal structure.
SEEM also used to manage a Social Enterprise Development Fund (SEDF).
Unfortunately this no longer exists but you can however see the evaluation
report here
(0.7MB).
The East Midlands Funders Forum (EMFF) is an organisation made up of a variety of organisations. These include public, private and charitable funders as well as regional voluntary sector umbrella bodies and strategic regional organisations. EMFF has a range of aims, below is a list of some of them:
- To share and promote best practice
- To examine and develop more effective ways of allocating funding and making it easier for applicants to access and manage it
- To provide opportunities for funders and applicants to discuss strategic funding issues
- To maximise resources through co-operation between funding bodies
- To encourage a more joined-up approach to funding
The EMFF website also contains links to funders’ websites – these are categorised under 6 ‘Themes’:
- 1. National Lottery or Government Funding
- 2. National, regional or community based funders
- 3. East Midlands based Community Foundations
- 4. East Midlands based Local Authorities
- 5. Community and voluntary sector organisations
- 6. Legal Services Commission
You can view the EMFF website here: www.emfunders.org.uk
Finally, the EMFF has also published a funding index - you can download a
copy here (1.5MB).