ABSTRACT
Successive governments bought into Cohen’s idea of a new, untapped reservoir of social investment and have been highly active since in leading a market to try to make it happen. The social finance sector in the UK had its intellectual beginnings in the world of investment finance. Its steady progress over the last decade has made it the “funding mechanism of choice” for UK Governments as they engage with social enterprises and charities up to the 2020s. To try to make social finance more appealing, government has encouraged the creation of the Investment and Contract Readiness Fund, Creating Better Outcomes Fund, Big Potential and the Access Foundation, all designed to ease the path to social investment. The investment is not necessarily targeted on paying for the activity of the organisation, but in facilitating the growth of the organisation itself, which then goes on to achieve social goals.
