ABSTRACT
A small number of loans were for working capital, cash flow or new projects and most of these charities had borrowed more than once. Understanding the social investment journey both from a charity and from an investor perspective could alleviate some of the difficulties that both parties experience in working together. This chapter identifies three kinds of organisational journey among the 25 charities: a highly stressful journey; a journey made with confidence; and, charities that chose to walk away. These charities had little or no prior knowledge and experience of charity finance other than grants, donations and local authority contracts. The majority of newly borrowing charities only approached one social investor referred by one trusted advisor, mainly external to, but supportive of, the charity. Positive relationships can be undermined by lenders who quickly become anxious about charity finances, often unnecessarily, because they are unfamiliar with the state of uncertainty that is a daily reality for many small, local charities.
