Enterprise UK Blog

I’ve recently come across a neat little funding pot managed by St Katharine & Shadwell Trust (SKST) for social and community enterprises in the city of London, Hackney, Newham and Tower Hamlets.

If you’re running a venture or thinking of starting one up that has a social or ethical purpose you can apply for a grant of up to £2,000 from a new fund on offer by the Société Générale UK Group Charitable Trust – here’s a link: www.skst.org/sgukgrants

Now this got me thinking… given a choice should you go for grant to start up or a loan?

I can see that a loan would probably require a business plan, possibly trading history and collatoral and so some people may struggle with ‘traditional’ sources of funding. Community Development Finance Institution’s (CDFIs) are set-up to help businesses and individual’s that are usually underserved by ‘high street’ institutions so that’s an option. Visit the the CDFA website which is the trade association for CDFIs for more information.

The downside of course for a loan is that you’ve got to pay it back and so a grant like that managed by SKST could be the way forward to getting your idea off the ground. Of course there are certain conditions that have to be met when recieving a grant where-as you can spend the loan on whatever you like salaries and computers. Some grants are also restricted to a certain areas of activity e.g. geography or particular groups. For those NOTin the city of London, Hackney, Newham and Tower Hamlets here is a link to the School for Social Entreprenuers (SSE) resources website which lists various sources of grants (link).

This isn’t a definive list so if anyone has any other national, regional or local sources of funding OR any comments on whether to go for a grant of loan… post away!

This entry was posted on Friday, May 29th, 2009 at 5:14 pm and is filed under Finance, Social enterprise. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.