- The latest figures (December 2020) now capture over 5,100 commitments to invest into social enterprises and charities totalling £2.9 billion.
- Our deal level data includes £330 million of new commitments made in 2020
- Since the last deal level data (December 2019, released in October 2020), there has been a total of £360 million worth of commitments (across 709 new commitments) into 483 social enterprises and charities. £30 million of this growth was driven from contributors providing new historical deal level data.
We note that this is not a complete set of all social investment activity in the UK, but a voluntary collaborative effort. We’d like to thank all those who have contributed to this release.
Use the tableau visualisation above to explore the data set. In particular:
- Who: Who has contributed to the deal level data? What outcome areas, service users, are they focused on? What are the legal forms or asset lock of these deals? What financing mechanisms do these contributors invest into social enterprises and charities by?
- Social enterprises and charities: Which have received investment? What legal forms are they? What outcome areas or service users do these social enterprises and charities focus on?
- When: What new deals are there? Who contributed to these deals and what are the trends over time? What has been the focus of these investments over time?
- Where: Which areas of the UK have received social investment? Who contributed to deals in each region? How do the investments map to the Indices of Multiple Deprivation?
- £132 million of investment activity in 2020 was committed through funds and intermediaries across 473 commitments into social enterprises and charities with a median investment of £50,000 - this includes £7 million of investments through the social investors who are delivering the Access Growth Fund.
- £196 million was committed by social banks across 210 commitments into social enterprises and charities, with a median investment of £655,000.
- The remaining £6 million of 2020 activity is spread across 19 commitments into social enterprises and charities with a median investment of £250,000.
- A core aim of this data set is that all social enterprises and charities are classified as having a primary outcome area and service user group as per the Outcomes Matrix, to show us how social investment is being used. This can help us see where social investment is appropriate and where it can enable the greatest impact.
- The top three outcome areas by count in the current data set are employment, training and education; housing and local facilities; citizenship and community. By value the top three are housing and local facilities; employment, training, and education; arts, heritage, sports and faith. These differ depending on the contributor.
- It is worth noting that there are still plenty of ‘nulls’ in this data set where data has not been provided (i.e., outcome areas has 28% nulls, primary service users has 50% nulls). Reducing these nulls and providing unique identifiers (company numbers and/or charity numbers) will increase the usefulness of this dataset dramatically for decision-making purposes.
For a comprehensive estimate of the size and composition of social investment in the UK, please see our 2020 Market Sizing data. Our 2020 Market Sizing data highlights deal flow of £1.2 billion which includes more commitments than our deal level data of £330 million in 2020. This is due to the granularity required for our deal level data publication which is generally not publicly available, and we do not ask all collaborators on our market sizing to submit deal level data. Most of this difference is due to new Social Property and Impact Venture funds not included in the Deal Level Data to December 2020.
We hope you find the Deal Level Data a useful resource whether you are a social investor or a social enterprise raising investment. The next release of the deal level data will be for 2021 and will be published in 2022. If you are interested in contributing to our deal level data set, please get in touch.
