Bridges Social Outcomes Funds

The challenge

Public sector commissioners are looking for more flexible ways to drive innovation and improve lives in key policy areas such as homelessness and youth unemployment by using outcomes-based contracts. But social enterprises and charities often lacked the upfront working capital to deliver these contracts.

Our approach

We issued a call to establish a specialist fund that could provide social enterprises and charities with the capital and support they need to deliver outcomes-based contracts. As the first fund of its type in the world, this would also help catalyse the broader market. There have since been over 40 of these projects commissioned by Government in the UK.

The fund

The original Bridges Social Outcomes Fund was designed to offer mission-driven providers with the working capital and management support they need to deliver these contracts, where payment is dependent on measurable improvements in the lives of service users.

This fund was the first of its kind; so as well as delivering demonstrable social impact, the intention was to develop a replicable fund model that allowed socially-motivated investors to support these contracts.

Its successor fund – Bridges Social Outcomes Fund II – is building on these learnings to support larger projects and help this market succeed on a bigger scale.

Find out more about Bridges Outcomes Partnerships, a social enterprise that supports impact-driven delivery organisations to develop and deliver outcomes-based contracts.

• Fund size

  £22.5 million first fund, £35 million second fund

• Big Society Capital commitment

  £23.6 million