We’re pleased to announce that our Community Finance Resilience Fund is now fully committed.

Thanks to the engagement and dedication of providers across the country we have exceeded our initial £5m ambition, providing even more support to community finance organisations during a period of significant challenge and economic pressure.

When we first launched the Community Finance Resilience Fund it was our goal to distribute £5m in grant funding and investments to help the sector navigate the cost of living crisis. We are delighted that we have significantly surpassed this figure.

To date, a total of £6.7m has been approved, comprising 44 grants, 13 expressions of interest (EOIs) and one subordinated debt investment. We’ve already disbursed £5.2m of this to 47 community finance organisations, with the remainder allocated for second tranche payments and undrawn commitments.

Early insights into impact

We remain incredibly grateful to all participating organisations for their openness during the monitoring and evaluation process. While we look forward to sharing the full findings from our independent evaluation in the Spring, early insights from our evaluators, Ecorys, show the positive impact this funding is already having:

• Preserving affordable credit: The Fund has played a significant role in protecting the availability of affordable credit, helping organisations withstand rising operational costs and remain a lifeline for members and customers
• Driving operational efficiency: Funding has enabled major upgrades to technology, systems and internal processes, allowing providers to deliver efficiency gains that benefit staff, members and customers

A spotlight on local innovation

Among the expressions of interest, we’ve seen a number of localised projects that offer scalable models for the wider sector. Here’s a look at four examples currently in progress:

West Country Savings and Loans: Bridging housing and finance

In the southwest we are excited to see the results of the regional Credit Union Sustainability Partnership (9 housing providers and West Country Savings and Loans) working together to support tenants with the full range of options the credit union can provide. Done well it should deliver lower costs for the housing provider and reduce the financial burden on the tenant and increase their financial wellbeing.

Our research tells us that improving access to fair and affordable credit can help tenants break the spiral of unaffordable debt, rent arrears and eviction. As well as transforming the lives of tenants, this can have profound financial benefits for landlords. And it supports community finance lenders to scale up and reach more customers.

Enterprise Credit Union: Building future resilience

Karen and the team at Enterprise are running a project that targets potential members between the ages of 18 and 30, with the aim of getting them into a savings habit and starting their financial resilience journey. They may or may not need future lending but starting to both build a savings amount and create that habit as a saver is a great starting point.  

Citysave Credit Union: Expanding savings through payroll provision

The team at Citysave are working on a large-scale marketing campaign themed around a ‘City of Savers’. The focus is on employers with existing payroll provisions with the objective to add new employers onto payroll services through the campaign. The main promotion is based around the benefit of regular savings but the full range of products and services will be available to employees who become Citysave members.  

NEFirst Credit Union: Supporting refuges

NEFirst Credit Union has 7 prisons and 20 refuges within its common bond. Their project is looking at how inmates can start to build up some savings to support them when they are released and a range of services the credit union can provide for survivors of domestic abuse as they look to re-build their lives.

Looking ahead

These projects are just a snapshot of the innovation happening across the sector. We look forward to sharing more detailed case studies as these initiatives progress.

The full independent evaluation of the Community Finance Resilience Fund will be published next Spring and we would like to thank everyone who applied and contributed to ensuring this funding reached the heart of the community finance sector where it can deliver the greatest benefit.