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Podcast: Financing social enterprises and the local multiplier effect with Resonance and Raised In

Katalin Juhasz and Ollie Pollard join us today to show how impact alignment between investors and social enterprises makes a difference to communities and businesses – plus what traditional city institutions can learn from social investors.

Ollie is Head of Enterprise Growth Funds at Resonance, founded in 2002 with the mission to connect capital to social enterprise. It had around £350m under management (and a team of 60) when we recorded this podcast.

Katalin is Head of Future Business and Impact at Raised In, a social enterprise nursery based in Bristol.

More about this episode below – but you can play or download it here. You can also find it in Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music and many other podcast apps:

I noticed that before joining Resonance, Ollie had worked in the City of London for a decade and then on a Sri Lankan tea plantation for 18 months. So we picked his brains about how that experience changed his perspective – and what city investors can learn from social investors.

We also discuss how the push towards impact investing has affected Resonance, the effect of accolades such as winning Property Investment Company of the year, and a new (and Community Investment Tax Relief CITR-qualifying) Resonance Enterprise Investment Fund.

This new fund will provide patient, flexible, risk bearing and accessible investment finance to growth-stage social enterprises. Ollie tells us more.

Then we hear from Katalin and if your assumptions about how a social enterprise nursery operates were similar to mine then you must listen to this. She describes how Raised In generates social impact and community benefit – and how its model means it can attract and retain talented staff.

Raised In has previously secured two investments to grow, from Resonance. Katalin tells us what it needed the finance for (it created LOTS of new jobs, and has enabled 100 families to access nurseries they would not have been able to) and why it worked with Resonance. We hear about pre- and post-investment support and the “local multiplier effect” – Raised In helped sustain many local businesses because of its investment.

Play or download this episode here. You can also find it in Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music and many other podcast apps:

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