Responsible Finance members’ work has never been more needed. Our 2022 Member Day is for everyone working in community development finance: a day to learn, share best practice, and find new ways to boost access to finance for people, businesses and social enterprises.
24 November 2022, Watershed, Bristol
For CEOs, senior management teams, chairs and board members, and colleagues at every level and across operational areas: this day is designed to support your organisational and professional development.
CDFIs invest where it’s needed, getting money into communities and to viable businesses and social enterprises where other lenders don’t. To meet demand, adapt to an evolving political and economic landscape, and develop our sector we must work together to harness the wealth of expertise and entrepreneurialism across our membership.
The Member Day includes practical workshops, networking and peer-to-peer support to learn from and with others tackling similar issues.
It has been designed based on members’ needs and requests. Your staff and board will leave the day inspired, informed, supported and empowered, with new tools to develop your organisation.
We are grateful to Unity Trust Bank, Shawbrook Bank, Triodos Bank, incuto, Singlify and SOAR for their support of the member day.
Agenda
• 10:00 – 10:30 Arrival
• 10:30 – 10:40 Welcome
• 10:40 – 11:05 Group networking
• 11:10 – 12:00 Workshops Round 1:
Workshop 1A: Building a sustainable and scalable CDFI: a 50-minute MBA for CDFI leaders exploring the top three things they need to focus on as leaders to create strong organisations. RF members only.
Workshop 1B: The FCA’s new Consumer Duty: Under the new Consumer Duty evidencing outcomes is key. This session is for personal lenders and will discuss important considerations when implementing the Duty.
Workshop 1C: Measuring your impact to show the difference your CDFI makes: CDFI lending has a huge impact; what can we measure and report that tells the social impact story?
Workshop 1D: Marketing and pipeline building for social enterprise lenders: Learn from peers how each CDFI approaches marketing and what works, and discuss strategies to increase the pipeline for CDFIs.
Read more about all the workshops and their facilitators here.
• 12:00 – 1:15 Lunch and networking
• 1:15 – 2:10 Workshops Round 2:
Workshop 2A: Effective messaging: a session for personal-lending CDFIs about how to create effective messages which cut-through and grab attention so journalists and potential customers understand what you do.
Workshop 2B: Working with brokers on referrals: A session with the National Association of Commercial Brokers (NACFB) on building relationships with local brokers, educating them and building a steady pipeline of business referrals.
Workshop 2C: What to look for when searching for new suppliers: When exploring Open Banking or lending systems, what do you need to consider and how can you measure the benefits and mitigate potential risks?
Workshop 2D: What information do investors look for? This session is co-designed with the Impact Investing Institute and will explore the expectations of investors and how CDFIs can provide this information.
Read more about all the workshops and their facilitators here.
• 2:20 – 3:10 Workshops Round 3:
Workshop 3A: A sustainable investment model: A look at the range of debt options available to CDFIs and a discussion about what a sustainable investment model looks like.
Workshop 3B: Net zero: This workshop will explore what compliance and reporting all enterprises are likely to need to comply with to support the UK’s 2050 net zero target, and how CDFIs can expect to support their customers.
Workshop 3C will explore issues related to vulnerability and GDPR, and will be run by the Money Advice Trust.
Read more about all the workshops and their facilitators here.
• 3:10 – 3:20 Coffee and networking
• 3:20 – 4:00 Horizon scanning
• 4:00 – 5:00 Member Day close and drinks reception
Delegate fees are £135+VAT for a single delegate ticket, and £95+VAT for each additional ticket for your organisation. We have negotiated a special group rate at a nearby hotel – please email for more details or with any other questions about the Member Day.
Our thanks to our sponsors for their support of the member day:
Unity Trust Bank
Unity Trust Bank is an award-winning commercial bank that uses banking to improve the lives of UK communities.
Now in our 38th year, we help businesses and organisations to prosper and address social, economic and environmental needs.
We offer day-to-day banking services and aim to become the bank of choice for all socially-minded organisations.
Shawbrook Bank
Over the last decade we have built a new type of bank that is designed to accommodate individuality, diversity and the dynamics of the modern world.
With over 300,000 active and engaged customers, Shawbrook provides highly personalised, practical lending and savings products to individuals, businesses and real estate investors.
To serve the evolving needs of our customers, and to meet the scale of our potential, we continue to deliver on our purpose: to power up ingenuity to create opportunity, every single day.
Triodos Bank
Triodos Bank UK provides specialist, sustainable finance for businesses and organisations.
We believe banking can be a catalyst for making greater social and environmental impact and we can help support more organisations to make positive change.
Triodos has a strong track record of supporting accredited CDFIs.
incuto
At incuto, we believe that everyone should have access to ethical, affordable financial services.
We support ethical finance providers to be resilient and sustainable, so they can help more people.
We have created tools and partnerships which reduce costs, improve services and are socially profitable.
Singlify
Singlify provides technology that empowers Inclusive Finance Providers to dramatically change access to financial support for underserved communities. We do this by providing an end-to-end loan management application for Inclusive Finance providers built on the Salesforce platform.
Singlify software has been consistently proven to help CDFIs and MFIs improve efficiency, reduce costs, and grow rapidly. We see ourselves as the long-term digital transformation partner for Inclusive Finance Providers. We benefit from an excellent understanding of CDFI and MFI operations and first-hand experience of how best to introduce new technology to our customers.
Soar
Soar makes community focused financial services desirable with our white-labelled mobile banking platform that automates lending, savings and money management. It makes access to affordable credit easy for everyone and helps consumers & business manage their finances better, save more and use appropriate and fairly priced lending.
We have a modern cloud banking platform for those wanting to deliver fair finance. We’ve included mobile, web and cloud apps (as you’d expect) with the usual suspects like digital messaging, payments, credit checks, advanced loan calculations, open banking so that you are digital, available 24/7 and as desirable as the likes of Monzo.