More than £28m was given out to dozens of charities and social enterprises as part of a government-backed loan scheme to support the sector during the pandemic.
The Resilience and Recovery Loan Fund was set up in April last year to ensure charities and social enterprises had access to emergency loan funding as part of the government’s wider Coronavirus Business Interruption Loan Scheme.
RRLF was administered by Social Investment Business with an initial £25m investment and support from Big Society Capital.
Access – The Foundation for Social Investment also made £4m in grants available alongside the loans for organisations in England from August last year.
A total of 77 charities and social enterprises from across the UK were awarded £24m in loans and more than £3.9m in grants from 218 applications.
Organisations that had funding approved included Autism Plus, Big Issue, Jo’s Cervical Cancer Trust, and the Royal Society for Blind Children.
Nick Temple, chief executive of SIB, said: “We have learned a great deal from the fund, and we will be using those insights in designing the successor loan fund, as well as building on the partnerships that have helped us achieve so much in the last 12 months.
“This will mean continuing to support charities and social enterprises with patience, flexibility and responsiveness in the post-Covid-19 recovery.”
SIB said its successor loan fund would be launched later in the summer and more information would be made available in the next few weeks.