We are only able to invest in asset locked organisations at this stage. Equity investments are on hold until 2026.

A black background with the text, Between two worlds: Building an equitable social investment fund.
Between two worlds: Building an equitable social investment fund.
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Between two worlds: Building an equitable social investment fund

Today, we announce the launch of our second learning report, “Between two worlds: building an equitable social investment fund”. The report covers our efforts to bridge the gap between the worlds of inequitable investment practices and Equality Impact Investing. Read a snapshot summary of our report.

By Tom Sheppard, Digital Manager

At the Growth Impact Fund, we want to create a fairer investment landscape so more diverse founders can access investment. In our first learning report — “Laying the Foundations” — we shared our experience of bringing the Fund to life and how we hoped to make our vision of equitable access to finance a reality.

Since we started making investments, we’ve experienced first-hand the challenges of fulfilling our ambitions. We’ve started to make sense of those challenges by seeing ourselves as part of the broader movement towards Equality Impact Investing (EII) — an approach that seeks to use social investment in service of greater equality in UK society.

We’ve made some good progress, but haven’t yet learned what it means to move away from traditional approaches to investment, towards those that have the potential to address inequality. This journey has left us feeling caught “between two worlds”. On the one hand, we’re pushing towards a world where organisations are empowered to deliver against inequality. On the other hand, we’re grounded in a social investment world with entrenched norms that limit how far we can stretch.

In our second learning report, we try to unpack that experience — being up front about where we’re getting things right, and where we’ve got more work to do as a fund and a sector.

We’d like to invite you into conversation about what the social investment space needs, in order to deliver against inequality. So as with our first report, we’ve built this one as a “living document”, open to anyone’s comment. Please read what we’ve learnt, critique what we’ve shared, and offer your thoughts, reflections and suggestions on what we should do next.

How to contribute

We’ve tried to provide different ways to engage with our learnings that reflect people’s different capacities:

  • If you’d like to understand a snapshot of the learnings shared within this report in 10–15 minutes, we recommend exploring our learning here.
  • If you’d like a snapshot of the learnings in this report, we recommend exploring our visual summary or executive summary. You can also read the section of the full report that feels most relevant to you.
  • If you have more time, then please engage in the full report in whatever way(s) you wish.

You can share your thoughts with us in one of two ways. You can either add comments directly on the reports (see this guide on how to add comments) or post comments to the bottom of this blog.

Why are we sharing this?

We believe that social investors can only address social inequality through open dialogue and real collaboration. This needs to be a sector-wide approach, between individuals, organisations and movements aligned in this mission. Integrating these diverse strands of activity is vital to take us in this direction.

So, whether you are a fellow investor interested in equitable decision-making, an entrepreneur frustrated with a sector that doesn’t deliver, or someone interested in helping shape a more equal society — please share your thoughts with us.

What’s next for the Growth Impact Fund?

Our report identifies some key things we need to work on over the next six months, including:

  • Pursuing sector opportunities to test or collaborate within EII, especially around ecosystem approaches to capacity-building support.
  • Finding the right place for lived experience in assessment.
  • Exploring new models for equal value exchanges within the investment process that are less extractive for those seeking funding.
  • Supporting the infrastructure of Equality Impact Investing, to boost opportunities to collaborate and overcome barriers together.

If you have ideas on how we can do these most effectively, or thoughts on other things we need to prioritise, please get in touch.


Big Issue Invest Fund Management (BIIFM) is the fund manager for the Growth Impact Fund, and the fund is addressed to professional investors only. Capital at Risk. BIIFM Ltd is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) FRN 610618.