Why Learning Is Essential to Our Mission

To achieve our ambitions as a fund, we need to learn. At the Growth Impact Fund, we recognise that overcoming the barriers to access currently existing in the social investment sector requires establishing new ways of operating, structuring, and making decisions within funds.

These barriers to access have been well documented, including by the Adebowale Commission and within our own research, and the case for change is compelling. We also need to remain open to examining our implicit biases, team cultures, and delivery priorities.

These represent significant departures from sector norms, and it won’t be possible to get everything right first time. That’s why the Growth Impact Fund makes space within our day-to-day operations to capture data, learn, and improve continuously.

Our Learning Commitments

At Growth Impact Fund, we have committed to:

• Listen to diverse founders, partners, and our team

   about what does and doesn’t work

• Apply and build on our own, national, and international experience

   in impact investing and inclusive practice

• Build in flexibility

   for the fund to evolve and improve over time

This is what we refer to as our continuous learning approach.

Beyond Traditional Learning Models

In the social funding sector, learning is often viewed as something that happens at the end of programmes—usually through evaluation, assessment of fund activity, or impact reporting. Whilst this type of learning can tell us if something has achieved its intended impact and enables accountability, it doesn’t help us improve or innovate in real time. Consequently, it can take years before learning translates into practical change.

These activities are also often led by external teams or organisations, rather than being integrated with the strategic and operational aspects of a fund.

Continuous Learning at Growth Impact Fund

At Growth Impact Fund, we’ve partnered with Shift as our continuous learning partner to embed continuous learning throughout our operations. This complements our dedicated monitoring and evaluation approaches whilst making observation, data collection, feedback loops, and reflection integral to how we operate.

In other words, we’re ensuring that learning remains in the hands of the people who are delivering services and making decisions. Shift’s continuous learning approach draws on established methodologies including strategic learning, developmental evaluation, and design research.

How Continuous Learning Supports Our Goals

Continuous learning within Growth Impact Fund supports us to:

Reduce Bias and Make Data-Driven Decisions

We validate or challenge assumptions through systematic data collection and analysis, helping us identify where unconscious biases might be affecting our processes or decisions.

Learn and Iterate in Real-Time

Rather than waiting for formal evaluation periods, we make improvements as we identify opportunities, ensuring our processes remain responsive to the needs of the founders and communities we serve.

Foster Innovation

We de-risk change by running small experiments and scaling successful approaches over time, allowing us to innovate whilst maintaining responsible stewardship of our resources.

Focus Resources on Highest Impact Activities

Continuous feedback helps us understand which aspects of our work create the most value for diverse founders, enabling us to allocate time and resources more effectively.

Our First Learning Cycle: May-October 2022

At the time of publishing this blog, we were partway through our first six-month learning cycle. We had been working with our fund team to gather data and insights into what was and wasn’t working effectively.

Our learning activities included:

• Gathering feedback from ventures throughout their experience with us
• Observing key committee and panel meetings to understand decision-making dynamics
• Reflecting as a team on our processes and their outcomes
• Reviewing early analytical data to identify trends and patterns

We brought these data and insights into regular learning sessions to help identify trends and plan forwards. This approach had already enabled our team to make improvements to fund processes in real time. We had also begun identifying broader trends requiring deeper investigation in the coming months.

Real-Time Improvements Through Learning

The continuous learning approach has already generated tangible improvements in how Growth Impact Fund operates:

Process refinements: Based on founder feedback, we’ve adjusted application processes to reduce barriers whilst maintaining necessary due diligence standards.

Decision-making improvements: Observing our panels and committees has helped us identify unconscious bias patterns and implement interventions to address them.

Resource allocation: Learning about which support activities create most value for founders has helped us focus our efforts more effectively.

Partnership development: Understanding how different types of organisations experience our processes has informed our approach to building relationships with community partners.

The Innovation Imperative in Social Investment

At Growth Impact Fund, we believe that continuous learning is essential for any fund committed to inclusive practice. Traditional social investment approaches have excluded many innovative founders and solutions—changing this requires ongoing experimentation and adaptation.

Key areas where continuous learning drives innovation:

Inclusive assessment methods: Learning from diverse founders about their experiences helps us develop assessment approaches that recognise different types of expertise and potential.

Accessible communication: Ongoing feedback about our language and processes helps us communicate more effectively with founders from different backgrounds and sectors.

Bias mitigation: Systematic observation of our decision-making helps us identify and address unconscious biases that might exclude promising opportunities.

Partnership models: Learning from community organisations helps us develop collaboration approaches that centre community expertise and needs.

What This Means for Social Enterprises

For businesses seeking social investment, Growth Impact Fund’s continuous learning approach offers several advantages:

Responsive processes: Our commitment to real-time learning means we can adapt our processes based on your feedback and experiences, rather than expecting you to fit rigid requirements.

Bias-aware assessment: Our systematic approach to identifying and addressing unconscious bias helps ensure you’re evaluated fairly, regardless of your background or the traditional ‘fit’ of your approach.

Community-centred support: Learning from diverse founders and community partners helps us provide more relevant and effective support throughout your journey with us.

Innovation-friendly environment: Our experimental approach means we’re more likely to recognise and support innovative solutions that traditional investors might overlook.

Looking Forward: Sharing Our Learning

Through our blog series, we continue delving into our learning, sharing our approaches, and reporting back on how insights influence what we do next as a fund. This transparency serves multiple purposes:

Sector improvement: By sharing what we learn, we hope to contribute to broader improvements in social investment practices across the UK.

Accountability: Public sharing of our learning helps ensure we remain accountable to the communities and founders we serve.

Collaboration: Open sharing enables other funds, entrepreneurs, and stakeholders to build on our experiences whilst sharing their own insights with us.

Innovation acceleration: Transparent learning helps the sector move more quickly towards inclusive practices that serve diverse founders effectively.

The Broader Impact of Continuous Learning

At Growth Impact Fund, we see continuous learning as contributing to systemic change in social investment. By demonstrating that funds can operate effectively whilst prioritising inclusion and accessibility, we hope to influence sector-wide adoption of these approaches.

Systemic benefits include:

• More social investors adopting evidence-based approaches to inclusion
• Improved outcomes for underrepresented founders across multiple funds
• Greater innovation in social investment practices
• Stronger evidence base for inclusive investment approaches

Join Our Learning Journey

Our continuous learning approach depends partly on engagement with the broader community of founders, investors, and stakeholders committed to more equitable social investment.

Ways to contribute to our learning:

• Share your experiences with social investment processes
• Provide feedback on our approaches and their effectiveness
• Suggest innovations or improvements based on your expertise
• Collaborate with us on experiments or research projects

At Growth Impact Fund, we believe that learning is most effective when it’s collaborative, transparent, and action-oriented. Our continuous learning approach reflects our commitment to building social investment that genuinely serves diverse communities and innovative solutions.

Interested in learning more about our continuous learning approach or sharing your insights with us? The Growth Impact Fund welcomes engagement from entrepreneurs, fellow investors, and anyone committed to building more inclusive social investment practices.