Since we began working on the Fund in 2021, the Growth Impact Fund has been working hard to support people traditionally excluded from investment. By re–imagining traditional investment thinking, we’ve forged new channels for founders from underrepresented backgrounds to access the investment they need to grow their ideas.

Innovation is never perfect, though. And we’ve tried to stay humble and open to learning as our Fund has started to make decisions. To help this, we’ve committed to being transparent about what we’re up to, and to inviting regular feedback to help us meet our objectives.

“We don’t claim to have all the answers, but we’re committed to sharing our views, perspectives, and gaps in understanding openly and transparently.” (Mathu, Acting for Change)

In this light, today we are releasing our first bi-annual “Learning Report”, which gives an honest and transparent account of what we think we’ve been doing well and where we need to improve in the months ahead. Here is access to our full report and our executive summary.

We’d love to hear your thoughts and reflections on this. So we’re creating our reports as “living documents”, rather than glossy brochures, knowing we don’t have all the insights or all the solutions needed to redress the barriers to social investment for founders and teams from underrepresented backgrounds. We believe that the whole system has to work together to make this change happen, and we want your voice at the table. Please take the time to read what we’ve learnt, critique our findings, and offer your suggestions on what we need to do next.

How to contribute

You can share your thoughts with us by either:

1. Adding comments to our 

   executive summary

    or more detailed 

   learning report

   . Google has 

   a guide on how to add comments

    to documents.

2. Posting reflections as comments at the bottom of this blog

Why are we doing this?

We believe that opening our learnings to the public will create space for more open and honest dialogue in the social investment sector, and we hope that this will lead to new ideas that can inform and improve fund delivery.

So whether you are a fellow investor interested in equitable decision-making, an entrepreneur frustrated with the sector, or anyone else keen to be part of this journey to rebalance financial power across society, this conversation is open to you — please share your thoughts with us.

What’s next for the Growth Impact Fund?

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

• Adapting how we assess and respond to risk in the investment process, including creating new tools and processes for mitigating unconscious biases
• Reaching a wider range of individuals, especially by working with regional and disabled-led organisations, and through new partnerships with trusted community and entrepreneur networks
• Adopting further inclusivity and accessibility best practices to continue improving the investment experience for organisation’s applying to the Fund
• Ensuring we’re investing both our grant and investment funding as efficiently and effectively as possible, creating a sustainable blueprint for future investment funds of this kind.

If you have any ideas on how we might do these most effectively, or thoughts on other things we need to prioritise, let us know.

Thank!

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.