At the Growth Impact Fund, we pride ourselves on centring learning throughout our work. The Fund was designed to address systemic inequity in the social investment market, at a time when little was being done to support the countless entrepreneurs underserved by the investment market.

As we navigate unchartered territories, we know we won’t have all the answers. Being a learning fund is vital, meaning that we recalibrate our efforts based on what we know, not what we think. Once a quarter, we go over what worked well, what we’ve learnt, and how we can improve. These are vital spaces for us to ensure the Fund is meeting its objectives and addressing the evolving needs of the social purpose organisations (SPOs) that we work with.

The Need to Reimagine the Fund

When we first launched the Fund, the landscape was very different. We were navigating the challenges of the Covid-19 pandemic and the systemic inequity we saw across the world. Our thinking was heavily aligned with the Adebowale Commission, which called for “comprehensive structural reform” and for the need for more “enterprise-centric finance”.

Since then, the sector has evolved and we have also had to recalibrate our original vision, learning from operating at a smaller scale than we had originally planned.

When we launched, our vision was that of a £25 million fund with the capacity to support social entrepreneurs and to influence others. We remain committed to this ambition but know that it will take us time to prove our model and approach before we get there. The mismatch between our initial goals and the resources available, coupled with what we know now, has pushed us to recalibrate our approach.

Three key areas where the Fund will evolve are:

• Technical Assistance: Enhancing how we provide and communicate our pre- and post-investment support to entrepreneurs.
• Investment Strategy: Improving the efficiency of decision-making processes while balancing the scope of the Fund.
• Theory of Change: Revisiting our approach to ensure alignment with our current resources, the evolving needs of social entrepreneurs and the biggest opportunities to create change.

The evolution of our Technical Assistance Fund

Our Technical Assistance (TA) Fund provides grant funding and support to help entrepreneurs prepare for investment. The demand for this support has been substantial. A key challenge and learning for us was identifying the areas of greatest need and where we could have the greatest impact.

We have had to learn to set clear boundaries on where this funding should be used. Crucially in not using this to fill funding gaps elsewhere in an entrepreneur’s journey, TA is now seen as support alongside investment as opposed to support before investment. This approach reflects the role of the TA fund more accurately. Our learnings have also allowed us to streamline the due diligence process to make it more efficient and aligned with the needs of our entrepreneurs.

In the next iteration of the Fund, we hope to make TA easier to understand and quicker to access.

#€ Creating a more efficient investment strategy As a small team, we have needed to strike a balance between being thorough and swift when making decisions about investment, and a challenge when wanting to take a fully inclusive approach.

Creating efficiencies is crucial and needs to be aligned to support a seamless user experience. We make iterative changes where relevant, including with our legal process, and making our financial model an open-access template (more on that to come) to ensure that the SPOs we engage with have the information they need before applying. This transparency allows us to work efficiently and ensures the SPOs know what to expect as part of the process.

Developing a new theory of change

At the core of our approach to embedding learning, we’ve made several changes to our theory of change. Our new approach will have an alignment and golden thread of impact throughout. We started purposely broad, focusing on diverse-led SPOs and those tackling inequities. We are increasingly focusing on under-represented founders and lived experience, as we believe that is where the demand, and impact potential is.

Our current juncture has reminded us of the need for and importance of being a learning fund. Our commitment to continuous reflection means that we’re confident that these changes will enable us to build a stronger, more focused Fund that can make a meaningful difference in the sector. We will also refocus on how we will operate and share our learnings as we go.

If you’re interested in being part of this journey, we’d love to hear from you.