Browsing: Blog

New public sector contracting opportunities 2 December

The latest funding and finance opportunities available.

New public sector contracting opportunities 23 November

Looking for contracting opportunities to deliver your services? See a list of opportunities with deadlines for expressions of interest in the next couple of months.

Investment in the Acumen Trust

I just heard that the Acumen Community Enterprise Development Trust has been offered a Futurebuilders investment of £350,000. It consists of two loans of £262,500 and a grant of £87,500.

Tender opportunity - handypersons service in Sutton

Just found out about this tender opportunity:
The London Borough of Sutton is looking for a social enterprise to develop and provide a handypersons service for older people and people over the age of 18 who are particularly vurnerable within Sutton.
The contract is expected to commence on 1 April 2010 and will be for a maximum [...]

New public sector contracting opportunities 09 November

This week’s public sector contracting opportunities with appraoching deadlines.

Visiting Shape Arts with Christian Stannard

Last week I went with one of our investment officers, Christian Stannard, to visit Shape Arts, which is applying for a loan from the Modernisation Fund.
Shape Arts is a charity working to improve access to the arts for disabled people. It does this through four delivery aims:

More disabled people employed in the creative industries
[...]

Investment in The Media Bus

We have just offered an investment of £344,573 to The Media Bus. £297,527 of it will be a loan and £47,046 will be a grant.
The Media Bus is a social enterprise in Poole that was set up by White Lantern Film as a solution to the growing demand for educational projects and digital media training [...]

Angela Smith, minister for the third sector at Good Deals 09

This morning, I listened to Angela Smith MP, minister for the third sector, speak at Good Deals UK - the national social investment conference.
She pointed out that social enterprises contributed £8.5 billion to the UK economy in 2005, and added that ‘we need to unlock the power of the third sector’ in order to ‘create [...]

New public sector contracting opportunities 20 October

Check out this week’s contracting opportunities with approaching deadlines.

Public service delivery through social enterprise

I spent this morning at the Public Service Delivery Through Social Enterprise event held at RIBA in central London. A good mix of people from social enterprises, commissioners and public sector staff.
First up is Eilis Lawlor from the New Economics Foundation who talks about its approach to social return on investment. Her main point is [...]

Futurebuilders at the opening of the National Centre for Autism Education

Hannah Grant, The Social Investment Business’ Website Assistant went to the opening of the new Centre for Autism Education. We had provided £5.2 million for this new centre to Treehouse, the national autism charity.
At the opening Hannah spoke to Treehouse’s Finance Director, Martin Atkinson, and a parent, Virginia Bovell OBE.
This what they had to say.

New public sector contracting opportunities 12 October

Looking for contracting opportunities to deliver your services? Check out this week’s list of opportunities with approaching deadlines.

New public sector contracting opportunities 6 October

Some of the latest public sector contracting opportunities with approaching deadlines.

TreeHouse officially open inspiring new building

Yesterday I had the privilege of attending the official opening of the Pears National Centre for Autism Education.

New report from the NCVO - The state and the voluntary sector

I was reading the NVCO’s new report The State and the Voluntary Sector - Recent trends in government funding and public service delivery this morning and there are some really interesting stats in there.
The third sector’s total income in 2006/07 was £33.2 billion, more than three times that of the car manufacturing industry. Just under [...]

The sector needs a big financial player to bring transforming ideas to life

I started working in the sector almost exactly two years ago. In the very first week, I was struck by the passion and inventiveness of the people I met, and by the amazing effect of their work on the people that they help. In my first week, I visited three organisations across the country - [...]

New public sector contracting opportunities 28 September

Some of the latest public sector contracting opportunities with approaching deadlines.

In the spotlight: Can the third sector deliver on large scale?

Eastside Consulting, Futurebuilders and The Social Investment Business have spent the summer developing 3SC, a new consortium for the third sector that will bid for large public sector contracts in education, healthcare and welfare.
3SC is now legally established and more importantly has bid and won a large contract as part of DWP’s Future Jobs Fund [...]

New public sector contracting opportunities 21 September

Some of the latest public sector contracting opportunities with approaching deadlines.

New public sector contracting opportunities 14 September

The latest public sector contracting opportunities.

New public sector contracting opportunities 7 September

Starting today we will be doing a regular blog post about the latest public sector contracting opportunities that we hear about and contracting opportunities with approaching deadlines.
If you come across any contracting opportunities or have a contract that you are tendering for, please let us know by emailing [email protected] or leave a comment on this [...]

News round-up 28 August

This week’s news:
Communitybuilders format announced - Professional Fundraising writes that the Communitybuilders format has been announced and that the Fund will open for applications on 7 September.
Wrestling fan comes Out fighting for charity - Feature story in the Times about Futurebuilders’ Chief Executive, Jonathan Lewis.
Strong early interest in Communitybuilders - Third Sector writes that about [...]

We now offer a range of interest rates

Earlier this month we announced that we are moving from one fixed interest rate to a suite of interest rate options for new deals under our Social Enterprise Investment Fund and Futurebuilders loan funds.
We want to do our very best in these hard times to ensure third sector organisations that are not adequately served by [...]

Communitybuilders - a new programme for community organisations

We launched Stage 1 of the new Communitybuilders website this week. Communitybuilders is a £70 programme for multi-purpose, inclusive community-led organisations and provides loans, grants and business support to help them become more sustainable and resilient.
Multi-purpose, inclusive and community-led? What does that mean?
Well, through Communitybuilders we want to support community organisations that provide services to [...]

Our first steps towards using social media

After several months of hard work by us and our digital agency, Substrakt and with help from Nick Booth at Podnosh, I’m pleased to launch the updated and improved Futurebuilders website. You’ll find lots of small changes around which will hopefully result in an improved user experience, but the centerpiece of our relaunch is this [...]