Focus on London Rebuilding Society
A profile of London Rebuilding Society, one member of a newly commissioned consortium to deliver support and development of socvial enterprise for London Councils.
London Rebuilding Society is one organisation in a recently formed partnership led by Social Enterprise London to support and develop existing and emerging social enterprise. The value of the package from London Councils funding to the partnership is £450,000 per annum. The other partners in the consortium apart from Social Enterprise London (SEL) and London Rebuilding Society (LRS) are Training for Life (TFL), School for Social Entrepreneurs (SSE) and Development Trust Association (DTA).
Each partner will be responsible for delivering against different outcomes. SEL will manage the partnership, run the LA Connects group and deliver training sessions, LRS will focus on financial support and training, TFL will focus on business advice and support and SSE will provide intensive training for social entrepreneurs just starting out. DTA will be supporting local authorities and social enterprises with asset transfer strategies and asset related enterprise activities. Primary target groups for this work will include organisations led by BAME people and or based in outer London boroughs.
To put it very basically LRS lends money to groups and individuals for projects that have some kind of social benefit. Some of their business support work is supported by the London Development Agency, such as business and financial advice and talking through business plans, market analysis and financial projections. Some of the areas that people often have difficulty with include cash flow, budgets and profit and loss accounts. Other funders include the Esmee Fairburn Foundation, City Bridge Trust, Levi Strauss and Sainsburys.
LRS and Bruce Wood the Head of Enterprise Development, assess applications for loans for investment readiness – Bruce talks through with a group or individual the business case and the social enterprise aspects of what has been proposed.
There is a baseline to which Bruce compares a proposed project, people with low business skills are unlikely to succeed so he looks for a clear business proposal and an idea that will both work and encourage leverage from other sources. He is not focussed on getting the money back, LRS doesn’t function like a bank. LRS is a funder of last resort for organisations that are fundable but not bankable. There are lots of problems that businesses face in the start up stage and LRS needs to test the limits of investability of a particular project.
LRS accepts projects that are social or private enterprises. Eligibility for LRS is that there is a social benefit from the project e.g. setting up a nursery, using buildings for community good, projects that involve using school buildings out of hours for community development.
There is also a fine line to tread regarding the people that bring proposals to LRS, people have got to be right. Bruce doesn’t say exactly how he assesses that people are the right people to lead a project but his extensive experience both in the voluntary sector and in the cooperative movement help to inform his decisions. Bruce is the former chair of Co-operative and Community Finance the UK’s oldest Community Development Finance Institution. He is also a founder member of the once worker’s co-operative First Out, which 20 years ago brought the first ever lesbian and gay coffee shop to London. Bruce also helped to establish Tower Hamlet’s Co-operative Development Agency and Social Enterprise London.
LRS has a revolving loan fund, which means that the money they invest in organisations is then reinvested into the organisations themselves, a cascade effect. This is called the Mutual Aid Fund Scheme – LRS lends to community organisations that then lend to their members, creating a revolving loan fund. The majority of the beneficiaries are community enterprises e.g. a group benefiting African refugee women that not only need funds invested in their organisation but intensive capacity building support.
So far LRS has lent £450k this since April 2007 and their target for the whole financial year is £1.2m
There is a social enterprise fund and also the ABLE (private enterprise) fund
London Councils funding is not for lending out. London Councils money goes towards revenue support, handling enquiries, advice and training, which takes up a good part of LRS’s staff time. The process for support involves some sort of enquiry usually by telephone or email, this is followed up by an assessment of the business plan and projections and support around getting more help – most projects require considerable amounts of time talking through the feasibility of a project, the business plan and getting the work off the ground. The last Friday of the month LRS holds open sessions in their offices for people to just turn up and see what is on offer in terms of business support.
Another familiar face at LRS is Jessica Tyrrel, Marketing and Development Officer, who has engaged in VSF work before especially around our campaign to stop the cuts to the VCS budget and the changing funding priorities of London Councils.
In their new offices in the city, LRS has rooms for hire. Belinda Birch Development Officer at London Funders', one of LRS’s satisfied clients says;
“Just to say thank you so much for everything yesterday - we were absolutely bowled over by everyone's kindness, helpfulness and friendliness - truly a great venue!”
London Rebuilding Society has a Training Room and a Meeting Room available for hire at competitive rates. Discounts are available for Third Sector organisations. LRS is centrally located north of Finsbury Square, 10 minutes walk from Old Street, Moorgate and Liverpool Street stations.
Capacity: Training Room: 35 Theatre Style, 24 Conference Style, 60/70 for a party;
Meeting Room: 14 Boardroom Style.
Please see http://www.londonrebuilding.com/ for details, or contact us on roomhire@londonrebuilding.com or 020 7682 1666.
Further information on the organisations in this consortium can be found on their websites.
School for Social Entrepreneurs
this page last updated October 22nd 2007