OFMDFM Delivery of the ‘North Belfast Ethical Investment’ Project.

Descriptions

The Belfast North Social Investment Fund (SIF) Zone Steering Group identified the ‘North Belfast Ethical Investment’ (NBEI) project as one of its strategic priorities. SIF has strategic objectives of a) tackling the systemic issues linked to poverty and deprivation, b) building pathways to employment, c) increasing community based services and d) addressing dereliction and promoting investment in the physical regeneration of deprived communities. The SIF was designed to target areas that are most disadvantaged without duplicating existing or planned provision; SIF was developed as a new fund. The target areas include: —Areas within the top 10 per cent most deprived Super Output Areas (SOAs) on the multiple deprivation measure 2010. These are all urban areas. —Areas within the top 20 per cent most deprived Super Output Areas on the key domains of income, employment, education and health. These will be mainly urban and some rural areas. —Areas which can provide independently verified and robust evidence linked to the strategic objectives of SIF (listed above). There are nine SIF zones that cover all of Northern Ireland. NBEI Project The NBEI project aims to support the development of asset-based Social Enterprises (SEs) in North Belfast and to identify projects capable of making a significant impact on the area's underlying social, economic and environmental problems. Ultimately, it aims to strengthen the financial resilience of social enterprises by improving their use of capital assets, bring new entrants into property investment, and help scale existing projects to their next level of growth. The NBEI project will build skills, learning and knowledge to enable SEs to access capital for start-up and development costs, professional fees (architectural/Quantity Surveying etc), purchase and refurbishment of suitable properties and larger scale development funding for full implementation. It will also support SEs to manage and maintain the assets as viable business propositions. It is anticipated that the work of the NBEI project will be managed and governed through a number of structures led by a Project Team that will be established for the project, under that auspices of a Lead Partner, and the wider SIF Belfast North Steering Group. In the main, the project will be delivered through three key mechanisms: a) A Social Investment Chest — clients will be asset based social enterprises with high growth potential. This phase will concentrate on the acquisition, rehabilitation, or maintenance of assets and will involve expert support along with the provision of working capital from the Social Investment Chest to support this stage of development. b) A Social Enterprise Development Fund — clients will be established social enterprises that aim to use assets to scale their operations to make them more financially resilient. These organisations will currently have a sound business model and well established operating systems but wish to either diversify their product or service lines, or develop a new social enterprise. The NBEI project can offer support in the form of working capital and technical assistance. c) A Social Asset Implementation Fund — aimed at supporting larger scale property projects and lever mainstream grant, loan or equity finance into the North Belfast area. At the overarching level, the NBEI project aims to support and develop SEs through a ‘staircase’ approach to developing the social economy in North Belfast. The successful Contractor (or consortium) will be required to identify suitable SEs that fall within the three mechanisms described above.