The cabinet office has appointed the Adventure Capital Fund to manage the second phase of the Futurebuilders fund. For three years from 1 April 2008, ACF, a charity set up in 2002 to fund community enterprises by offering a combination of investment and support, will be responsible for investing an additional £65m of government funds, on top of the £150m already made available, to develop third sector delivery of public services through loans and grants. ACF will also manage existing investments and appoint a new board.
Futurebuilders England’s (FBE) current team will remain in place beyond the changeover on 1 April although uncertainty remains over the future of FBE’s chief executive Richard Gutch. Director general of the Office of the Third Sector, Campbell Robb, has written to all current investees about the situation stating that current day-to-day contacts would remain.
ACF chief executive Jonathan Lewis said: “FBE’s biggest asset is its staff and we look forward to working with them in taking the programme into its second stage, to make sure that we continue to deliver an uninterrupted excellent service.”
Phil Hope, minister for the third sector, reassured current investees and organisations with applications in the pipeline that “there will be an orderly and well managed transition to the new manager and the programme will not be adversely affected by the change”.
Meanwhile, patient capital, the investment tool enabling community enterprises to generate sustainable income streams, is proving highly effective, according to an independent evaluation commissioned by the Adventure Capital Fund. A study found that the turnover of ACF’s investees more than doubled, growing from £3.3m to £6.9m in the two years after their offer of an ACF Patient Capital award – a 109 per cent growth rate. In the previous two years, turnover of the same group of investees had grown by less than 50 per cent. The investees also significantly increased their capital assets, which in the subsequent two years after a patient capital investment, increased from £1.3m to almost £6m, an increase of nearly 400 per cent.
Finally, FBE has announced its first royalties return based investment package. It has traditionally offered loan packages at a fixed interest rate. The new quasi-equity model will offer an alternative option, where organisations repay the investment according to an agreed percentage of their annual gross revenue. The first recipient, Urgent Care Ltd, received a £399,000 investment.
