The England chair of the Big Lottery Fund, has warned that as its own funding is being squeezed, charity demand for its money is twice as great.

However, Nat Sloane, who was speaking at the launch of a report commissioned by BIG on social investment, would not elaborate further on BIG's funding squeeze.

“I won’t go into the reasons for this now,” he told the audience. “But the pressures on funders and investees are growing, as funding declines. Therefore the development of a social investment market place is welcome.”

Sloane said BIG was committed to the social investment agenda, which he said would offer new mechanisms to replace traditional grant funding.

“We have made a few forays in the social investment space,” said Sloane. “But we are just touching at the moment, and we hope to do so much more.”

BIG has made initial steps into the market. It has helped set up the Peterborough social impact bond, and is hosting an interim investment committee that will make investments from dormant account funds while the Big Society Bank is being set up.

This week, BIG, along with the City of London Corporation and the City Bridge Trust launched Investor Perspectives on Social Enterprise Financing. The report, authored by ClearlySo, provides an insight into the attitudes of different kinds of institutional investors towards social investment.