A purpose-driven social enterprise with makerspaces across the Liverpool City Region has become the first recipient of our new social investment fund, Livv and Flourish. The £175,000 investment is set to ‘Make’ a meaningful difference to Make CIC and its budding artisans and entrepreneurs.
Make, a Community Interest Company (CIC) set up in 2012, unites and enriches communities through creativity, art and culture. Its makerspaces in Liverpool, Huyton and now Birkenhead, create places for makers and artisans to turn their passions into prosperity.
Our social investment, which includes a loan of £150,000 and a grant of £25,000, will support the development of Make’s newest premises, as well help to ensure the overall sustainability of the organisation. It will also enable its network of maker hubs to increase social impact.
Liam Kelly, CEO of Make CIC, said: “This investment from Livv will help to support Make CIC with our work across the Liverpool City Region. Social lending, like Livv and Flourish, is a critical part of making impact work happen in communities.
“Traditional finance options are often not available to organisations like Make CIC, despite the significant societal impact they generate. So, thank you to all those in Livv who have put together this fund to ensure that Make, and organisations like ours, can continue to grow the impact our communities desperately deserve.”
The funding will in turn make a difference to Make’s residents, creating opportunities to support their livelihoods. That’s residents like Agnieszka Holubik, owner of Once Upon a Plant, sweet entrepreneur, Paul Doyle, who runs The Tuck Shop UK, and Cath Garvey, animator and illustrator at Cath Garvey Illustration, who all currently work out of Make’s Huyton Village location.
Make’s hubs are places that nurture life-changing social impact, spaces where opportunity meets ambition and true collaboration. They’re spaces for ideas to incubate, for business start-ups to literally start up, to grow and to flourish into established business enterprises that support livelihoods. It’s in recognition of this genuine spirit of social impact that the first investment from our new fund has been made to Make.
Our Livv and Flourish fund was launched earlier this year, where we’re offering £4.25million of support in the form of blended finance for social enterprise and charities across the Liverpool City Region over the next three years.
Part-funded by Access – The Foundation for Social Investment – which provides patient and flexible investment through blended finance and boosts the resilience of charities and social enterprises through enterprise development, Access is supported by funds from the Dormant Assets Scheme.
Seb Elsworth, Chief Executive of Access, said: “The Dormant Assets Scheme puts forgotten money to better use, rather than letting it gather dust in inactive accounts. It’s fantastic to see how the scheme is making a real difference in the Liverpool City Region – creating jobs and boosting the local economy by helping social enterprises like Make CIC and the entrepreneurs they support. By combining grants with loans into a blended package, social investors like Livv can offer the kind of small-scale, patient, and flexible finance that charities and social enterprises need.”
Watch our video below to see how our social investment will make an impact on Make CIC…
The Livv and Flourish fund builds on our impressive track record of social investment, with over £5.2 million already invested in loans and grants, generating £222 million in wellbeing value over the past eight years.
Applications for investment from our Livv and Flourish fund are now open. Offering a blend of grant and unsecured loan finance of up to £200,000 per application, recipients will receive tailored support throughout the process from our dedicated team.