With the launch of our Big Society Finance Fund, NESTA's Stian Westlake looks at how financial innovation can help the social sector do more and do better.
Can financial innovation help solve society’s ills? You’d be forgiven for saying no and moving on. After all, reckless financial speculation has torpedoed our public finances and left the most vulnerable in society clinging to the wreckage. But the right kind of financial innovation still has a role to play: it can provide the money innovative social enterprises need to expand, the liquidity and the leverage that charities need to tap into commercial finance. In short, it can help the social sector do more and do better.
That's why today is a big day for us. This evening, NESTA is launching the Big Society Finance Fund, an experimental project investing money into some of the most promising social finance projects - each of which we hope can change the UK modestly but for the better. We're also publishing two pieces of research looking at the need for social finance and people's willingness to invest in it.
To read the full, original article click on this link: NESTA - The other side of financial innovation
Author: Stian Westlake
