Resonance - Twenty Years Of Impact - Report - Page 49
1ST DEAL: MUSTARD SEED PROPERTY
First property acquired, to house vulnerable people with
learning disabilities
2007
“SUPPORT PEOPLE” BUDGET
(key funding supporting homeless people) is reduced by
the Treasury, which is pressing for further reductions
RESONANCE KEY MILESTONES
DEALS
• Mustard Seed Property - first property purchased
• This was Resonance’s first deal of magnitude. It contributed to the
development of both the Community Share Underwriting Fund
(first time bespoke underwriting deal) and the Real Lettings Property
Fund (leasing property into a charity partner that needed more space).
COMMUNITY-LED
• Bob Paterson and Daniel start working together on community-led
projects
MUSTARD SEED
PROPERTY’S FIRST
PROPERTY HAS
HOUSED VULNERABLE
ADULTS, SOME
WITH LEARNING
DISABILITIES,
PREVENTING THEM
FROM BECOMING
HOMELESSNESS.
IN THE NEWS...
• Start of the world-wide financial crisis
• Twitter launches
• Gordon Brown becomes PM of the UK
• Gerry Adams, the leader of Sinn Fein, and Rev. Ian Paisley, the head of
the Democratic Unionist Party, meet face-to-face for the first time and
hash out an agreement for a power-sharing government
Source:
7. Reaching Out report from Shelter and Broadway
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61% OF LONDON HOUSEHOLDS
in temporary accommodation, have spent over a year without a secure home7
ANDY SCHOFIELD
CURIOSITY SOCIETY
A meeting of minds
I first met Daniel in a coffee shop near Liverpool Street
about fifteen years ago. We were introduced by John
Kuhrt (thank you, John!) because I was part of a team
developing a tool to help measure social impact. With
the growth of social enterprise, it had become critical
to find a way to really measure impact being delivered.
Social enterprises were growing in number, but how
could they successfully measure if they were delivering on their aims and making
the change they wanted to see. I was also interested in social investment, without
knowing very much about it, so talking to Daniel was appealing. I wasn’t aware of
many people practising social investment in 2007.
After a few more conversations and coffees, we saw we had similar aims and
complementary practices, so both began joining in with what we were each
doing. This led to me trying out the social impact tool – the Transformational
Index (TI) – firstly with one of Resonance’s start up social enterprise clients
and then, in quick succession, on Resonance. The TI works in a workshop
format, where members of an organisation examine what matters most to their
organisation and the change it wants to see in the world. These were only the
fourth and fifth times we’d used the tool and Daniel’s enthusiasm gave myself
and the rest of the team a huge boost. This led to me acting as an early associate
of Resonance on over twenty projects. One notable bit of business planning was
for Resonance itself, as it sought investment from NESTA. There’s a trace of pride
on my part, although a greater factor might have been that Daniel just needed
someone to talk to other than Rebecca!
Working together
The relationship with Resonance developed as the team grew and Resonance’s
needs changed. There were two main ways this showed up. The first was the
shift to starting funds: something of a sea change, with their potential to increase
resources and impact, and work with more charities and social enterprises.
The idea was that work with individual ventures served as the research and
development that enabled Resonance to spot where a fund was the right
vehicle. I remember a 2012 workshop describing the planned social impact of
a proposed property fund with Broadway (now St Mungo’s), before Resonance
launched its first Homelessness Property Fund. This, and other funds, triggered
much of Resonance’s growth in terms of assets under management and its
staff, with the need to report on the impact of Resonance’s funds, in line with
the transformation that they sought, becoming a major feature of our work
with Resonance. The shift to funds led to a corresponding focus for us in going
deeper on fewer projects, compared to the earlier days of our work together. The
second shift was a move from working as associates of Resonance to a model of
partnership. I was part of the team developing a consultancy co-operative, where
the Transformational Index was part of what we offered. Alongside an increasing
volume of learning and evaluation work, we have also tried to build Resonance’s
capacity and capability around impact. This has included training and licensing
tools that we have developed, so Resonance can deploy them directly through
its own staff, developing Resonance’s own systems for impact measurement
and management, and moments of reflection, for example at team days, so that
impact remains a strong part of Resonance’s culture as it grows. Interestingly,
much of what we offer through the Curiosity Society (now a charity) is working
as a learning partner, and this includes elements of evaluation and capacity
building. Resonance was a hugely important testbed for us and I hope that we can
continue to bring innovations from other areas of our work back to Resonance.
WIDESPREAD REDUNDANCIES
sends unemployment rocketing as the financial crisis starts to bite
Making impact investment popular
In terms of the impact that Resonance has made, I feel that Resonance has been
part of a popularisation and coming of age of impact investment. Within this,
Daniel and the organisation have been both innovator and spokesperson. I’m
reminded of the adage that people who say something can’t be done should not
interrupt the person doing it. I have hung on to an early description of Daniel’s,
that Resonance is a campaign wrapped in a business. At the heart of this, in my
opinion, is thinking differently about money and meaning.
This includes the sense of possibility about what it can achieve when it is directed
well. And fundamental to this is the integrity and relational nature of money,
described as “entrustment” in Resonance’s Model of Transformation. What this
means is that money should be enabling and not controlling. Instead, it needs
to be entrusted to an investee organisation to serve a purpose: the social good
that they are seeking to achieve. Whilst Resonance has good advice to share
with enterprises, it is the enterprises that have the mission, and Resonance that
seeks to accelerate it. It feels to me so important to hang onto this with money.
Daniel and people he has attracted to the organisation, understand themselves as
stewards of the money, but that stewardship is as much to society as to investors.
With this ethos, Resonance has supported much social good. It’s a real pleasure
for me to see Sunflowers Care Limited apparently going strong ten years on.
They were one of the ventures that I worked with on impact and an investment
prospectus. Their mission is to provide a home from home for children with
complex health needs and the founders are terrific – exactly the people you’d
want alongside you and your kids in those circumstances. BeyondAutism
is another Resonance client where the impact on children with autism and
their families is very tangible, and it’s a long-term relationship where both
organisations have grown. Resonance should be proud of its role as contributor,
enabler and accelerator – remembering that it’s the social enterprises and their
staff without whom there would be no impact.
Keep leading, shaping and govern
Looking to the future, I think that greater resources need handling with greater
care. As social investment grows, the relational distance increases between
investor, investee and community. A small social enterprise that knows its clients
by name is different to a large one; and for Resonance as an intermediary, along
with many others in the sector, it risks being further away from the impact
on people and communities, paradoxically as a result of intended growth. I’m
excited about the moves that Resonance is making to look at lived experience and
recognising this at a senior level in fund structure, as the Women In Safe Homes
fund does. I see similar potential in the Homelessness Property Funds, to find
deeper ways of involving tenants not just in feedback but also in developing ideas
and making decisions. I think these practices need to become more widespread.
I’d love to see the sector asking how the voice of beneficiaries shapes the
direction of funds, of deals, to make sure that investment is genuinely serving its
purpose.
For Resonance, the years have bestowed credibility and the benefits of
experience. My hope is that it can leverage these not just to grow as a social
impact investment company, but to lead, shape and create in this space. Apart
from the voice of lived experience in governance, the other element that I would
like to see more of is Resonance thinking and acting systemically, bringing
together enterprises, investors, government bodies, and people in the services to
understand and influence the systems of which they are all part. I’ve seen hints of
this catalytic function in the Homelessness Property Funds, where stakeholders
understand the challenges of the housing system, but they could move further
towards collective action, with Resonance’s support. These green shoots show
Resonance is learning and adapting. I’d love to see Resonance as a front runner
pushing new practices that stretch social investment as a whole, hopefully for
years to come.
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