Administration services

Tender description

Access — The Foundation for Social Investment are seeking a partner to deliver grant administration services for “The Reach Fund”, our investment readiness grant programme for charities and social enterprise in England. Access was set up in 2015 by the UK Government, Big Lottery Fund and Big Society Capital. Access works to make charities and social enterprises in England more financially resilient and self-reliant, so that they can sustain or increase their impact. We do this through supporting the development of enterprise activity to grow and diversify income, and improving access to the social investment which can help stimulate that enterprise activity. In 2016 Access established the Reach Fund to test a new model of providing investment readiness support to charities and social enterprises. Following the successful piloting of the fund over the last 2 years, Access wishes to contract a provider to deliver the Reach Fund for at least a further 3 years, from 13.10.2018. About the Programme: In some cases the charity or social enterprise simply lacks the capacity to undertake the work they may need to do in order to develop their investment proposition. Our funding will be made available to charities and social enterprises for them to bridge such gaps. In most cases we envisage grants funding the buying-in of professional services to address specific capability requirements. However the grants may also be used for: — back-filling of staff to undertake specific investment readiness projects to address specific capacity gaps, — participation in a peer learning cohort, — fees for “one to many” courses / qualifications which will demonstrably build internal capacity, — other activities which have the support of the referring social investor as being an effective and appropriate route to investment readiness. Our investment readiness grants will only be accessible to charities and social enterprises via a referral from an approved social investor (which we will refer to as an “Access Point” for The Reach Fund). There are currently 23 approved Access Points for the programme. The aims of the programme are: — to increase the number and value of investments secured by charities and social enterprises in England, — to increase the number of charities and social enterprises who are able to take on social investment for the first time, — to increase the diversity of charities and social enterprises who are able to take on social investment, — to support more charities and social enterprises to be better informed about how social investment is relevant for them. The Reach Fund will focus on charities and social enterprises, already established and working in England, which: — have the potential to grow or diversify their income and develop stronger balance sheets, — are seeking investment, typically for the first time, but are not yet investment ready, — have progressed beyond the earliest “start-up” stages of development. We are looking to work with an experienced grant administrator who will be comfortable with the iterative nature of delivering this programme, with the ability to learn and adapt as the programme progresses. We plan to support this programme for at least a further 3 years, with a possible extension of up to 2 more. Given the programme is already in place with 23 Access Points appointed to date, we do not expect a significant build up period will be required so would expect broadly even volumes of applications over the next three years.We expect the average investment readiness grant made to charities and social enterprises to be 15 000 GBP and we expect 480 organisations over 3 years to benefit. This results in a total expected grant spend of 7 200 000 GBP over 3 years. If the programme is extended for a further 2 years, we would expect a further grant spend of up to 5 000 000 GBP. We ask prospective grant administrators to estimate the costs of delivering a programme with the above quoted grant volumes. The tenderer should evidence the ability to: a) manage the relationship with the current Access points and maintaining the application process for new Access Points; b) establish and maintain positive relationships with each of the Access points; c) show why they are well placed to manage these relationships; d) maintain the website to manage the online diagnostic and grant application process for charities and social enterprises working with their Access points; e) manage the grant application, scoring, decision making, payment and grant monitoring processes; f) manage any issues related to State Aid; g) monitor the grants made to charities and social enterprises; h) gather, report and publish data from the fund's activities in coordination with Access; i) solicit and respond to feedback from lenders, grant recipients and support providers and work with Access to refine the programme. Further detail as well as the award criteria are included in the Invitation to Tender available on our website.