GHK provides proven advice and support to organisations and partnerships applying to the Regional Growth Fund.
In the first round GHK supported the Community Development Finance Association (CDFA) in a successful £60m access to finance bid, including £30m of bank finance. The CDFA was one of only 50 bids (out of 464) to be selected and accounted for around 7% of total RGF funds committed.
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As Sean Dennis, Treasurer of the CDFA and Managing Director of Capitalise Business Support, stated, ‘The support GHK gave to the CDFA was absolutely invaluable in bringing the bid to fruition – from helping to shape the bid to fully drafting the proposal and providing a compelling message to Government as to why they should fund us. Being told we were one of the technically best presented bids added to our sense of achievement’.
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GHK repeated its success for a client in RGF Round 2. Fredericks Foundation’s £5m bid will see the fusion of enterprise lending, volunteer business mentoring and social investment. Ten Community Foundations will be supported by Fredericks to develop enterprise lending hubs to support their local communities and engage local social philanthropists – and significantly expand Fredericks award winning business lending model to disadvantaged people.
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GHK’s Dr Nick Henry said, ‘Frederick’s success was particularly pleasing as when they approached us they were very uncertain that they had a potential application. We had a strong idea of the key criteria for success from our Round 1 experience and saw the potential. The bid, nevertheless, was of a very different style - requiring some up-front support from the Fund to lever substantial social investment. We did explore opportunities with one or two other organisations as well but these were not taken forward – although we helped find another funding source in one of these cases.
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An expansion of the Regional Growth Fund has just been announced in the Autumn statement. If you would like to talk to GHK about receiving support from us please contact Nick Henry on nick.henry@ghkint.com (07779 260670).