Equality Impact Investing Project and Funders Together announce new partnership
Funders Together will become fiscal host for the Equality Impact Investing Project, creating a stronger platform for collaboration across philanthropy, social investment and community-led change.
The Equality Impact Investing Project (EIIP) and Funders Together are pleased to announce a new partnership that will see Funders Together become the fiscal host for EIIP's work, while creating a stronger platform for strategic collaboration across philanthropy, social investment and community-led change.
The partnership brings together two collaboratives that have long worked to connect funders, investors, equality organisations and their infrastructure. While EIIP will continue to operate as an independent initiative, guided by its own Advisory Board, the new arrangement creates opportunities for deeper collaboration with Funders Together on shared priorities, learning and strategic projects.
Both organisations are committed to bringing together those who fund change and those who experience and drive it. Through their respective networks, they have championed approaches that place communities, frontline experience and equality at the centre of decision-making, recognising that lasting social change requires collaboration across sectors, disciplines and forms of capital.
A broader conversation about power and capital
At a time of deepening inequality, EIIP and Funders Together believe that achieving meaningful change requires a broader conversation about power and capital. Alongside grant making and philanthropy, unlocking the full potential of social investment, impact capital and community-led finance will be critical to building a more equitable, just and sustainable future.
Both believe that communities should be recognised not only as beneficiaries of investment, but as generators of assets, knowledge, innovation and value.
“This partnership is rooted in a simple but powerful idea: inequality is not inevitable. If we want to shift unequal outcomes, we must also shift capital.”
— Ceri Goddard, Co-Director, Equality Impact Investing Project
The partnership reflects a shared ambition to harness the broadest possible range of capital for social change and to ensure that investment and philanthropy reaches organisations and communities that have historically been excluded from mainstream financial systems. It also responds to growing demand from a new generation of equality-focused philanthropists, grant funders, investors and changemakers seeking to partner in vehicles and approaches that are more participatory, accountable and rooted in front-line insight.
Together, EIIP and Funders Together will continue to champion approaches that build community wealth, strengthen community power and create more equitable systems of finance and investment. They are particularly interested in advancing a place-based agenda that addresses inequalities within places as well as between them.
A new chapter
As EIIP begins this new chapter, both organisations would like to express their sincere thanks to Social Investment Business for hosting EIIP since 2018. Over the past eight years, Social Investment Business has provided invaluable support, enabling EIIP to establish itself as a leading voice at the intersection of equality, social investment and systems change.
Earlier this week, Access announced half a million pounds of investment for EIIP to build on this work, growing its cross-sector movement to centre advancing equity and justice in the investment ecosystem.
“Acting as a fiscal host for an initiative which aligns so closely with our ambitions creates new opportunities for shared learning, innovation and collective action.”
— Jenny North, Chair of Funders Together
Rana Zincir Celal, Co-Director of EIIP, said: "The next phase of EIIP will place a strong emphasis on learning from and with the many inspiring equality impact investing initiatives already underway, as well as new ones emerging across the UK and globally. Funders Together is an ideal home for this next chapter."
James Banks, Chief Executive of Funders Together, said: "We are delighted to become the fiscal host for EIIP and to deepen what is already a strong relationship. This partnership is not just about organisational arrangements, but an opportunity to draw on our complementary networks, ideas and expertise to explore how philanthropy, social investment and community action can work together to tackle inequality and create lasting change."