Resonance - Twenty Years Of Impact - Report - Page 59
2,309 PEOPLE
in England sleeping rough - numbers rising9
ANNA SHIEL
BIG SOCIETY CAPITAL
Where did it start (for me!)
My first encounter with Resonance was when they
created the pioneering Real Lettings Property Fund
in 2012. Big Society Capital (BSC) was only a year old
and personally I was definitely still at the “discovery”
stage: finding out more about the range of impact
investing products, impact business models - and most
importantly, where impact investment could play the
greatest role in actually making a difference to the social challenges we face. So I
was both new to the market and had a lot to learn….and the Real Lettings Property
Fund was something that sat outside what currently existed in the impact
investing market. In fact, I’d have to admit that social property funds weren’t really
even an option we’d conceived of!
But what stood out about the fund were three things:
• It was not built around a financial transaction, but around a relationship - with
the charity St Mungo’s – and it built on not only the challenges they faced but
also their expertise and strengths
• It started from a social challenge – homelessness – and identified a social
business model – social lettings – that could deliver a better alternative to
people at risk of homelessness when compared to the private rented sector
• Resonance then found a way of connecting that business model with a pool of
investors who had the right type of capital, initially unlocking investment from
mission-driven investors such as L&Q and local authorities
What’s happened since?
In the years that followed our initial investment into Real Lettings, we continued
to see Resonance evolve and grow its impact through:
• Scaling up the homelessness property funds, reaching more geographies and
helping unlock new, regionally focused investors which helped support over
2,000 people into homes
• Creating innovative financial products like the Resonance Community Share
Underwriting Fund, Affordable Homes Rental Fund and now the Community
Developers Fund that helped realise the potential of communities to tackle the
issues that matter to them through enterprise and assets, such as renewable
energy and housing
• Designing solutions for social enterprises that are crucial in their communities,
but may not be able to access repayable finance at the size or on the terms
available, through investments which bring together repayable finance and
subsidy from tax relief and grants
• Diversifying the property fund product to meet the needs of other vulnerable
people like women escaping domestic abuse and people with learning
disabilities, who are acutely impacted by the failures of the UK housing market,
through the creation of the Resonance Supported Homes Fund and the Women
In Safe Homes Fund
Source:
9. Office for National Statistics - Rough sleeping in the UK: 2002 to 2021
58
MEDIAN RENTS IN LONDON 50%
OF LOCAL FULL TIME EARNINGS11
To see those pioneering ideas grow and mobilise other support along with
capital to do so – for example, from an initial £16m property fund to over £300m
property assets under management now – has been truly impressive. But what
has been even more inspiring is the way Resonance has built learning about
impact into all that it does. So the focus of its impact reporting on homelessness
has always been to understand and respond to the challenges – such as how
quickly people can move-on in the current housing market - as much as to
build on what is working well. And in the nearly ten years of working together,
we’ve got to know each other far better. For me, it is a relationship based on trust,
discovery, challenge and learning. I’ve personally learnt a huge amount from
Daniel, Simon and the whole team: for example, about the importance of starting
with the social issue and the partner, and how to build a fund manager with
purpose at its core.
And our shared sense of purpose has led to some of what I’ve particularly enjoyed
in recent years; being able to collaborate with the Resonance team to respond
to emerging needs, for example, the launch of the Resonance Everyone In Fund
in London to help respond to the immense pressures to find homes for people
following lockdown, and the Women in Safe Homes fund.
How has Resonance changed society and the market?
When I think about Resonance’s impact, it really is multi-faceted:
• The social impact it is creating in complex and entrenched social issues is
rooted in Resonance’s partner and social issue-led approach: by designing
around the needs of diverse partners that range from community organisations
like Langley Community Benefit Society to housing organisations supporting
vulnerable people, like learning disability charity United Response
CORNWALL IDENTIFIED AS AN AREA
WITH UNAFFORDABLE RENTS11
Where next?
Looking into the future, part of the offer of impact investment is that it can unlock
the resources we need as a country to tackle some of the social issues so apparent
today. While these challenges like homelessness certainly can’t be met without
public and philanthropic funding, they are also so great that private capital is also
needed where it can be suitably aligned with the needs of impact-led enterprises.
Thanks to the work and achievements of pioneers like Resonance, the impact
investing context we operate in looks very different to the one I entered ten
years ago – and I suspect even more different to when Daniel created Resonance
twenty years ago! There are now many more investors seeking to integrate
purpose into their organisations and impact into their investment decisions,
to find suitable impact investments – and a growing awareness on the part of
policymakers of how impact investment can be an important tool in the toolkit.
So we have an opportunity, but also a challenge. The opportunity is that we have
far more investors ready and willing to engage, learn and ultimately shift some
of their assumptions, behaviours and investment decisions towards purpose.
The risk is that we are swept along in a wave of capital that becomes increasingly
disconnected from the real impact needed in communities – even with the best
of intentions. Our job as impact investors therefore is to harness that interest and
that capital in order to truly deliver on the purpose that we share. My belief is that
Resonance’s combination of purpose, partnership and learning can be a beacon
for how this ought to be done.
IN THE NEWS...
• Through its willingness to pioneer and then scale new financial instruments, it
has created products which have not only gone on to grow Resonance’s own
assets under management, but to influence and support the development of a
whole market: the social property market is now almost £3bn!
• 2012 Summer Olympics hosted in London
• And Resonance has also done this while developing the blueprint for how
to be a fund manager with purpose – reflected in how it has built its team,
culture and its investment approach, instilling purpose into the heart of its
organisation
• In Pakistan, Taliban members shoot 14-year-old Malala Yousafzai in
the head and neck
All of that shows how central Resonance is to the development of the impact
investing market in the UK and to what all of this must and does add up to: the
impact it is having in communities and for vulnerable people across the UK.
• Raspberry Pi released
• The Higgs Boson particle is discovered, the elusive last key to
understanding why we have life and diversity in the universe
• Queen Elizabeth II celebrates her Diamond Jubilee: 60 years on the throne
• 100th Anniversary of the sinking of RMS Titanic
“To see those pioneering ideas grow and mobilise other
support along with capital to do so – for example, from
an initial £16m property fund to over £300m assets under
management now.”
• The Royal Navy’s first female warship commander, Commander
Sarah West, takes up her post on HMS Portland at Rosyth
• The Shard, the tallest building Europe is officially opened
• Andy Murray makes it to the final of the Wimbledon Men’s Singles
Championships, the first Briton to do so in 74 years
Source:
11. Shelter Private Rent Watch Report
59