Two Weeks To Go!
18 September 2020
How’s The Share Offer Doing?
Extended to 30 November – further opportunity to invest
We’re over halfway to reaching our target of £600,000 for the Mustard Seed Property’s latest community share offer. Reaching the halfway mark of just over £300,000 is a massive milestone and it has been so encouraging to watch the numbers go up day by day, knowing that more and more people are supporting our aims and joining our journey. I want to thank all of you who have already invested (nearly 200 individuals and a handful of foundations) and are helping us create a solution for the very real and growing need for supported homes for vulnerable people, in one of the most deprived areas in the UK.
The first £150,000 of this share offer will refurbish a newly purchased property into six new flats, bought by MSP on behalf of Karrek Community Housing CIC. The rest of the money raised will go towards purchasing a third property. We need a minimum of another £250,000 to enable this and at the time of writing we are just over £90,000 off this target. We have already got a short list of properties with each of our current partners and whilst we’ll only be able to buy one this year, we hope to raise fresh capital again in the next eighteen months to acquire properties four and five.
We’ve been grateful for a boost of £50,000 match funding from The Architectural Heritage Fund, which allowed us to reach our initial minimum target and ensures that we can refurbish the Karrek Community property. Match funding like this has helped enormously as it’s an innovative way to increase momentum around a share offer whilst giving others confidence too. I’m so proud of how successful this share offer has been so far, and with more potential match funding on the way later this month, we’re even closer to reaching our target.
How Are Our Partners Doing?
Providing their much-needed services during lockdown has been no easy task, but Karrek Community has risen to the challenge. Lockdown has been especially socially isolating for the people that Karrek work with and often, a visit from the staff was the main social contact they had, even before the pandemic. Read the blog by Karrek’s co-founder Geeta Ashton about the kind of dedication and support they provide, which is what I feel makes this share offer so special, and even more reason for you to consider investing while you can.
How Can You Get Involved?
So perhaps you’re from Cornwall and looking to make a real difference to your community, or Cornwall just means something to you for example as a favourite holiday destination; or maybe you just want to support vulnerable adults. Whatever your reason, just know that now is your chance to really support people in this especially difficult time. At the same time, if you invest before 30 September, you would start benefiting from interest payments from 1 October!
Reaching our target means that by 2022, MSP should be able to house, with partners’ support, at least sixteen more people each year. Co-living accommodation means that people can get the support they need, but also gain confidence living independently. For some adults this will be their first step towards further independence in their lives, but for others this could be their home for the foreseeable future.
If you want to understand more about this and other forms of investing directly into social enterprises to help scale their social impact AND generate a financial return, join me and colleagues from Cazenove, the Power to Change and the Impact Investment Institute next week on 24 September as we explore ‘ People Powered Investing’.
I’m extremely grateful for the support so far, and with possible further match funding being announced later on this month, I’m excited to see how the final push towards our target will go. You can find the details of the share offer on the Ethex website. Let’s keep going.
