Our Impact

Our investments deliver against our mission to create innovative solutions through enterprise to unlock opportunity and end poverty in the UK.

Our investments are changing lives

Big Issue Invest Impact

At Big Issue Invest, our impact success is measured in terms of how many social businesses we support to create meaningful social change and also, how many people affected by poverty and social inequality in the UK, benefit from the work of our investees. Overall, 94% of our investees contribute to core solutions to poverty.

Our 2024 impact

At Big Issue Invest, we believe in the power of social enterprise to generate change for the better in our communities. Here’s an overview of what Big Issue Invest and the social purpose organisations we support have achieved in the past year:

Organisations we work with

All products and services delivered by Big Issue Group, including the investments made by Big Issue Invest, have an impact across our five key impact pillars, which we believe are critical to dismantling poverty.

The social purpose organisations we invest in work across a variety of sectors, with a wide array of customers, and provide support of varying levels of intensity to the groups they target. They all, however, deliver impact across one or more of our impact pillars.

Map of organisations

Of our 145 active investees, 56% are located in areas of high deprivation. Above all, this emphasizes our commitment to address poverty where it is most common to ensure our impact is most effective.

Quality of service

We want to be a social investor that contributes meaningfully to the sustainable growth of social purpose organisations, and a consistent partner along their growth journey. To this end, we use quality of service metrics to evaluate the effectiveness of our financial and non-financial support for enterprises.

For more information on Big Issue Invest Impact, read our impact reports below.

Impact Reports

Impact Report 2024

READ REPORT

Impact Report 2023

READ REPORT

Impact Report 2022

READ REPORT

You can access our Impact Report library here.

Big Issue Invest Impact Committee Members

Mansoor Ahmad MBE

Mansoor has a unique combination of experiences as a Chartered Accountant and International Development professional spanning private and public sectors within the UK and Internationally, whilst also having a disability called Congenital Muscular Dystrophy. Since joining the UK Government’s Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office after PwC, Mansoor has led on developing impact investment, clean energy and agribusiness markets across Africa and South Asia. He routinely advises governments, investors, foundations and businesses on economic development, impact and sustainability.

Caren Holzman

Caren is the founder, director and chief enabler at Enabling Outcomes Ltd. She develops best-practice strategies with a focus on social and economic development outcomes. Her work includes strategy design, evaluations, research, and facilitation. She has worked in NGO and consultancy roles and serves a diverse clientele of NGOs, foundations, multilateral and membership organisations, and corporations.

Larissa Persons

Larissa has over twenty years of experience in the sustainability and social impact space, working with organisations ranging from large international corporates to nonprofits and social enterprises to create progressive social and environmental change. Currently, she is a senior partner at sustainability consultancy Good Business.

Sandeep Sachdeva

Sandeep was an international banker who, after leading large global banking businesses in three continents, retired in his mid-40s to pursue his personal interests. He has since co-founded www.safeinindia.org and is its current CEO. He is also an active board member of several social enterprises in the UK and Europe and enjoys helping them grow/restructure. Sandeep is a graduate of IIT Roorkee and IIM Ahmedabad, India.