Resonance believes that one day, aligning profits with social impact will be the norm. It is one of the UK’s leading social impact investment companies. Since 2002 its team has worked with over 165 social enterprises and charities, enabling them to raise capital to grow their impact, and make a greater difference to the communities they serve. Resonance currently manages over £260m of investors’ capital across eleven operational funds, with a team of forty across five locations – including Bristol – where it recently offered expanding social enterprise Raised in Bristol (RiB) a second investment of €140,000, enabling it to grow its early years’ education in a new community space.

A previous investment from Resonance in late 2019 enabled RIB to open its second and third nurseries. So this will be RiB’s fourth nursery in Bristol, with the investment being used to fit out the new premises and support with wages and rent for the first couple of years. RiB not only delivers a much-needed service to families, but also generates profit to support everyone in its community, not just its customers. It does this by helping to sustain the future of community-owned buildings – paying rent as a tenant plus a generous profit share. RiB is committed to reinvesting all profits into Bristol’s communities, contributing to a local circular economy. Families are also using community buildings that they’ve never been in before, thanks to RiB.

The story of the cooperation between Resonance and Raised in Bristol shows the potential that can be exploited when there is a sound framework for investment to enable well-developed ideas to generate real social value in a sustainable plan. ComEnter&RC seeks to contribute to the sustainable ideas so that organisations like Resonance can step in to assist entrepreneurs to exploit them.