A new guide for social entrepreneurs navigating finance

The guide is an attempt to make that kind of clarity available to anyone, at any stage: what the options are, how different types of finance work, and how to tell whether any of them fit where your organisation is now.

Many founders first encounter repayable finance at a moment when they’re already under pressure. Grant options have narrowed. The organisation has grown beyond what early-stage funding can support. Suddenly there’s a decision to make about something you’ve never had reason to think about before.

This is happening more often. Across the social enterprise sector, there’s growing emphasis on financial sustainability and earned income. Organisations are increasingly expected to demonstrate a trading model alongside their social purpose, and grant funding, whilst still important, is no longer the only route funders expect founders to be familiar with.

Repayable finance, loans and similar products, is usually what that conversation is about. It’s funding that’s borrowed and paid back over time, usually from the income an organisation earns through trading. When the conditions are right, it can help a social enterprise grow and sustain its positive social or environmental impact. Without that context, it can create pressure an organisation isn’t ready to carry.

At Firstport, our starting point has always been conversation before application. We’d rather help you think through your options clearly than have you arrive at a funding decision without the context to evaluate what’s being offered. That’s why we created the guide The entrepreneurs guide to social investment to help you get your bearings.

How this guide came together

The guide was commissioned by Firstport and developed alongside Social Investment Scotland, Good Finance, and The Challenges Group. Each organisation works directly with social enterprises navigating funding decisions, and their input shaped the language used, the questions addressed, and the pathways described. It reflects multiple real perspectives from across the social investment ecosystem, not just Firstport’s view.

Emily Macdonald, Head of Group Investment Programmes at Firstport, led the editorial process and is the voice behind the guide. Her approach to working with founders shaped both what it covers and how it’s written. “When a founder first approaches us,” she says, “we have a conversation to understand their organisation, their impact, and how they work. We listen to where they want to get to and then come up with a plan of support. It is our role to find the right support and right investment for them.”

What the guide covers and how to use it

The guide is modular and non-linear. You don’t need to read it from start to finish, and you don’t need any prior knowledge of finance to get something from it. Each section stands on its own, so you can go straight to what’s most relevant to where you are now and return to other sections as your circumstances develop.

Understanding repayable finance tends to build gradually, alongside your organisation, rather than arriving all at once. The guide is designed with that in mind, useful at different stages, not just at the moment you first pick it up.

It covers the language of social investment, the difference between grants and loans, what investment readiness actually means in practice, and how revenue-based finance works as one specific form of repayable finance. It also maps out the wider ecosystem so you can see how different types of support fit together.

Get the guide

You can explore the guide The entrepreneurs guide to social investment by clicking the button below. And if questions come up as you read, we’re here for a conversation, well before any application needs to happen.