£2m investment in community businesses hailed for supporting Liverpool City Region

The Liverpool City Region has experienced a transformative boost from Kindred’s pioneering investment programme, with £2m of funding creating 126 new local jobs and generating an additional £14m in further investment.

The Liverpool City Region’s Mayor Steve Rotheram has hailed Kindred’s success, noting that no other region in the UK is supporting community businesses in such an innovative way. Established with £5.5m from the Combined Authority and £1m from Power to Change, Kindred’s mission is to help socially trading organisations deliver lasting benefits for their communities.

Liverpool City Region Mayor Steve Rotheram said:

“Community businesses are the beating heart of our region, driving both economic growth and social change. We’re the only ones in the country levelling the playing field. With Kindred, we’re putting power and resources into the hands of those who know their communities best, helping them to create good-quality local jobs and attract millions in additional funding.

“The results speak for themselves: 126 new jobs, £14m in further investment, and a 77% rise in turnover across the organisations we’ve supported. This is devolution in action, enabling local businesses to build a fairer, more inclusive economy, and I’m proud that Liverpool City Region is leading the way.”

The social trading sector employs 50,000 people, one in 10 of the city region’s workforce, with 1,300 STOs generating £2.9bn per year for the city region’s economy.

Kindred invested its first £1m into 20 community businesses in spring 2021 with a further £1m invested in 24 more STOs in 2022. Kindred have just produced a detailed evaluation of the impact of its funding so far.

The evaluation found that, collectively, the 44 STOs have created 126 new jobs, creating a collective workforce which now totals 281 full-time equivalent (FTE) jobs sustained, a rise of 51%.

Their combined turnover has grown by 77% over two years – rising by more than £4.3m to a total of nearly £10m – money that stays in local communities.

The 44 STOs have secured an additional £3.5m in additional investment in the last year, meaning Kindred’s £2m investment has so far attracted £14m in additional funds.

Kindred’s director, Jennifer Van der Merwe, says:

“STOs are demonstrating the long term economic change that social businesses can create. Lots of small organisations, aligned in their mission for impact, are creating something bigger together – and these numbers evidence that impact. Our growing community is now 1,000 members-strong, with impact doubling every year, as socially-trading organisations build a more inclusive and diverse economy. We will only create the economy we want in the Liverpool City Region by making sure that we have robust, resilient and sustainable socially-trading organisations across the region. More jobs, more trade and more investment is just the start of a vision that improves people’s lives, by creating thriving neighbourhoods and communities.”

Companies backed by Kindred include Vision Football Development Academy in North Liverpool, with annual growth of over 200%, and PLACED, which specialises in engaging local communities in built environment projects, which grew by 41% in 2023.

Of the 44 companies Kindred has invested in, 49% describe themselves as women-led and 25% are members of the Black Social Traders Network (BlaST), incubated by Kindred and supporting Black-led social businesses.

While the Liverpool City Region has been able to provide early-stage support for Black-led community businesses through Kindred, as Lord Adebowale’s recent report into social investment identified, black-led STOs nationwide then suffer from a lack of appropriate patient and flexible sources of capital.