CAN Breakthrough Social Investment Fund announces sixth investment

The award-winning social enterprise Speaking Up is the sixth investment for the pioneering Breakthrough social investment fund managed by CAN.

Founded in 1996, Speaking Up provides one-to-one advocacy for people living with physical disabilities, learning difficulties and mental health issues and is one of the largest providers of advocacy in the UK. It runs a wide range of advocacy, mentoring and coaching services and projects across 20 sites.

Breakthrough, founded by the social enterprise CAN and the private equity firm Permira, provides capital funds and high-level business management into scaleable social enterprises.

Craig Dearden-Philips, CEO and founder of Speaking Up, says: "The investment of £175k will be used to build core capacity to support services expansion to the East Midlands, Yorkshire and Humberside and Eastern regions. Support will include building social impact measurement capabilities, the recruitment of a new Director for Income and developing expertise in regional operations management."

Adele Blakebrough, CEO of CAN and Chair of the Breakthrough Advisory Panel, said: "Breakthrough is delighted to be supporting Speaking Up, already one of the UK's largest providers of advocacy work. The social enterprise possesses a sound track record of growth, impact and innovation to achieve sustained social change, exactly the reasons why the Breakthrough fund exists."

In 2006/7 Speaking Up reached almost 1,900 people through its advocacy services. Twenty per cent of Speaking Up staff are disabled or former users of its mental health services. Previously, Speaking Up has won the Third Sector Excellence Awards (2006), the Unsung Heroes Award (2006), the Charity Award (2006), the National Training Awards (2006) and the Community Care Awards (2006).

Launched in 2006, Breakthrough is now in its second fund with Permira and last month announced its second funder, SVG Capital plc.  Breakthrough provides equity-like funding with high-level engagement in the business, measured outputs and long-term support.

The other five organisations in the Breakthrough are Green-Works, Law for All, TimeBank, Training for Life and FareShare (see below for website links).

For an interview with Craig Dearden-Philips or Adele Blakebrough please contact Kate Markey on 020 7922 7761 or k.markey@can-online.org.uk

Notes to Editor:

Breakthrough and CAN

Breakthrough Fund II began in 2007 and runs for three years. Evaluation of Breakthrough I (2005 - 2007) found that the turnover of the social enterprises grew at around 20% a year from 2005 - 2007. Their social impact grew faster, at around 40% at year.

Earlier this month Breakthrough announced a new investor, SVG Capital plc. For more information on Breakthrough visit our Breakthrough pages. For the SVG investment announcement visit our press releases page.

The other portfolio organisations on Breakthrough are:

Green-Works - http://www.green-works.org.uk/

Law for All - http://www.lawforall.org.uk/

Training for Life - http://www.trainingforlife.org/

TimeBank - http://www.timebank.org.uk/

FareShare 1st - http://www.fareshare.org.uk/

Speaking Up:

In 2006/7 Speaking Up more than doubled the number of people support 1,567 to 3,168. Almost 90% of the people supported rated Speaking Up's services as excellent.

Craig Dearden-Phillips founded Speaking Up in 1996. He is the author of the newly released `Your Chance to Change the World - the No Fibbing Guide to Social Entrepreneurship'. He is also one of the Government's 30 Social Enterprise Ambassadors.

For more information on Speaking Up visit http://www.speakingup.org/

email: info@speakingup.org

Permira

Permira is an international private equity firm. Our [Its] funds, raised from pension funds and other institutions, make long-term investments in companies with the ambition of transforming their performance and driving sustainable growth.

The firm's teams are based in Frankfurt, Guernsey, Hong Kong, London, Luxembourg, Madrid, Milan, New York, Paris, Stockholm and Tokyo, advising funds with a total committed capital of approximately EUR22 billion (US$30 billion). Since 1985, the Permira Funds have completed over 180 private equity transactions.

For more information visit:  http://www.permira.com/