Chief to step down as Key Fund celebrates decade of support

The Sheffield-based Key Fund was established to help community-based enterprises that couldn’t get funding from the banks.

On October 25, the Key Fund is hosting a major event at Magna in Rotherham to mark the 10th anniversary of its first loan.

The event will also mark the retirement of the Key Fund’s current chief executive, Ann Oldroyd. Her replacement is expected to be announced on the night.

The Key Fund was established to provide finance and support to social enterprises across the north of England. Since its inception, the fund has invested £26m into social enterprises that have transformed communities.

The fund was developed by a group of entrepreneurs from Locality, which was formerly known as the South Yorkshire Community Foundation and the Sheffield Community Enterprise Development Unit.

A Key Fund spokesman said: “They pooled their experience and skills with a philanthropic impulse to meet the glaring needs for budding social enterprises and community organisations.”

The organisation plans to increase lending by £1m year-on-year for the next five years.

In recent years, the Key Fund has developed expertise around investing in ‘green’ social enterprises, including those engaged in renewable energy generation, recycling and transportation.

Ms Oldroyd said the Key Fund was bidding for funding from the Regional Growth Fund in order to increase the scale of its work.

She added: “We have supported the creation of 166 businesses over the last 10 years. These businesses are helping to keep money in their community.

“The people who are benefiting are sometimes individuals who live in areas where the steel and coal industries have been withdrawn. We are helping communities to cope with the recession.

“It seems the right time for me to leave, when we have a very ambitious growth programme. Somebody new can come in, with a new pair of eyes. We are very proud that we have helped communities to help themselves.

“Social enterprises are increasingly in favour, especially at a time of excessive profiteering.”

Doncaster Refurnish is one of the most successful businesses that have been supported by the Key Fund.

Launched as a tiny social enterprise in 2003, the not-for-profit waste collection and recycling organisation has grown to become one of the largest groups of its type in the UK.

Refurnish won the Community Award, sponsored by Yorkshire Water, in the Yorkshire Post Environment Awards 2011.

The idea behind Refurnish was twofold – to help the environment by preventing bulky waste going to landfill, and to help disadvantaged people in Doncaster by offering them cheap refurbished furniture and goods, as well as jobs with the organisation itself. The Key Fund has funded Doncaster Re-Furnish with eight different finance packages to support feasibility studies, business plans and tender packs.

Refurnish offers training and work placements to those in need – more than 100 ex-offenders and long-term unemployed people have been given the chance to turn their lives around.

Some 8,500 collections of bulky items were made between October 2010 and March 2011 alone.

Tycoon Fil Adams-Mercer, who appeared on Channel 4’s The Secret Millionaire ,said: “I have never seen a local charity run so professionally.

“It’s green, it trains people and it helps people out. It’s an amazing place.”