Advocacy charity for people with disabilities gets reinvestment to help expansion

Advocacy Partners Speaking Up – one of the largest providers of advocacy services for people with disabilities – has won a re-investment to support its post-merger expansion plans. 

The investment of up to £40k is from Breakthrough, the social investment fund run by the social enterprise CAN andthe private equity firm Permira.

Breakthrough provides financial investment and high-level business support to established and scalable social enterprises to help accelerate their growth and impact. 

Breakthrough initially invested in Speaking Up in 2008 to help structure and fund regional expansion plans. In April 2010 Speaking Up merged with another service provider, Advocacy Partners, to become one of the largest advocacy providers for people living with disabilities and mental health problems.

Breakthrough funded the merger feasibility work and provided specialist support throughout the complex merger process, working closely with the organisation on the 100-day plan. The latest investment will support a post-merger programme to increase quality and productivity across its 20+ sites.   

Jonathan Senker, chief executive of Advocacy Partners Speaking Up,says: “Merger can be a complex and time-consuming process for any organisation.

The expertise and support provided by Breakthrough has meant that we have been able to keep entirely focused on the people who use our services and on our service provision, while developing our new organisation.

Now that we are over 100 days into our new organisation, we are developing new quality standards and investing in new ways of working to ensure that we provide the best services to people who need them and remain the sector’s leading provider.  The investment from Breakthrough will, once more, ensure that the voices of some of the most vulnerable people in society are heard and respected.”

Andrew Croft, chief executive of CAN, says: “Our pre and post merger work with Advocacy Partners Speaking Upillustrates both the general and specialist business support Breakthrough can provide to scalable social enterprises. With unprecedented demand and opportunity facing social enterprise growth, access to both capital and high-quality management are ever more critical. We are very proud to be continuing our work with such a high calibre social enterprise.” 

Paul Armstrong, Investment Professional at Permira, says: “Breakthrough supported Speaking Up and Advocacy Partners throughout their merger which created a stronger organisation able to deliver a better, more cost effective service to its users. The merger created further growth opportunities for the enlarged entity and Breakthrough is pleased to be able to continue accompanying Advocacy Partners Speaking Up as it seeks to capture those opportunities and maximise its social impact.”

Since its launch in 2005, Breakthrough has invested almost £2 million in UK social enterprises. In the past five years the financial turnover of the portfolio organisations has increased on average by 20 per cent per annum, whilst the social impact has grown on average by 30 per cent per annum. The Breakthrough portfolio includes Teach First, TimeBank, Green-Works, Law for All, FareShare and Training for Life. Additional funds were raised from SVG Capital in 2008 and Breakthrough has opened its fund to further investment and skills.

For more information on how Breakthrough works, visit www.breakthroughfund.org.uk