Clare community groups receive nearly €1.5m in loans
COMMUNITY groups in Clare received nearly €1.5m in 2022, following the figures released by the Social Finance Foundation.
A non-profit body that provides loan finance to community organisations around Ireland, the Social Finance Foundation granted groups in Clare €1,494,000 in new loans last year.
Commenting on the trends in the sector, Brendan Whelan, Chief Executive Officer of Social Finance Foundation, said: “Our loan funding is available to nine different sectors, namely Community & Voluntary, Sports, Social Enterprises, Healthcare, Social Care Housing, Childcare, Education and Arts, Heritage & Tourism and Climate/Environment.
“We are seeing a notable increase in applications from the environmental and biodiversity sector which we are keen to grow as a percentage of our lending. Similarly, we also want to foster more social enterprises in communities.”
The Social Finance Foundation was established in 2007 by the Government of Ireland to address the needs of community organisations and social enterprises for loan funding where it is difficult to obtain from mainstream financial institutions.
Approximately one third of its loan book is comprised of bridging loans.