How does Fair4All Finance balance impact measurement with risk when deploying dormant assets funding?
Fair4All Finance applies what Chief Executive Kate Pender describes as a socially adjusted return framework. Rather than measuring capital deployment alone, the organisation tracks return on capital, the quantum of lending, the number of people helped, and — critically — how financially excluded those individuals were to begin with. That final dimension is the mechanism that ensures investments are genuinely targeted, rather than simply reaching people who were already close to mainstream credit.
This framework places a significant reporting burden on grantees and investees, who must supply detailed data on the characteristics of those they are helping. Pender acknowledges openly that this can feel tedious to funded organisations. The purpose, however, is clear: to be able to demonstrate to dormant assets champions within financial services that money has been deployed with an appropriate and defensible balance of social impact and capital return.
"You shouldn't need blood pressure medication to be attempting innovation in financial services."
— Kate Pender, Chief Executive, Fair4All FinanceThe broader context underlines why this rigour matters. Fair4All Finance was founded in 2019 with a remit to improve financial services for the millions of people in the UK who are underserved or excluded. Research commissioned with Ipsos Mori estimated that up to 3 million people in the UK may be borrowing from illegal lenders — a scale of exclusion that makes demonstrable impact accountability a condition of credibility, not just a compliance requirement. Getting the measurement framework right is, in that sense, as important as the investments themselves. You can explore the full episode on this and related themes directly on Listenly.
About Kate Pender
Kate Pender's involvement with Fair4All Finance dates back to the organisation's very founding in 2019, when she joined on a part-time secondment to lead the pilot scale-up programme. In that role she oversaw the first investments into community development finance institutions (CDFIs) and credit unions — the front-line lenders that serve financially excluded individuals in the UK.
When COVID-19 hit in 2020, Pender took on leadership of Fair4All's emergency grant programme, managing a rapid and large-scale response to the financial shock facing vulnerable communities. That combination of investment work and crisis programme management gave her an unusually broad operational grounding before she moved into a permanent role and eventually applied for the Chief Executive position.
Before Fair4All Finance, Pender built a long career in economic development, running programmes designed to help SMEs and small businesses grow faster. That background — translating public and institutional funding into measurable outcomes for real organisations — directly informs the socially adjusted return thinking she now applies to financial inclusion investment. Her expertise spans both the design of impact frameworks and the practical challenge of making them work for the organisations on the ground that must report against them.
See also
Kate Pender describes Fair4All Finance as having been "kidnapped a couple of times": first by the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, which diverted the organisation's energy and resources toward emergency grant programmes rather than its original investment focus.
Fair4All Finance secured a co-investment agreement with Shawbrooke, with Shawbrooke putting up £7.5 million and Fair4All contributing £5 million, as an example of how mainstream financial institutions can be brought into the CDFI market.
Fair4All Finance funded Lightning Reach to build a database of grants across the UK, which ultimately mapped more than 3,000 grants — far exceeding an initial expectation of approximately 1,500 — providing a practical alternative for people who cannot access credit.