Creative, Confident Communities: Partner in Place
Onion Collective CIC
To support Creative, Confident Communities, we offer social investment to organisations working to ensure local economies work better for the people who live there.
We developed Partner in Place to offer social investment that is place-led and takes a partnership approach.
Across our funding, we commit to investing into organisations led by communities experiencing racial inequity, as well as building community wealth. We are particularly interested in supporting work that also contributes to our other priorities in Creative, Confident Communities, Our Natural World and A Fairer Future.

Community driven enterprise and regeneration
We want to support:
- Community enterprise: community-driven small and medium-sized enterprises that support stronger, sustainable connections between people and their local resources with the aim of supporting better outcomes for local people.
- Regeneration: projects (including capital projects) that take a localised, community-led approach to rebuild creative, collaborative, thriving local economies for all.
- Green economy for all: regenerative enterprises working towards a green recovery, clean energy and access to nature in economic development.
Stories
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Resonance Ltd
Resonance is a South West based social impact investor, who advise on, and manage, a number of social investment funds. Their funds support social enterprises tackling a range of social issues including community-led projects.
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Onion Collective
Regeneration from the roots up - Onion Collective radiate enthusiasm in their desire to both improve the place they live, and celebrate its strengths. They are also transferring their approach to other places, working with communities to help make them the best versions of themselves.
Visit Onion Collective
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Creative, Confident Communities
We want to strengthen the bonds in communities, helping local people to build vibrant, confident places where they can fulfil their creative, human and economic potential.
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Our approach to Social Investment
Social investment is one of the tools we use, alongside grants and our own actions, to achieve our impact goals.
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Portfolio breakdown
See a breakdown of our social investment portfolio by aim and product type.
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You might be interested in
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21 November 2023
Using social investment to improve our natural world
Sarah Hedley, Esmée’s Social Investment Portfolio Manager, writes about our social investment plans to improve our natural world. This is part of a series of blogs on how our social investment strategy will contribute to Esmée’s mission.
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Developing our social investment strategy to support our mission
Jonny Page, Esmée’s Head of Social and Impact Investment, outlines our plans for social investment and the opportunities it offers to support our mission.
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Blue Spaces – Wales: our approach to assessing expressions of interest
Earlier this year, we launched Blue Spaces – Wales, with an open call for expressions of interest for projects that support communities to improve their local freshwaters. Jenny Wheeldon, Esmée’s Freshwater Partnerships Manager, shares our approach to assessing applications and what’s next.
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Inclusive Histories: engaging communities to reflect our shared past
A new report on Inclusive Histories by British Future explores how arts and culture organisations are reflecting the complexity of our shared past, engaging communities to help shape the work, and navigating polarised responses.
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