Fledgling funds: why we need to support and develop small sustainable businesses

I was recently asked by someone at a foundation whether I knew of any good food charities to fund. I know plenty. But the first thing that occurred to me was: 'don't fund food charities!' Before this gets taken the wrong way, let me backtrack. Many charities working in the food space are brilliant, and well deserving of funding. But there is something that foundations looking to support sustainable food often neglect - sustainable businesses working in this space. I'm not really sure why. Perhaps the thinking is that these are businesses and should therefore fund themselves through own core activities, or be able to pull funding from other sources. But the simple fact is, fledgling sustainable businesses often fall through the cracks because they are neither not-for-profits able to get charitable disbursements, nor fully mature, 'fundable' business models able to access more mainstream business financing sources. read more