Background to IFcic
To help address the issues
that 616,500 individuals in the south east face in their daily
lives of being excluded from conventional forms of finance,
the South East England Development
Agency, the CDFA
and the south east CDFI's began to explore and realise the
benefits of ‘win-win collaboration’ or to coin
the American phrase, "co-opetition" which infers
a combination of co-operation and competition for the benefit
of all partners. This led to further exploration into the
best legal constitution and governing structure for the south
east CDFI's to work together with each other whilst maintaining
independence and without diminishing their unique presence
in the Community Development Finance sector.
The CDFA in close consultation with SEEDA,
has worked with IFcic to set out the constitution for Directors
and Members to ensure that IFcic meets the following criteria:
i. All Directors and Members have a democratically
controllable strategic decision-making management process
and operational governing control
ii. There is minimal and controllable cost overhead
iii. There is open accountability and security of funds and
assets
After initial research on legal
and governing structures a meeting with the Community Investment
Company Regulator established that the new IFcic organisation
and its stakeholders would be best served by the formation
of a Community Interest
Company which is a newly emerging class of limited company
designed to operate for the benefit of a community rather
than for the benefit of the company owners. This helps to
ensure low cost operation for member CDFIs, the CDFA, SEEDA
and other government and award or grant making organisations.
IFcic is limited by guarantee
and has the ability to grow to a large membership if required.
It has a statutory CIC regulated ‘asset lock’
to ensure the assets and profits are retained within IFcic
for community purposes. Assets are only transferable to other
asset-locked organisations, such as another CIC, a charity
or an associated CDFI organisation operating on a not-for-profit
basis for the good of the CDFI community.
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