The financing will help deliver on LEYF’s first year of strategy and expansion of high quality and affordable nurseries

One of the UK’s largest charitable social enterprises, London Early Years Foundation (LEYF), has successfully raised its £1.5m target through a charity bond, promoted by Triodos Bank’s crowdfunding platform.

The seven-year charity bond, is one of the first steps to finance LEYF’s future growth plans to transform early childhood and provide 10,000 children per year across Greater London with access to high quality and affordable early years education, particularly those from disadvantaged backgrounds. This long-term strategy will more than double LEYF’s existing portfolio of 39 nurseries to approximately 80 in the future.

This bond offer has also generated new leads and interest from large philanthropic foundations including The Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF) which works to inspire social change to solve UK poverty through research, policy and practice. JRF was the final investor which successfully closed the bond. JRF joins a number of valuable partners supporting LEYF’s mission and growth strategy including Postcode Innovation Trust, Stone Family Foundation, Social Business Trust, and Greater Share.

Since the launch of the bond, LEYF has already made progress on its growth strategy with a new nursery scheduled to open in Thames Reach in early 2023, which is its first ever purpose-built nursery and has been designed in line with leading sustainability principles. LEYF has also recently expanded capacity in its existing Barking Riverside nursery, and has a number of other nurseries currently in the due diligence phase with further opportunities in the pipeline.

With the latest reports on social mobility showing half of pupils who get low grades in GCSEs are already judged to be behind by the age of five, this new financing champions the importance of high quality Early Years education as the foundation for later outcomes.

LEYF currently supports approximately 4,000 children through its high quality social enterprise nurseries across 12 London boroughs. The surplus generated from its nurseries located in more affluent areas enables LEYF to cross-subsidise operations in the more deprived areas of London and maximise its social impact.

June O’Sullivan MBE, chief executive at LEYF, said: “Young children, especially those from the most disadvantaged backgrounds, need our support more than ever which is why we are committed to tackling the education inequalities that exist by helping transform children’s lives. We have recently celebrated one year in Newham where we took on three nurseries otherwise at risk of closure during the pandemic. The investment through the Triodos charity bond, will enable us to offer more children access to high quality nurseries where they can start building the educational foundations which are essential to support their lifelong learning and development. 

Richard O’Brien, corporate finance manager at Triodos, added: “We were delighted to be able to support LEYF with its growth plans by raising this capital. This bond will work alongside philanthropic donations and other debt to fund the expansion and of course increase the impact, that LEYF creates with those new nurseries.”

Denise Holle, head of social investment at JRF, adds: “Through its social investment in LEYF,  Joseph Rowntree Foundation is furthering its mission to inspire social change and address the root causes of poverty. Unequal access to high quality, early years childcare is a barrier to returning to work for low income parents and a factor in disparate educational outcomes later in life. Supporting LEYF to open more nurseries and reach more children from deprived areas will have a meaningful impact on individual families, while also strengthening LEYF’s ability to influence wider changes in policy and practice.”