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Impact Investment Fund

We believe that to make a meaningful difference in children’s lives, more effort and money needs to flow to innovative and entrepreneurial solutions.

Investing in startups and social enterprises

Traditional development approaches alone are not enough to solve the world’s most complex problems. Startups and social enterprises have the potential to create enormous social impact. But too often, these enterprises don’t have the capital to help them grow their businesses and achieve impact at scale.

Our Impact Investment Fund provides loans and equity investments to help startups and social enterprises grow. We invest in enterprises aligned to Save the Children’s mission and back them with everything we’ve got to improve the lives of underserved children and families. We are excited about the opportunities in EdTech, Fintech and E-health to support rapid progress for children globally.   

We use more than just our financial investment to help enterprises grow. With 25,000 Save the Children staff working in 115 countries, we have a global platform, operational footprint, networks and partnerships to bring to the enterprises we invest in. 

We want to identify the companies that can make the best use of our skills and back them for the long run to generate financial returns for investors in our Fund. Our Fund is about creating solutions to some of the world’s most complex problems, whilst helping entrepreneurs and start-ups grow. We have the potential to change the world for the better, together, faster. 

What we invest in

We provide loans and equity investment to enterprises that are improving the lives of vulnerable children and families. We focus on enterprises that: 

  • have a positive impact at the core of their business

  • are already generating revenue 

  • have passionate and talented founders and teams

  • have a strong and scalable business model 

The Fund will provide flexible finance from $100k - $1m. It will invest in both not-for-profit and for-profit organisations, and enterprises can be in Australia or overseas.

Our investments

Inquisitive

Inquisitive

Teachers have some of the greatest impacts on student learning outcomes. Inquisitive empowers teachers everywhere, democratising access to high quality lessons, so they can enjoy teaching and students can learn with purpose and depth.
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Ngutu College

Ngutu College

Ngutu College aims to integrate Aboriginal knowledge and the Arts in a school compliant with Australian curriculum requirements. The team behind the College have experience in providing an alternative educational model accessible to students from disadvantaged backgrounds.
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Dataro

Dataro

Dataro is a data science company using machine learning to improve fundraising outcomes. The software predicts the behaviour of every donor, so you know exactly who to contact, and when. This helps to raise more money, faster and at less cost.
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THINKMD

THINKMD

THINKMD’s mission is to make clinical intelligence technology accessible, so that anyone, anywhere can make better health decisions. It employs this technology to increase the capacity and quality of frontline health workers in countries with limited health resources.
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Oho

Oho

Oho provides timely, actionable alerts to protect children. Every day across Australia, someone has their WWCC card revoked. Oho provides solutions to remove the manual burden and put WWCC checks and other safeguarding accreditations on an automated accreditation verification program that is conducted every week. 
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Intellischool

Intellischool

Intellischool was founded to create positive change in education through the use of data. Intellischool harnesses AI and the cloud to aggregate and dissect data. This provides teachers and students with timely, meaningful and relevant insights, helping teachers around the world to identify and assist students in need.


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Zeraki

Zeraki

Zeraki operates at the nexus between technology and education, developing solutions that support teaching and learning in schools in Africa. It allows schools to reduce the time they spend on administrative tasks, so they have more time doing what teachers are supposed to do - support students in their learning. 
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Our Board

Harvey Collins (chair)
Chair, Insitor Impact Investment Fund; Director, Save the Children Australia; Former Chair, Bankwest, Navitas, HBF Inc. 

Peter Hodgson
Former Chair, Save the Children Australia; Former CEO, Myer Family Company, ANZ, BoA. 

Jan Owen
Former CEO, Foundation for Young Australians; Former Exec Director SVA.

Paul Ronalds
CEO, Save the Children Global Ventures, Former CEO, Save the Children Australia; entrepreneurial and legal background.

Caitriona Fay 
GM, Community & Social Investments, Perpetual; Formerly Ian Potter Foundation& heritage Lottery Fund.

Amanda Healy
CEO Warrikal, a mechanical maintenance business; MD Kirrikin, an Indigenous social enterprise.

Michael Dugina
CFO of Save the Children Australia; formerly City of Greater Geelong, YMCA Victoria, Red Cross Blood Service and the University of Melbourne. 

Our Investment Committee

Michael Standford (chair)
Director, Virtus Health; NorthWest Healthcare Property Management Ltd; Nucleus Networks, Former CEO.

Harvey Collins
Chair, Insitor Impact Investment Fund; Director, Save the Children Australia; Former Chair, Bankwest, Navitas, HBF Inc.

Adam Schwab
Co-founder, Luxury Escapes; active angel investor; corporate lawyer.

Mary Sue Rogers
Director, Women on Boards Australia; former executive IBM, PWC and Talent2. 

Karen Lawson
Former MD Spotify, Australia & NZ; Board member Sydney startup Hub; former CEO Slingshot (corporate accelerator).

James Pearson
Head of Impact and Responsible Investments at QBE Insurance Group; 10 years in the global equities markets as a Stockbroker, Research Analyst and as a Portfolio Manager. 

Richard Hedley
Australian Retirement Trust; formerly Sunsuper, State Super and Deutsche Bank; investment management, private equity, commercial law.

Get in touch

To express your interest in investing, or if you have a great social enterprise you want to take further, we’d love to hear from you. Email: Julianne Wilkin, Head of Impact Investing at impactinvesting@savethechildren.org.au.

ASIC has approved Save the Children Impact Fund as a ‘wholesale charitable investment fundraiser’ under ASIC Corporations (Charitable Investment Fundraising) Instrument 2016/813 and ASIC Regulatory Guide 87. The Identification Statement is available here. The information contained in this document does not constitute financial product advice and does not take into account any prospective investor’s objectives, financial situation, or needs. Please seek your own independent financial and/or taxation advice.

FY22 Financial Statements available here.

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Where the money goes*
  • 80.4% Program expenditure
  • 7.2% Fundraising costs 
  • 7.3% Administration 
  • 5.1% Retail
 

*Save the Children Australia’s total expenditure for year ended 31 December 2021 expressed as a percentage. See 2021 Annual Report for full details.

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