About us
We've been at the forefront of impact innovation since 1999. In this time, we have helped hundreds of start-ups, small businesses and impact ventures to develop and grow, creating thousands of employment opportunities, and transforming communities. Our social finance solutions have raised £ millions to help charitable organisations with their development and impact aims.
History
2021
Allia C&C passes the £1billion mark, in finance arranged for registered charities & sustainable businesses to help them to grow and achieve their impact goals
2020
Our Future 20 venture support programme wraps up, with the successful ventures collectively creating 57 jobs, raising over £1.7m in grants and growing sales revenue of over £2.5m.
Working with local homelessness charity Jimmy’s Cambridge, and New Meaning Foundation, an ethical construction social enterprise, six modular homes were created as supported living for people experiencing homelessness.
2019
Allia turns 20! We celebrate raising £333m for charitable organisations, supporting 1,609 enterprises, small businesses & initiatives, that have gone on to create 4,640 new jobs over the years.
Allia acquires a city brokerage and forms Allia C&C, to broaden the financial services and advice we can offer to charitable organisations.
2018
the Retail Charity Bond for award-winning care-home provider Belong Ltd, is the biggest yet at £35m.
2017
We open a Future Business Centre in East London, from which to support local small businesses and impact ventures benefitting the area.
2016
The Innovation Lab opens at our Peterborough centre; a fully equipped lab facility for designing, testing and prototyping environmental products & services.
2015
We launch Serious Impact – a branded programme of venture support to help start-ups and small businesses to grow and thrive – across Cambridge, East London and Peterborough.
Our new Future Business Centre in Peterborough opens, to provide support and flexible workspace to the city’s business community.
2014
Our Retail Charity Bond platform is launched, to help charities raise unsecured finance through bonds listed on London Stock Exchange.
The first Retail Charity Bond is issued for £11m, for Golden Lane Housing, Mencap’s supported housing landlord for people with a learning disability.
Our Scottish Housing bonds programme is set up in partnership with Scottish Government, to raise funds for building social and affordable housing.
2013
We open our first Future Business Centre in Cambridge, building a community of impact-focused small businesses who want to make positive change through CleanTech, Tech for Good and social innovation in a purpose-built energy efficient building.
2010
The organisation changes its name to Allia.
2001-2010
We work on a range of charitable bonds across the UK, from Wales to Newcastle, that total £18.5m to fund employment ventures that help thousands of people into work, start up hundreds of enterprises and businesses, and support many community projects across the UK.
1999
Our first charitable bond raises £787k to help tackle unemployment in Sheffield.
Citylife is launched; a charity encouraging people to use their resources for social benefit.
Board
Allia is governed by a board of trustees. The trustees support our senior management team, guiding their decision-making on strategic issues – each one has significant business and leadership experience to help strengthen the organisation’s direction.
Amanda Lewis
Trustee
Amanda Lewis has many years’ experience operating at board level in both the public and private sectors. She was a Partner at leading City law firms since 2000, and is now working for Dentons as a Consultant, advising on commercial and technology law matters.
In 2013, she moved to having a portfolio career, with roles as a trustee and Non-Executive Director on the Boards of a large mental health and community health trust in London (NELFT), a museum and a human rights charity. She was also the first Chairman of the NHS England London Digital Partnership Board, which was set up to enable and support collaboration on digital transformation projects in the NHS throughout London.
Amanda has a strong record of delivering pragmatic analysis on all aspects of strategy, risk and governance. She has a particular passion for social entrepreneurship and is inspired by the opportunities that it provides to address some of the economic, social and environmental challenges facing society.
Tim Jones
Chair
Tim is Chairman of the Allia Charitable Group and its FCA-regulated social impact stockbroking subsidiary Allia C&C. Having joined Allia as CEO in December 2001 when it was a 5 person operation trading as Citylife in Hooper Street he has seen it grow into the social and environmental impact catalyst it is today. During his 22+ years at Allia he has overseen a range of new solutions enabling small businesses to grow, helping ventures create greater social and environmental innovation and raising nearly £2bn in impact and ESG finance.
Tim also chairs Carr’s Group plc, a listed company with an international focus on speciality agriculture feed. He chairs the Board of Oximio Group, an international clinical trials logistics business with its head office in Huntingdon. He is a member of the Greater Cambridge Greater Peterborough Business Board and was previously Chairman of Bury St Edmunds based Treatt plc.
Tim is a Member of the Chartered Institute for Securities and Investments, an Associate of the Chartered Insurance Institute, a Court Assistant at the International Bankers Livery Company and previously was an Entrepreneur in Residence and Honorary Fellow at Cambridge Judge Business School and an Associate Fellow at Oxford Said Business School.
Shuli Levy
Trustee
Shuli Levy is Chief Financial and Operating Officer of Expedition Growth Capital, a European software investment firm. She began her career with 14 years at PwC, first as an auditor, then after qualifying as a chartered accountant, specialising in taxes and communication strategy. She has undertaken industry roles in finance, risk and governance, working in investor-backed and regulated environments. Shuli’s voluntary experience has focused on early years education and support of women and children affected by abuse.
Shuli is excited to be working with Allia to support impact ventures and entrepreneurial profit for good.
Robert Gray
Trustee
Robert has over 35 years’ experience in the international banking industry having worked in London, New York and Tokyo for JP Morgan and HSBC.
During the latter half of his banking career Robert was closely involved with the development of global capital markets. During this period, he chaired the International Primary Market Association, the trade association for the international underwriting of debt securities and chaired the regulatory policy committee at the International Capital Market Association, its successor body. He also led the overseas promotion efforts for TheCityUK, which represents UK financial and professional services globally.
He currently serves as a director of Residential Secure Income Plc, a real estate investment trust established to invest in the social housing sector. Robert served for many years as a trustee of Centrepoint, the homeless charity, which first stimulated his interest in social impact investment.
Robert was an early investor in charitable bonds and has followed Allia’s development with great interest. He said: “What has impressed me about Allia is its ability to innovate and adapt, acting as an agent for change in the evolving world of social investment. I am in no doubt that Allia will remain in the forefront of social impact finance as it becomes increasingly mainstream.”
Angela Roshier
Trustee
Angela joined DIF in 2010 and oversees the value creation of all investments. She is also DIF’s Head of UK. Previously a member of 3i Plc and Actis’s Infrastructure teams, she offers more than 20 years’ experience in the field. Angela has contributed to the origination and asset management of a wide variety of infrastructure assets in the PPP, water, renewable energy and transport sectors in both Europe and emerging markets. She holds an MBA from London Business School and an MA from the University of Cambridge.
Philip Wright
Trustee
Chairman of the Audit and Risk Committee, Philip is also chairman of Digby Fine English, a leading producer of top-quality English sparkling wine and a director of Ureco Property, a property investment company. In addition, he is an independent director and chairman of the audit committee on the board of Euroeyes, listed on the Hong Kong stock exchange and a leading brand in the vision correction industry in Germany, Denmark and China. He is also a director and audit committee chair of Allia’s subsidiary, Retail Charity Bonds plc, an issuing vehicle created to raise loan finance for charities in the UK through bonds listed on the London Stock Exchange.
Past positions include Chairman of Digital Theatre in the online media sector and a director of Hilden Vineyard LLP. He was Acting Chair of Barts Health NHS Trust, and a board member of NHS London and Barts and The London NHS Trust, plus Chair of the Lord Mayor’s Appeal Committee. He was on the Board and audit committee chair of Common Purpose, a charity and social enterprise in leadership development and on the Council and audit committee chair of Goldsmiths College, University of London. He was also Chairman of Beyond Food Corporation. He is the author of the book “In Search of Shareholder Value”.
Marcus Hulme
Trustee
Marcus is the Social Value Director at Places for People who are one of the largest property, leisure and regeneration companies in the UK. Marcus leads on delivering social impact activities and measurement across the Group of 20 companies. Previously, he was Social Impact Director at Big Society Capital who were the first social investment wholesaler in the world and worked in policy and research at the National Lottery Community Fund responsible for setting up strategic funding programmes. Marcus started his career delivering frontline services at a homeless charity in east London. Marcus has held a number of trustee advisory and non executive roles including being an investment panel member of the Key Fund, Chair of the Cabinet Office’s Impact Readiness Fund, panel member for the Big Potential Grants programme, advisory committee member for the Impact Management Programme and a trustee of Relate South East London. Marcus is also member of the Board of the Ferry Project which is a homeless charity in Huntingdon, Cambs.
Michael Schluter
Life Patron
Dr Michael Schluter CBE, founder of the Relationships Foundation, is Allia’s Life Patron. Conceived as a society for the benefit of the community Citylife was founded by the Relationships Foundation (‘the RF’), a Cambridge-based charity whose premise is that relationships are key to the well-being of individuals and society as a whole. The RF continues to thrive and you can read more about its values here. Citylife’s specific brief was to be an enabler and catalyst for the provision of social impact finance – especially in the areas of unemployment, social housing and social inclusion.
Work at Allia
Allia is a growing, successful not-for-profit organisation, and our people are pivotal to our success. Our current team is over 40 strong and based across our three Future Business Centres in Cambridge and Peterborough. We are an equal opportunities employer who embraces diversity, inclusion and flexible working. In fact, we are the Best Not-for-Profit Employer for employee engagement in the Eastern region. We offer a dynamic working environment, true team working ethos, great benefits and much more.