Last week in my capacity as a co-director of a company called G-Fund Ltd, I had the pleasure of jointly accepting "The Business Institutional Innovation Award" along with our friends at ANZ Bank (Capital Markets) at the INFINZ 2019 Awards evening.  With 750 people from NZ professional finance community present it was a great night.

G-Fund Ltd is a subsidiary of Genesis Youth Trust which operates in South Auckland.

Two years ago, G-Fund Ltd promoted a $6 million social impact bond in conjunction with ANZ Bank who brought the Bond to market.

The idea is that socially minded investors invest in the bond through G-Fund, which in turn invests in the Genesis Youth Trust with the aim of reducing the level of youth re-offending in our communities.  Investors receive a commercial rate of return on their investment.

The Trust partners with NZ Police, Oranga Tamariki and ANZ Bank along with a number of community minded people and organisations.

The aim is to work with 1,000 medium to high risk young people in their communities over the 6 year life of the Bond.

After the first 18 months of operation, we are seeing a marked reduction in the level of re-offending and the severity of offending, which is awesome.

Genesis Youth Trust has with a great team of socially minded and committed people who make a difference every day in the lives of our at-risk young people.

It's a pleasure to be involved in this in my capacity as a co-director of the funding arm.  We are accountable to the investors - it's a big responsibility but well worth it when one sees the change that the Social Impact Bond is making.

Craig