Five Lamps are celebrating after winning a major national award
The Citi Microentrepreneurship Awards, in partnership with the CDFA, celebrate excellence in community finance in supporting financial inclusion and economic growth.
Last night at the awards ceremony in Bristol, Five Lamps were named as the winner of the Impact Award and were
presented with £20,000 prize fund. This award recognises the achievement of Five Lamps in bringing positive change to people’s lives, to communities and enterprises and the way in which the organisation has increased the scale of its impact.
Ben Hughes, Chief Executive of the CDFA, an umbrella group for locally based community finance providers, said:
“Locally based community finance providers – CDFIs – are providing their customers with invaluable access to finance and to support – and we were thrilled to be able to recognise and reward some of this support through the Citi Microentrepreneurship Awards. We were overwhelmed with outstanding applications to the Awards from CDFIs that are using innovative and creative ways to provide finance to their local communities”
Bob Annibale, Global Director, Citi Microfinance and Community Development, added:
“This is the first time we have brought the Citi Microentrepreneurship Awards to the UK so to have such quality, diversity and wide geographic spread of entries is truly impressive. It’s a real testament to the commitment and growth of the UK’s CDFI sector in recent years. The awards are an exciting opportunity to showcase the individuals and organisations that are changing lives, boosting economies and energising neighbourhoods. Their achievements were celebrated at the final of the first UK Citi Microentrepreneurship Awards”
Five Lamps provide a wide range of services to over 25,000 socially and financially excluded individuals across the North East and Yorkshire each year through its three integrated business divisions – Economic Development; Financial Inclusion & Housing and Youth Services.
The impact of our works spans supporting long-term unemployed people back into work; providing training, employment and qualifications to NEET young people; supporting customers on their enterprise journey from enterprise coaching, mentoring, business planning and accessing finance for start-ups; providing evening and weekend youth club activities; refurbishing and letting previously long term empty properties; systematically stripping away the barriers that face troubled families; delivering welfare assistance programmes in Stockton, County Durham and Northumberland; providing affordable personal loans to individuals and homeowners who are unable to access mainstream support and providing enterprise, financial inclusion and energy advice for young people and vulnerable groups.
Five Lamps has nearly 30 years of experience of engaging and supporting people through crises. Often we are told by our customers that the reason they continue to engage with us is that we are different to statutory services in our inclusive and flexible approach, attitude, service accessibility and the way in which we offer ongoing support by ˜staying close” to our customers. We recognise that our customers require an individualised service and we are in a position to provide this. It is rare for projects to be able to holistically address a range of social and economic issues within a single organisation, however we recognise that families often face multiple barriers and we are unique, certainly within the CDFI arena, in providing such an integrated and impactful service delivery model.
Graeme Oram, Five Lamps Chief Executive, said
“We are thrilled that our work has been recognised in winning this award. We believe that our increasingly integrated range of services is unique within the community finance sector and as such our work has a greater impact on individuals, families and communities. Everything that we do is targeted at addressing need in the most vulnerable and disadvantaged communities and tackling the social, economic and financial exclusion which blights the lives of thousands of people”
Bob Annibale, Global Director, Citi Microfinance and Community Development, added
“This is the first time we have brought the Citi Microentrepreneurship Awards to the UK so to have such quality, diversity and wide geographic spread of entries is truly impressive. It’s a real testament to the commitment and growth of the UK’s CDFI sector in recent years”
About the awards
The Citi Microentrepreneurship Awards celebrate the innovative and important work of community finance in supporting financial inclusion and economic growth. The awards will recognise excellence in community development finance institutions (CDFIs) that provide finance which changes lives and transforms neighbourhoods. The awards will also recognise the achievements of outstanding microentrepreneurs that are bringing wealth, services and jobs to communities across the UK. It is a collaboration between the Citi Foundation and Community Development Finance Association. Further details are available at www.cdfaawards.org.uk
About the Citi Foundation
The Citi Foundation is committed to the economic empowerment and financial inclusion of individuals and families, particularly those in need, in the communities where we work so that they can improve their standard of living. Globally, the Citi Foundation targets its strategic giving to priority focus areas: Microfinance, Enterprise Development, Youth Education and Livelihoods, and Financial Capability and Asset Building. The Citi Foundation works with its partners in Microfinance and Enterprise Development to support environmental programs and innovations. Additional information can be found at www.citifoundation.com.
About Citi
Citi, the leading global bank, has approximately 200 million customer accounts and does business in more than 160 countries and jurisdictions. Citi provides consumers, corporations, governments and institutions with a broad range of financial products and services, including consumer banking and credit, corporate and investment banking, securities brokerage, transaction services, and wealth management. Additional information may be found at www.citigroup.com | Twitter: @Citi | YouTube: www.youtube.com/citi | Blog: http://blog.citigroup.com | Facebook: www.facebook.com/citi | LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/citi
About Citi Microfinance
Working across Citi’s businesses, product groups and geographies, Citi Microfinance serves 150 microfinance institutions (MFIs), networks and investors as clients and partners in nearly 50 countries with products and services spanning the financial spectrum – from financing, access to capital markets, transaction services and hedging foreign exchange risk, to credit, savings, remittances and insurance products – to expand access to financial services for the underserved. www.citimicrofinance.com
About the Community Development Finance Association
The Community Development Finance Association (CDFA) is the voice for providers of fair and affordable finance. We represent and support a national network of community development finance institutions or CDFIs. CDFIs lend money to businesses and people who struggle to get finance from high street banks. They are social enterprises that invest in customers and communities.
CDFIs create jobs and help businesses to start and grow. They help people to pay bills, meet unexpected expenses or improve their home. They help people who may otherwise use high cost credit, such as payday lenders. Additional information can be found at www.cdfa.org.uk