Place Coalition comes to Sheffield
Capital doesn’t just need opportunities. It needs the civic architecture to reach them.
Partners: Recurve & Impact Investing Institute with the Department for Culture, Media and Sport
On Wednesday 18 March, Recurve was proud to curate the Impact Investing Institute's Place Coalition in Sheffield, bringing together more than 65 place leaders, investors, intermediaries and practitioners to advance the next generation of place-based impact investing.
The gathering drew an exceptional range of voices: local government leaders from Sheffield City Council and South Yorkshire Mayoral Combined Authority; pension fund and institutional investor representatives from South Yorkshire Pensions Authority, M&G Investments, Columbia Threadneedle Investments, Better Society Capital and Amber Infrastructure; social investors including Key Fund Investments, Resonance Limited, Big Issue Invest and Abundance Investment; and central government partners from the Office for the Impact Economy and Office for Investment, DCMS. Together they explored what it truly takes to mobilise capital that helps places and communities thrive — not just in theory, but in practice.
The insight that defined the day
A clear and challenging idea emerged from practitioners who have spent years building the foundations for impact investment across Sheffield and South Yorkshire:
"Capital mobilisation is not primarily a finance problem. It's a governance problem, and ultimately a civic capability problem."
This reframing — from finance challenge to civic challenge — unlocked some of the day's richest conversations. Three interconnected themes ran through almost every session:
Capital doesn't flow simply because an opportunity exists. It moves through relationships, shared legitimacy, trusted data and the civic infrastructure that enables capital, institutions and communities to act together. Where that infrastructure is absent or immature, investment stalls — regardless of the quality of the underlying opportunity.
Pre-investment support is not optional. Building the capacity, partnerships and readiness needed to attract and deploy investment effectively is a critical and often underfunded part of the system. The places making the most progress have invested heavily here, long before the first pound of institutional capital arrived.
Collaboration and shared learning can be as powerful as new investment. The approach being taken in South Yorkshire — by Key Fund Investments deploying patient, community-first capital since 1999; by South Yorkshire Pensions Authority formalising local investment as policy; by the Sheffield Innovation Spine and City Goals initiatives demonstrating what becomes possible when universities, councils, businesses and communities align around shared outcomes — is a national model that deserves to be shared widely.
South Yorkshire as a model for the nation
With increasing alignment across local leadership, institutional investors and central government — including through the newly established Office for the Impact Economy — South Yorkshire stands as one of the UK's most instructive examples of what sustained, systemic commitment to place-based impact investing can achieve. The focus now is on delivery: building the partnerships, pipelines and investment models that can support both place-based economic growth and the next generation of communities who will inherit these places.
About the Place Coalition
The Place Coalition is the Impact Investing Institute's national network of place leaders, investors and practitioners committed to advancing place-based impact investing across the UK. Recurve curates these regional gatherings on behalf of the Institute, designing the content, convening the speakers and facilitating the conversations that help participants move from ambition to action.
Recurve has led the design and delivery of the last two gatherings. Future events are planned across the UK over the coming years.
Bring this energy to your region
Recurve curates purposeful, action-oriented events for place leaders and their partners — whether as part of the Institute's national Place Coalition programme or as standalone gatherings tailored to your priorities.
Drawing on our partnerships with leading organisations across the impact economy, innovation and place development sectors, and our expert associate network, we design and deliver events that go beyond the standard conference format: convening the right people, structuring genuine conversation, and ensuring every participant leaves with new thinking, new connections, and a clearer path forward.
We work across the full range of place leadership themes — from impact and community investment to innovation ecosystems, devolution and cross-sector collaboration — and can scale from an intimate roundtable of 20 to a regional summit of 100+.
