Clann Credo information

Clann Credo is a Social Investment Fund in Ireland founded by Sr Magdalen Fogarty and the Presentation Sisters in 1996. Its goal is to make capital available to community-focused enterprises to promote their growth. Whilst the model of Social Finance was a well-developed one in the United States, with a capacity of almost $1.8 billion by 2000, at the fund's inception in 1996 there were no such funds in Ireland. The fund is a not-for-profit organization with charitable status.^[1]

The Presentation Order funded a pilot project to test the alternative investment model the sisters had in mind. The Presentation Sisters advanced Greencaps £12,000, which was quickly paid back with interest. Greencaps Workers Cooperative creates jobs in Dublin Airport for young unemployed people from Ballymun, which is still trading as of 2009. The success of this pilot led to the formation of Clann Credo in 1996. As of 2008 over €17 million cumulative has been placed with projects, and the fund has invested in over 140 projects worldwide.^[1]

The President of Ireland, Mary McAleese said in an address to the group in 2006:

Clann Credo plays a truly invaluable role in giving practical effect to our moral responsibility for the social progress of the poor and the overlooked. You have meshed commercial acumen with the common good, created partnerships with established structures and given communities access to the funding and the confidence they needed to change their own futures for the better.^[2]