West London Zone wins the Social Value Award for Social Innovation: Partnerships

West London Zone and Bank of America are delighted to have won a Social Value Award 2023 in the Social Innovation - Partnerships category, for its social investment bond with Bank of America.

In 2018, Bank of America awarded West London Zone with capital to develop our Social Impact Bond (SIB). In 2019, Bank of America became the UK’s first private commissioner of education outcomes, with a $1m commitment to fund delivery of our programme to 1,000 children over 3 years – building the relationships and skills they need to get on track socially, emotionally and academically. Through this first-of-its-kind corporate social outcomes contract in the UK, our partnership unlocked an additional £500,000 of central government funding. Bank of America also supported a feasibility study for us to implement our model.

“Bank of America and West London Zone share a common goal to support underrepresented communities to achieve better futures. The Social Impact Bond we developed together broke new ground, unlocking additional funding and delivering positive long-term impact for 1,000 children and young people. We are delighted to see this work recognised at the Social Value Awards."                                                                                                  Kelly Jo Lihaven, Senior Vice President, Head of Philanthropy & Social Investment

West London Zone loves working with the team at Bank of America, their trailblazing approach to risk and social investment helped us to establish our innovative funding model, empowering us to deliver valuable opportunities and experiences for young people on our programme.

Guest speaker, Ed Balls (far left), Joe Prendiville, WLZ Business Development Director, Campbell McDonald, Ownership at Work and Darren Knowd, CEO, Chair, National Value Taskforce (far right)

“It has been fantastic to partner with Bank of America to support children across West London who most benefit from our work and we are so proud to have won this Social Innovation award. We are thrilled to have worked with such an innovative organisation who have offered both their support and expertise, as well as shared our work with their extensive networks. Having hit our target of supporting 1,000 children and young people in West London, we are now excited to see what the future holds.”

Louisa Mitchell, CEO at West London Zone

More information about our corporate partnership opportunities is available here.