Charity Bank and Investing for Good have announced their intention to form a strategic alliance in order to “better achieve their joint mission of maximising the positive use of investment capital”.

Charity Bank had been looking to recruit two new members of the senior management team, a COO and a chief investment officer. It had already been working with Investment for Good for several years, and when its co-founders Caroline Mason and Geoff Burnand applied for the posts, the deal was struck.

“Our immediate intention was to bring in two people with additional skills and strengths, so that Charity Bank could provide a more rounded level of service,” says chief executive Malcolm Hayday. “We want to engage directly with philanthropists and help them to develop their portfolio as well as our own. This alliance will allow us to offer more engagement with philanthropists, investors and trusts and foundations in areas of social investment broader than our current portfolio, giving them exposure to organisations not normally on the radar. We will also be able to provide advice.

“The strategic fit with Investing for Good is very strong and our combined strengths will hasten the development of a broad range of social investment services at the most critical juncture for financial services in a generation.”

Caroline Mason says the two organisations have built up "a great deal of mutual understanding and trust, which together with clearly aligned missions, made the merger an obvious path to take".

The alliance is dependent on obtaining further authorisations from the Financial Standards Authority. A meeting is scheduled for next week, but Hayday does not anticipate any major problems.

Investment for Good, a Community Interest Company (CIC), will retain its own branding. “It’s not certain whether it will be a full-scale merger or not, but in effect Charity Bank will own a CIC called Investment for Good,” says Hayday.