Where Possibility Takes Root

At Purple Shoots, we believe possibility exists everywhere but opportunity does not.

Across the UK, there are people with the ideas, determination and skills to build something for themselves, but who are excluded from mainstream finance because of their credit history, benefit status, debt, irregular income or simply because they do not fit conventional lending criteria.

Purple Shoots exists to change that. We provide small, affordable business loans and personal support, looking beyond a credit score to understand the person and their idea. Through our Self-Reliant Groups, people build confidence, skills, friendships and stronger communities, while Why Not Start a Business? helps people explore entrepreneurship as a route forward. Purple Shoots Impact Report 202…

Our Impact Report 2025–26: Where Possibility Takes Root shows what can happen when people who have been overlooked are given the opportunity to move forward.

From Possibility to Progress

Behind every number is a person, business or community. Together, they demonstrate what relatively small investments can unlock:

• 64 loans made to entrepreneurs excluded from mainstream finance
• £244,422 lent, with an average loan of just £3,820
• 92 jobs created or safeguarded
• 38 Self-Reliant Groups, supporting 184 people
• 64% of borrowers had previously been receiving benefits
• 50.9% of loans went into the three most deprived IMD deciles Purple Shoots Impact Report 202… Purple Shoots Impact Report 202…

And those small loans generate an impact far beyond the money originally lent. We estimate that our 2025–26 lending generated around £1.1 million in value to the public purse through reduced welfare dependency and increased tax and National Insurance contributions, alongside more than £3.67 million in wider economic value.

That means around £4.50 of public-purse value and more than £15 of wider economic value for every £1 lent. And for every £2,657 lent, one job was created or safeguarded. Purple Shoots Impact Report 202…

Small loans. Big return.

Beyond the Numbers

This year’s report also looks more deeply at who we lend to and what happens when we do.

Our borrowers often have exactly the characteristics that conventional lending models regard as higher risk. Yet nearly nine in ten loans in our current loanbook are either performing or only recently in arrears, with 70.3% currently repaying on time or with some support. Repayment is not just evidence of a functioning loanbook; it also points to businesses trading, entrepreneurs earning and people building more financially sustainable futures. Purple Shoots Impact Report 202…

The evidence reinforces something fundamental to our work:

Financial exclusion is not the same as financial failure.

The report tells the stories of entrepreneurs including Dennice Roberts and Super Kiddies, Lucinda Hay and Art on Scarves, Robert Hicks and Workforce Home Improvements, and Samuel Thompson and Zawadi Kitchen — people whose circumstances did not tell the whole story of what they were capable of. Purple Shoots Impact Report 202… Purple Shoots Impact Report 202…

People Building Possibility Together

Our impact is about much more than lending.

This year, 38 Self-Reliant Groups supported 184 people, helping members build friendships, confidence, skills and the ability to take action for themselves. Increasingly, those groups are becoming independent: 88% are meeting without a Purple Shoots facilitator, 81% are communicating beyond their group and 88% demonstrate strong social connection. Purple Shoots Impact Report 202… Purple Shoots Impact Report 202…

Our Inner Development Goals analysis gives us growing evidence of that change. Overall measured group maturity increased from 76.7% in July 2025 to 86.4% in July 2026, with particularly strong improvements in groups’ ability to act, collaborate and turn ideas into practical change. Purple Shoots Impact Report 202…

Because the aim isn’t to create dependence on Purple Shoots. It’s to create the conditions in which people no longer need us.

View the Full Impact Report

Our 2025–26 Impact Report is the story of what happens when we look beyond circumstances and invest in potential.

It is about businesses starting and growing, incomes being created, jobs following, confidence returning and communities becoming stronger.

The potential was already there. Our role is to give it somewhere to take root.