The Chief Executive of Amárach Research, Michael McLoughlin, has been appointed as Chairperson of Social Finance Foundation.
Mr McLoughlin has been a non-executive director of the Foundation since 2018. He succeeds Garrett Greene in the role.
Michael has worked with Amárach Research since 2000 and has been CEO since 2005. Previously he worked for a decade with AIB Bank and has also worked in venture capital and retailing. Within Amárach he has particular interest in public affairs research and stakeholder research. Michael holds MA and MBA degrees from University College Dublin. He is a Chartered Director and a Member of the Institute of Bankers. He also chairs The Irish Youth Foundation – a not-for-profit which is committed to levelling the playing field for children and young people, focusing on physical and mental wellbeing, skills and employment. He has been on the board of Heritage Credit Union for almost a decade currently serving as the Vice Chair of the Board.
With a motto of ‘Finance for Social Good’, Social Finance Foundation (www.SFF.ie) was established in 2007 at the initiative of Government as a social finance wholesale provider with donated and low cost funding from the Irish Banking Sector and, in subsequent years, has also accessed funding from the Council of Europe Development Bank (CEB) and credit guarantees from the European Investment Fund (EIF). This finance is used to fund social lending organisations who, in turn, provide social finance to community and voluntary organisations including social enterprises who may have difficultly accessing finance from mainstream financial providers.
Since its establishment 17 years ago, Social Finance Foundation has lent over €225m to more than 2,000 not-for-profit community organisations and social enterprises across every county in Ireland, having a positive social impact on hundreds of thousands of people nationally.
