The Newcastle employment bond: investing in local communities

Concern with social exclusion and neighbourhood renewal has often focused on economic regeneration and new ways of stimulating employment or self-employment in local economies. One recent initiative has been to raise private money through a bond with the social aim of creating local employment. This paper explores the Newcastle Employment Bond, its structure, the philosophy behind it and the motivations and expectations of the people and organisations who invested in it. The paper asks whether the Bond can be seen as a model of 'Third Way' thinking, providing an alternative to state funding of social exclusion and employment initiatives or reliance on purely profit-oriented economic regeneration.