Continuing our commitment to you during COVID -19 and beyond

11 Sep 2020 12:25 PM

We are here for everyone - Guided by our Strategic Framework, People in the Lead we continue to support organisations and activities that respond to communities now and help them to thrive in the future.

Our response continues to be guided by what we are learning as we navigate the current situation. In the last six months, we have supported over 10,000 organisations, putting over £300m to work for communities across the UK. We’ve been highlighting what we have been seeing and hearing from the people and organisations we work with across the country. In doing so, we have been heartened, that their experiences speak to our core commitment about what is possible, when people are in the lead.

• Communities with strong connections and local infrastructure were able to respond rapidly to the crisis. This was helped by funders offering flexibility and support early.
• Some communities saw grass roots local support networks emerge to support some of our most vulnerable fellow citizens, creating new connections and relationships.
• Civil Society organisations responded with determination and creativity at a time when their resources and capacity were stretched as never before with the ability earn or raise income was hit hard.

You can find out more by looking at some of the insights we have been gathering here

Our funding principles

As we reflect on the last six months, we have been thinking about where we go next. We continue the commitments we made at the start of the crisis and we want to reassure all those seeking funding from us, that we will use the following principles to continue to guide our approach in supporting communities.

1. We will do more than support organisations to survive and continue; we want to support communities to thrive and grow. This means pro-actively seeking to support activity which enables organisations to work in new ways including becoming more digitally capable, enabling even more mutual help, and building and strengthening the social and civic infrastructure that can nurture and support grassroots community action. It also means working hard to ensure that we engage with everyone who can help make that happen.
2. We will use our funding to continue to support people and communities most affected by COVID-19 building on and strengthening the connections, organisation and resilience which enables communities to thrive. This includes ensuring that we continue to fund flexibly, engaging and supporting new and established organisations to enhance and build on vital community support and action which has been highlighted by COVID-19.
3. We will convene, listen and learn the lessons of the pandemic. We will make sure we engage with all of the communities we serve across the UK and work hard to ensure that our funding is shaped by, and responsive to, their experience. We will share what we learn and help to broker ways in which those we fund and those we work with can learn from each other and help to ensure more joined up understanding and responses to issues as they emerge.
4. We want to ensure that our approach as a funder is straightforward and supportive. This means we recognise that some organisations will need more support from us to access our funding and that we will manage our funding relationships so that organisations are able to respond to the changing needs of the communities they serve now and in the future.