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News and blogs

Keep up with the latest news affecting small and local charities and views from our expert teams and partners.

Selected articles

A man addresses a team during a meeting

Introducing our new Advisory Group for our research project into by-and-for organisations

10 January 2024

We have now recruited a diverse and knowledgeable Advisory Group who will be integral to the project and help us guide and shape the research on by-and-for organisations.

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Peoples and Communities Online Event Screenshot

Learnings and reflections from three years of working with people and communities

28 November 2023

Our online event attracted over 120 people who are involved or interested in bringing about systemic change in their communities. We summarise their views on how to bring about local change.

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People from communities at a workshop meeting for local change

How we evaluated the first three years of working with communities

21 November 2023

Helen Highley shares how consultancy Brightpurpose have been evaluating the Foundation’s work to strengthen local services and systems in six communities across England and Wales. 

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How we’ve responded to feedback from small charities…

07 November 2023

Through regular monitoring, evaluation, and learning from our work we aim to improve our support to small and local charities.

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Trustee visit to modern slavery charity Ella's

06 November 2023

Charlotte Davis, Human Rights Manager at Lloyds Banking Group, shares her experience of being a trustee for modern slavery charity Ella’s

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A man addresses a team during a meeting

Research project: What is the distinct role and value of by-and-for organisations?

08 August 2023

We discuss our plans for researching by-and-for organisations, and the opportunities and challenges of this new research project

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Deaf and Disabled people's organisation co-design workshop

Our approach to designing the Deaf and Disabled People's Organisations funding programme

19 July 2023

We discuss co-designing our d/Deaf and Disabled People's Organisation programme and changes we have made to our approach to funding

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Questions and answers from our learning from our practice event

12 October 2022

On 3rd October 2022 we hosted an event to share our learning from the last five years of our funding practice. We received some great questions from the audience at this event which we've answered

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Jill Baker

Our Experience of Participatory Grant Making in the COVID Recovery Fund

11 February 2021

To avoid changing the nature of the relationships we built we turned to participatory grant making as a way to share the power and shift decisions to a wider group who understood their community.

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Caroline Howe

Our Infrastructure Programme

22 January 2021

Infrastructure is important at the best of times, but the crisis has cemented the role of infrastructure organisations in making sure charities can continue to support people who need them

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