How we're changing ahead of our new strategy

We’ve been listening to how we can do more to open doors for communities over the next decade, so they have the resources they need to speed up and spark change.  

We’ve heard that there’s not enough money or volunteers to fuel the change we need in communities.  

We’ve heard that the capacity building and organisational development, alongside our flexible funding, is what helps change the game for many organisations.  

We’ve heard how important it is that we walk alongside communities for the long term.  

Our new strategy

Our new strategy is launching on 27 May. In it, we will build on what we know works well - like flexible, unrestricted funding over multiple years, organisational development and capacity building support, and access to Lloyds Banking Group volunteers. 

But we’ll also be setting some new, ambitious goals about how we make a difference in communities. We’ll be focusing on the root causes of problems more deeply than we have before. And we’ll be adding some new tools to our toolbox, so that more people in England and Wales can say “I’m in a good place”.  

That means we’ll be making some changes to our staff team. Lots of our current team members have new, exciting roles. We’re saying a small number of fond farewells. And in the coming weeks, we’ll be opening up new opportunities for people to join us in delivering our bold new strategy. 

Our local teams 

Under our last strategy, we had two locally based teams: Regional Managers who supported community organisations throughout their time as our partners, and a Communities Team undertaking deep, long-term local efforts to change how things work for people in places. But by being separate, we weren’t making the most of their knowledge, skills and relationships. 

Our two local teams will be coming under one roof to form the Directorate of Community-Led Change. The Communities team members and Regional Managers will all have new roles as Community Impact Managers. They will combine the best of support for community organisations and deep change in places. 

And to truly ensure all we do is grounded in the reality of what’s happening locally across both England and Wales, we’re shifting our regional management structure to introduce new Heads of Community-Led Change for Wales, and for Central England. Sitting alongside our Heads of Community-Led Change for the North and for the South, they’ll bring their teams’ knowledge of what’s happening on the ground to our Leadership Team. 

Our national teams 

Key to our new strategy is working in partnership with others, and growing the giving of time and money for communities. We’ll say more about our plan to do that on 27 May. But to achieve the ambitious goals we’ve set ourselves, we’ll need to adjust our skills in our national team. Our new structure makes some key changes so that we have the expertise in data, digital, partnerships, marketing, volunteer engagement and income generation to pull that off. 

We take our responsibility to steward the charitable funds we’re trusted with very seriously. Every decision we’ve made about how to resource our new strategy has been taken with great care. While we will be roughly the same size at our core, we will be using our relationship with Lloyds Banking Group to much greater effect, and investing more in our people throughout this period of change. We’re confident that will pay off in spades for communities. 

What this means for our partners 

For our current partners, nothing changes now. All the multi-year grants we’ve committed to continue. And the relationships our partners have with what is now their Community Impact Manager will stay the same, even as they take on new and different responsibilities.  

Where there might be a small number of shifts in relationships going forwards, they’ll be communicated to individual organisations after the Summer.  

Our upcoming funding programmes 

While we’ve been working hard on our new strategy, we’ve kept up the pace on getting money and tools out of our doors and into the hands of local communities. The first of our new funding programmes will be focused on A Home That’s a Good Place to Live. Community organisations are helping us shape that now, and we’ll be launching that programme in the Summer. We’ll share more information on our programmes planned for the rest of 2026 in May. 

Throughout the year, we’ll also be investing further funding in 50-70 brilliant organisations who are our current partners, but whose grants are coming to an end. This will allow us to continue our commitment to supporting people who are furthest from a good place. Partners will be contacted directly if they’re eligible.

The best way to hear about future programmes is to sign up to our alerts email.  

Will you join us? 

We have ambitious goals. As ambitious as the people we see, day in and day out, helping more people say “I’m in a good place”. Like them, we’ll go after our goals with everything we’ve got. And you can be a part of this.

Keep an eye out on our LinkedIn to find out about future opportunities to work with us and to learn more about our new strategy.