As I reflect on the financial year 2019/20 it feels a lifetime away given the impact of Covid 19 upon the voluntary sector since March.
That happened right at the end of our financial year, and we have been busier than ever since then delivering emergency grants, advice and support to many grass roots organisations. We will formally launch a long-term strategic response to cope with the effects of Covid 19 later this year. Trusted partnerships with peer funders and membership organisations such as London Funders and the Association of Charitable Foundations have always been important to us, especially now at such an extraordinary time. They have been key to bringing funders together to tackle the challenges of Covid in a streamlined and efficient way that demonstrates we are much stronger and more effective together than alone.
There is no denying that we are living in unprecedented times and our funding has never been more needed. We are proud of our past achievements (which you can read below), but we are only as good or effective as the organisations who trust us to get things right. The next year and beyond will be tough for many small charities and the children and families they support. My aim is for the Charity to step up and rise to the challenge we see to increase our support to safeguard the Children and Young People’s sector in London.
Now, turning to this year’s annual report, it is, therefore, prescient that we celebrate partnership – with our grantees, other funders, media and local government. More than ever before, going solo and ploughing our own furrow is not an option. To best serve the children and young people sector we believe collaboration and pooling resources – be that people, time or money – is key to having a sustainable impact.
Our unique approach to ‘grant making by walking around’ might be virtual at the moment but we are still walking alongside our grantees, championing their causes, supporting their perspectives and providing funding where it’s most needed.
2019-2020 achievements:
Launch of the IVAR Report
2019/20 was an exceptionally busy year for the Charity. In addition to granting £10,77m, we launched a number of reports and new initiatives. We had commissioned the Institute for Voluntary Action Research (IVAR) earlier in the year to undertake a thorough review of the Charity’s grant making over the past 10 years. This included talking to many of our trustees and grantees – past and present – as well as other funders’ perceptions of our grant making.
The final report shows we are clearly seen as a relational, responsive and responsible funder. That’s good to hear, but we won’t sit back, indeed we can’t sit back, on our laurels, as there is so much more to be done. Across the five Programme Areas that were examined, four recommendations were made to us based on the key messages of ‘championing, supporting and providing’
- Articulate John Lyon’s Charity’s approach of grant making to other funders. This is not about saying our way is the best or only way. It’s about sharing what works well and what hasn’t through place-based funding.
- Continue to provide core funding. We recognise that funding shiny new projects is NOT the way forward; rather, funding core – more than ever before – is essential to keep the lights on for the sector.
- Provide a platform for grantees to have a voice. From convening a meeting on a specific topic, to publishing a report, to speaking out on policy on a grantee’s behalf, and creating the space for their voices to be heard, we will create platforms.
- Champion the needs of small charities and protect their space. In such unprecedented times, the role grass roots charities play is crucial in supporting children and young people and we strive to provide what they need to survive.
Launch of Stand Up for SEND
We are known for being a listening and supportive funder. However, there are several continuous threads through our work. One is the longevity of our funding; that is key. We will continue to build and fund capacity for the sector. Another is inclusivity. Following the success of our conference on Arts engagement at Special Schools, Change of Perspectives in March 2019, we are keen to promote this strand of work. In line with the objectives of the Cultural Inclusion Manifesto that sees access to high quality arts provision as a human right, we created a call to action called Stand Up for SEND (Special Educational Needs and Disabilities), launched in November 2019. We use and promote this when we engage with other funders, and many of our larger grantees, particularly larger arts organisations:
- Accept the cost: projects with SEND children and young people will be more expensive
- A whole family approach: families need to understand the value of, and be included in, Arts activities to ensure they are fully invested and engaged
- Build career pathways: more progression and career opportunities for young people with SEND need to be created
- Inclusivity starts with you: those young people with SEND need to see people like themselves working in the organisations and projects they engage with
- Find it, do it, share it: opportunities for young people with SEND need more visibility from point of access to celebrating work and achievements
Launch of The Excluded Initiative
Back in September 2019 I wrote a blog about pupil exclusions from mainstream schools. Since then, we have seen ever more concerning news on this topic. A report by the Education Policy Institute found that 10.1 per cent of children who finished their GCSEs in 2017 experienced exits at some point during their time at secondary school that “cannot be accounted for”. This totals more than 69,000 unexplained exits by over 61,000 pupils. There are thousands of pupils in England routinely removed from schools with no apparent explanation. The overwhelming majority of exits from school rolls are experienced by more vulnerable pupils, such as those with special educational needs and disabilities.
In light of such disturbing findings, in January 2020 we decided to partner with The Evening Standard, tech investor and philanthropist Martin Moshal and the London Community Foundation to support inclusion in London secondary schools.
The Excluded Initiative offers special support to secondary schools in London that have exclusion rates higher than the national average and are seeking to tackle these issues in an inclusive, nurturing way by building their inclusion capacity and expertise to drive down exclusions to a minimum. The Initiative will provide project funding over a three-year period with John Lyon’s Charity granting £600,000 in total over three years, with matched funding from Martin Moshal via the London Community Foundation supporting eight schools across London.
Our hope is that this initiative will act as a pilot for a larger roll-out; that the combination of partnership funding, high profile media coverage and academic evaluation by the Institute of Education (of University College London) will create momentum for change.
Launch of a YPF Trust
On Tuesday 10th March (just before lockdown), John Lyon’s Charity hosted an event to celebrate the success of our Young People’s Foundations (YPFs) and the launch of an overarching YPF Trust. Little did we think five years ago that we would be looking at a YPF in each of our London boroughs, a YPF in Manchester and on the brink of the model rolling out further.
Having the YPFs has better informed our grant making, allowing us to get closer to grass roots charities. The model has become an intrinsic way of how we operate and has meant we see grantees as partners developing the best possible opportunities for children and young people.
The momentum that has been created by the initial success of the YPFs means there is a need for a central YPF Trust to support this growth and to protect, nurture and grow the core values of the YPF model outside our area. The role of the YPF Trust is, therefore, to add a formal structure to an expanding network, to support discussions for replication of the model elsewhere, to own the ‘quality mark’ for what constitutes a YPF, to share the impact of the YPF model and to act as a central body enabling shared back office functions to ensure YPFs are efficient in their operation and infrastructure. While voluntary sector collaboration and infrastructure support is not new, the combination of Public, Private and Voluntary sector working closely together in a local foundation to address the needs of Children and Young People is. The simple yet impactful values of collaboration, grassroots involvement and non-delivery resonate.