Reflections on the Past Year
As much as 2021/22 has been a celebration for John Lyon’s Charity, it is important to also mention the past two years. Covid-19 has caused a devastating impact upon the Children and Young People (CYP) sector in the Charity’s Beneficial Area. It has exacerbated the difficulties the sector was already facing following the multiple funding cuts experienced over the past decade, threatening to sweep away even the strongest of organisations.
As a response, we ring-fenced an additional £22m from our endowment to be spent over six years to help protect the CYP sector in our Beneficial Area. This funding is in addition to the Charity’s ongoing annual grant giving of £13m per annum. In 2021/22 we approved 473 applications – a 17% increase on the previous year, highlighting the increased demand for our funding.
It’s been a hard two years, filled with unprecedented challenges and new strategies to ensure the CYP sector survives a post-Covid world. Highlights of the HSC programme for Year 1 include 71 grants awarded, equating to £1,985,200 of new funding paid in 2021/22.
Celebration of Our 30th Birthday
Despite the many challenges, it was important for John Lyon’s Charity to take the time to recognise a very important landmark: thirty years of grant giving. In November 2021 it was thirty years ago that the Order to establish John Lyon’s Charity was adopted and signed by our Trustee. By the end of our fiscal year in March 2022 we have committed to grant just shy of £200m to over 1,800 organisations. And £100m of that we will have granted in the last five years alone.
To mark the beginning of our 30th celebrations in April 2021, we ran a Throwback Thirty campaign, which looked back over the past thirty years at the charities we have supported. It is fantastic to see that for so many grantees, we were their first and only funder. What we could see in the early days, was a nub of an idea, a pocket of light that we believed was worth funding. It’s the same principle we apply today. I’ve said it so many times, but we really do our grant-making by walking around. We aren’t sat in front of computer screens making funding decisions. We are out in our patch, seeing with our own eyes what needs to be funded and that has been our model for the past thirty years.
To further honour our 30th anniversary, the Charity sent its furry representative – John the Lyon – to commemorate with youth groups across North and West London. John the Lyon surprised groups who benefitted from the Charity’s School Holiday Activity Fund (SHAF) to celebrate not only the Charity’s Birthday but also the return of face-to-face activities.
In the past, the SHAF has enabled trips to the beach, theme parks and theatre outings, most of which many children and young people have never had the opportunity to experience before. After two years of uncertainty and hardship for the CYP sector, we were delighted to celebrate thirty years of grant-giving with many of our youth groups and organisations in person, as was John the Lyon.
Celebrating Partnerships and Collaboration
While the Charity has celebrated thirty years of grant-giving, it is just as much our collaborations with other funders and our grantees’ success as it is ours:
Funder Collaboration:
- Our work with London Funders on the response to Grenfell and then Covid-19 to ensure joined up thinking and grant making across London, goes from strength to strength.
- Equally, our collaboration with the London Community Foundation on an initiative to reduce exclusions in schools is leading to interest from other funders and central Government.
John Lyon’s Foundation Collaboration:
- One of the best examples of collaboration has been within the John Lyon’s Foundation. The Foundation consists of the Charity, John Lyon School and Harrow School. While we are three separate entities, we all support creating opportunities for children and young people to thrive not just survive. Together, what we can achieve philanthropically is greater than the sum of its parts.
- Between Harrow and John Lyon School – they have over 60 secondary school partners supporting over 10,000 young people; with around 15,000 children using the schools’ facilities for holiday activities and performances. Not only that, but by the Charity introducing the schools to different charities we fund has led to a greater depth and breadth to the schools’ philanthropic work.
Sector Collaboration:
- Our creation of the Young Peoples’ Foundations (YPFs), starting in 2014, was a direct response to the state of the CYP sector in London. What began as only three YPFs in operation – Barnet, Brent and Harrow – quickly spread across the remaining boroughs. Put simply, the YPFs have filled the void, the duty of care that Councils used to perform.
- We will continue to fund the YPFs, but what we are rightly proud of is how successful our YPFs have been in raising funds, building their membership and creating a real focus for CYP groups based on locality, on place. And we are especially proud that the YPF model has now expanded to many other London Boroughs, boroughs outside of London and has caught the attention of both central and local government.
Thank You
Finally, we must thank our grantees for the amazing work they carry out every single day. They are on the frontline day and night with the children and young people of London. I just want to say to you, that we’ve been with you for 30 years, we’re here today and we will walk alongside you as a partner in the future. We’re here to stay.