Member Event Updates

October 2008

Is it good for the voluntary and community sector when funders get together?
London Councils/London Funders seminar 24 October 2008

London Councils recently organised and hosted a half day gathering for representatives of boroughs and interested London Councils staff to hear about London Funders, meet staff and committee members and feed in their ideas about how London Funders could help them. The following report gives an overview of this session including discussion on how London Funders could better fulfil its commitment to helping boroughs support London’s VCS.

Funding faith communities

Understanding, respect and rights – London Funders’ members meeting on 13 October 2008 finished with these three words, an apt summary of much that had been said. Between 30 and 40 funders took part and the intensity of some of the discussion made it plain that we were covering a topic that presented both interest and challenge. Feedback was good and our excellent plenary speakers especially stimulated much thought: these were Professor Tariq Ramadan (Erasmus University, Netherlands and St Antony’s College Oxford), David Rayner (Communities and Local Government), Monica Needs (London Borough of Barking and Dagenham) and Jim McManus (Barking and Dagenham Primary Care Trust).

Discussion at various stages of the afternoon covered:
• interfaith work and what impact interfaith dialogue is now also having on collaborative social action
• the value of “faith literacy” in a context of more faith diversity (as well as the countervailing secularisation of British society)
• the new government Faith in Action Fund and various useful publications
• practical work in one borough reaching people through faith communities to tackle health issues and inequalities
• capacity issues in faith groups
• whether faith groups typically fail the “equality test”
• why some funders have a bias against supporting faith communities

Professor Ramadan focused on the building of trust between communities in a context of diversity and divergence of ideas – a common project can bring people together in trusting relationships that rise above doctrinal and other differences. All the speakers reminded us how much faith groups can achieve in community-building and direct service provision – often way beyond their apparent capacity. Discussion explored some of the complexities of relationships between local groups and government (local and national) and the paradox that money can be a barrier for some groups, not what brings them to the table.

Several of the participants have told us that they will do something different as a result of the meeting – eg reviewing how faith policy affects the number and quality of applications they receive; checking whether unintentionally some of their resources are not reaching people on faith grounds; and engaging with faith forums to ensure they have the widest possible range of links to other groups. Participants enjoyed the small groups sessions (the knowledge cafes) since these allowed in-depth discussion and a chance to deepen links with other funders.

Full report

Presentations
David Rayner
Monica Needs and Jim McManus

September 2008

Presentation to Mazars' not for profit clients

On the 22 September 2008 London Funders were inviited to showcase London Funders services and achievements at a presentation for Mazars' not for profit clients (Mazars is an Integrated, Independent and International firm, specialising in audit, accounting, tax and advisory services.)

Over 90 organisations registered for this event from a wide range of charities and not for profit's including Advice UK, SANE, The Peabody Trust and Age Concern.

Download a copy of our presentation
Download a full meeting report.

May 2008

What would make London better for young people?

A meeting for London's funders and investors
Tuesday 20 May at City Hall.

April 2008

Supported Volunteering

A briefing for London Funders by Greater London Volunteering
Wednesday, 16 April 2008 at London Funders

Supported volunteering provides some extra assistance to people wanting to get into mainstream volunteering opportunities but with barriers to tackle – for example homelessness issues, physical disabilities, mental health issues, learning disabilities, sensory impairments or drug/alcohol dependencies. With funding from Capacitybuilders, Greater London Volunteering (GLV) has researched the impact on individual volunteers and the services in which they work.

This research was published in early April and disseminated to members, associates and friends of London Funders on 16 April at a breakfast briefing by a panel of researchers and practitioners led by Chris Freed - GLV Development Worker. Presentation and discussion at the briefing reviewed the value of supported volunteering to the volunteers and the organisations in which they work; the research had useful insights into the best means by which support can be offered to both volunteer and agency – often most effectively by borough volunteer centres .

Download research report

Download a copy of the presentation

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March 2008
Working Money Harder
A meeting for London's funders and investors
Friday 28 March at the Diana, Memorial Fund, County Hall

Quality: what to measure, how to verify, who to believe
A meeting for London Funders members and associates
Tuesday 18 March 2008, Buzzacott, New Fetter Lane

The Good Practice in Grantmaking and Voluntary Sector Infrastructure Development groups
held a joint meeting on quality standards on 18 March and heard presentations from Sam Matthews, Director of Services at Charities Evaluation Services on the whole range of different performance measurement systems, and from Andrea Allez, Performance Improvement Manager at the National Association for Voluntary and Community Action on NAVCA’s Quality Award.

Presentations & handouts:

Download minutes of this meeting.

February 2008
"Answering BIG Questions: impacts and lessons learned from 12 years of research”
London Funders February policy briefing by the Big Lottery Fund

On 28 February, London Funders’ members gathered for an informal breakfast update by Steve Browning, Evaluation and Research Analyst at the Big Lottery Fund. Steve talked about recent work to synthesise all the research undertaken by the Fund over the last 12 years and the learning they had gleaned from that to inform future grantmaking programmes and their grantmaking practice. The resulting discussion looked in some depth at the role of research and its value for grantmakers.

Download a copy of the presentation.

Download the minutes of this meeting.

Copies of the publication were mailed to all members in February, and can also be downloaded from the Big Lottery Fund website.

December 2007
London Funders Meeting on Equalities
A meeting of all London's Funders & Investors
6th December at Amnesty International UK

September 2007
Child Poverty / Presenting the work of London Funders Project Groups
A meeting for London’s Funders & Investors
13th September 2007 at London Councils

June 2007
Climate Change: The Funding Challenge:
A meeting for London’s Funders & Investors
14th June 2007 at London Rebuilding Society