Lloyds Bank Foundation for England and Wales has distributed £530m to small but vital charities over the last 35 years

Lloyds Bank Foundation for England and Wales marked its 35^th anniversary on 13 December. Over its lifetime, the Foundation has distributed £530m in funding to small charities across England and Wales.

 

Throughout the years, the Foundation has remained committed to investing in small charities helping people to overcome complex social issues across England and Wales. It currently funds hundreds of charities every year, while providing a range of developmental support and championing the work of small and local charities with influencers and policy makers.

 

This year, with small and local charities right on the frontline of helping people and communities cope with and adapt to Covid, the Foundation has responded and adapted itself to provide support that meets charities’ emerging needs.

 

As the year closes, though charities and communities remain in the grip of responding to the health crisis, the Foundation has announced a further and extensive package of support.

 

This week, the Foundation has awarded a total of 173 grants to help charities respond to the COVID-19 crisis. These include:

 

• Funding for core costs: two-year grants of £50,000 to 149 small and local charities which they can spend as they see fit. Charities right across England and Wales were supported with the largest causes of these 149 charities being racial equity, asylum seekers and refugees, and those tackling and homelessness and domestic abuse.
• 38% of which was awarded to those charities that are led by and for Black, Asian and minority ethnic communities – in recognition of both longstanding structural inequalities and the greater impacts of Covid.

 

Support to help them develop:

 

• Each of the 149 charities have been allocated a development partner to help them address future challenges.
• 11 of the charities were also selected following a participatory process in local areas with additional £50,000 used to help charities in these communities address racial inequalities.
• To further help charities develop, the Foundation has worked with the Lloyds Banking Group who will allocate volunteers to help charities build capacity and develop further.
  
  

Influencing the policy and funding environment:

 

• £450,000 to 15 charitable infrastructure organisations to help them advocate for local charities.
• £366,100 to 9 charities to influence change in the welfare system.

 

In addition, having secured funding through the DCMS Community Match Challenge, the Foundation has been able to award £4.37m to small charities with an income of under £1m. The Community Match Challenge funding is part of the Government’s £750 million charity support package.

 

The Foundation’s anniversary comes at a crucial time for the small charities and the people they support. Demand for these charities has increased throughout the course of the pandemic but they have adapted well to the challenges they have faced.

 

“We’ve always known that small charities are vital to the communities they serve. But this year their importance has grown even further as many of them face an unprecedented funding crisis amidst a significant increase in demand for their services. With the pandemic continuing to affect our society, particularly people facing multiple disadvantages, now is the time to take stock of the challenges that small charities face,” Lloyds Bank Foundation for England and Wales’ Chief Executive, Paul Streets said.

 

Streets added: “the influencing work we do with small charities we fund is vital in helping them to build their voice and change the policy environment around them. We recognise that to help charities thrive and support people over the long term we need to address the root causes and consequences of complex social issues. That’s why a core part of our strategy is to use our funding and resources to support charities to influence policy and practice.”

 

One of the charities the Foundation supports is Bethel Health and Healing Network, who, alongside their two-year grant in 2018, received additional top up grant of £14,711 this year to help them adapt their services as a response to Covid. Bethel Health and Healing Network are a Birmingham-based charity, predominantly led by Black and Asian women, that provides emotional and birth partner support for isolated pregnant women and new mothers across the city.

 

The charity, which the Foundation has supported over the past three years, spoke about how the new grant will help them to continue the work they have done to help women during the pandemic.

 

Madge Milligan-Green, the charity's CEO, said: “As a small charity, Bethel Health and Healing Network has been supported by Lloyds Bank Foundation for the past three years which has enabled us to continue supporting some of the most vulnerable people in and around Birmingham.”

 

“The funding we received is absolutely vital and the projects would not have developed without it. Obtaining this funding has been a lifeline as a small charity that relies on grants and donations.”

 

“Apart from funding, Lloyds Foundation has provided additional support through some of their partners. This support was hugely important in helping to improve and develop our governance and trustee training, providing IT equipment, and support from CITA together with development and strategic support from the Cranfield Trust.”

 

She added: “I would personally like to say ‘thank you’ - your continued support is allowing the organisation to thrive and improve in so many ways. Here’s to another 35 years of supporting small charities with understanding and compassion!”

 

Over its 35 years, the Foundation has helped thousands of charities, helping many grow and develop from countless unsung heroes embedded in communities to those who have become household names like Childline and Changing Faces.

 

Dame Esther Rantzen DBE, founder of Childline, which received one of their first grants from the Foundation over 30 years ago, spoke about how longer-term, unrestricted funding can help funders to understand charities’ needs.

 

“It's absolutely brilliant if a funder says 'this isn't a one-off. We're really interested in your work and we want to stay alongside you.’”

 

“Sometimes that's awkward because it sometimes can lead a charity down a path which is not the one that they would choose - so your unrestricted funds are fantastic because it's very awkward when a funder says, 'I want a new initiative, but I don't want to do any core funding.’”

 

“When you do fund for longer than one year, you also can influence, so you can ask the questions, you can say 'where do you intend to go?”

 

As the pandemic continues to affect local communities, the Foundation remains committed to continuing to support charities throughout the crisis which has been made possible through its corporate funder Lloyds Banking Group matching the same level of investment in 2021.

 

[ENDS]

 

For more information, please contact censor@lloydsbankfoundation.org.uk or 07384535633

 

Notes to editors

 

About Lloyds Bank Foundation 

https://www.lloydsbankfoundation.org.uk

 

Lloyds Bank Foundation for England and Wales partners with small and local charities who help people overcome complex social issues. Through funding for core costs, developmental support and influencing policy and practice, the Foundation helps charities make life-changing impact. 

 

During 2020, the Foundation awarded £24.8m to small and local charities helping people facing disadvantage. With the unprecedented circumstances of coronavirus such charities have been never more needed. The Foundation is an independent charitable trust funded by the profits of Lloyds Banking Group.

 

About Bethel Health and Healing Network

https://www.bethelnetwork.org.uk/

Bethel's vision began in 2001 with the aim of establishing a healthy living centre in Birmingham's inner city where the most marginalised and vulnerable people could access a range of health and wellbeing services to improve their physical, emotional, and spiritual well-being. In 2004, a steering group was formed, constituting as charity in 2006.

Since inception we have delivered a range of community-based health and wellbeing activities such as counselling service, health advice drop-in, exercise and walking groups. Significantly, in 2006, we developed a parish nursing service to provide community healthcare within a highly disadvantaged area. As a result of supporting a vulnerable asylum-seeking woman who had just given birth to a baby with severe heart abnormalities, Bethel's Doula Service emerged in 2008. As word quickly spread among the asylum seeker and refugee community, Bethel secured 3-year funding in 2009 from Comic Relief to support an increasing number of vulnerable pregnant women.

Since 2015, the Doula Service has been funded by Birmingham South Central CCG to provide vital practical and emotional support for vulnerable pregnant woman. Earlier this year we secured funding from the Tudor Trust to develop a new health and wellbeing service at a new location.