Richard Paynter, Head of Grants (South) at Lloyds Bank Foundation, shares the lessons we have learned since we started our programme for Deaf and Disabled People and the changes we have made to make it more inclusive.
26 July 2024
We’re delighted to be open once again for applications for our Deaf and Disabled People’s Organisations (DDPO) programme. Last year, we made our first ever grants to DDPOs to 42 fantastic organisations. At the time I outlined how we had gone about setting up the programme, from co-designing the fund with DDPOs to involving people with lived and learned experience in decisions about where the money went.
I also shared that it was a starting point in a new area of funding for us, and there was - and continues to be - a lot that we need to learn. But two things we do know: Disabled people experience entrenched and historic social injustice, coupled with deepening poverty. As a funder that is looking to support organisations tackling these urgent issues, we have a responsibility to reflect on our approach, but not to naval gaze.
The lessons below confirm that we learn best by doing. From the first round of applications, we have grown in our understanding of the shape and role of the sector, what it means to have Disabled people at the heart of an organisation and how we can build the role and influence of lived and learned experience in how we run the programme.
The number of organisations led by and for Disabled people is small and shrinking. Exact numbers vary as organisations close and others emerge, but analysis from Disability Cornwall and Inclusion London put the number at around 300-400 across the UK. That’s organisations of all types and sizes supporting Deaf and Disabled people, where over half of the staff and Trustees are from the community. Given that there are around 16 million Disabled people in the UK - about a quarter of the population - that’s a shockingly low number. The spread of DDPOs is also patchy across the country, with a relatively high number of DDPOs in London but far fewer in Yorkshire, the Midlands and Wales.
The vast majority of these organisations have an income under £100k, a great alignment with what the Foundation is all about in championing the unique role and value of small charities. Except they’re not all charities. Social enterprises, particularly Community Interest Companies (CICs), play a significant role in the sector too. For some leaders in the sector, the entrepreneurial ethos of self-determination and control they see in a social enterprise sits better with what they are trying to achieve, than that of charity, a concept with pejorative associations of pity and loss of agency for many Disabled people. In response to this, we’re excited to have opened up the programme to include CICs as well as charities.
As our understanding of the work of DDPOs has grown, our programme criteria has also changed. As many DDPOs have their origins in social justice campaigning and advocacy, working to a social and rights-based model is central to what they do. We’re now asking applicants to talk about how their work supports Deaf and Disabled people to have more choice and control over their lives and better access to rights, entitlements and opportunities.
Alongside this, we want to understand how organisations are working with the people they support to tackle the barriers and injustice that they face and bring about change. We are still looking to support organisations that work directly with people as well as campaigning with them, but we’ve learned more about the range and breath of the work that DDPOs do, which is often wider than the structured advice and advocacy support we required in the previous round. So, we’ve broadened our criteria to include other types of activities, support or services which are person-centred and long term.
We believe that having Disabled people leading and running organisations set up to serve them gives greater understanding and insight into their needs, a knowledge of the issues faced, and creates a relationship of mutual support and empowerment between the organisation and the people it supports.
Through seeing the work of the great organisations that we funded in the first round, we’ve doubled down on this belief, but we’ve also seen that some organisations committed to the social model of Disability are working hard towards greater representation. Consequently, we decided to amend our eligibility criterion around being ‘led by and for’ from 75% of the Board and 50% of the staff team identifying as Deaf or Disabled, to 51% of the Board and 50% of the staff. This was a difficult decision as we want to support organisations that have the people they serve at the heart of what they do. However, we recognise that the numbers don’t tell the full story of what an organisation does or how it works with people, also that there are organisations that we can support on this journey, particularly in places and communities that are massively underserved at present.
It’s by listening to Deaf and Disabled experts by experience that we’ve been able to continue to learn and continue to refine the programme. A final lesson from our first round of the programme is that we can do this better too. Feedback from the first round of funding was really positive about the role that experts by experience brought to the process through their involvement in the panel of decision makers who decided where the fund went.
Sharing power in this way challenges us and is changing our mindset and culture in good ways, bringing an assumption of partnership and transparency. We’re far from perfect, of course, and we need to deepen that involvement further; the insight of experts by experience needs to take place earlier in the funding journey as funding decisions and the interpretation of the programme criteria are made throughout the assessment journey, not just at the point of final decision.
For this round of applications, we have put in place a Steering Committee of experts by experience and Foundation trustees to lead the programme development, starting with setting the framework and priorities for our assessors, and then overseeing the decisions made and taking stock of all the successes achieved and mistakes made so that we can continue to learn by doing.
Find out more, or apply for our Deaf and Disabled People’s Organisations programme, here. The deadline for applications is Wednesday 24 August 2024.
