New funding strategy announced by Lloyds Bank Foundation for England and Wales
Howard Lake | 15 January 2014 | News
From April 2014 the Lloyds Bank Foundation for England and Wales will make grants under a new strategy.
The new approach follows discussions with charities and other founders. The grantmaker will continue to focus on supporting small and medium sized charities that help people to break out of disadvantage at critical points in their lives.
Two new funding programmes
From April the Foundation will operate two funding programmes plus a third that can provide tailored in-kind support.
- Invest: a flexible, long term core funding programme for organisations delivering clear, targeted outcomes for disadvantaged people;
- Enable: a smaller and shorter grants programme for organisations that have identified clear development needs;
- Enhance: a programme working alongside the Invest or Enable programme providing an option of tailored in-kind support to strengthen and develop charities’ effectiveness.
Current funding programmes
The Foundation is working to ensure that the transition between the current and new strategies is smooth. Consequently, it will continue to process grant requests under the current Community Programme over the coming months.
However, it will stop accepting new enquiries on February 14 2014.
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New approaches
The Foundation’s new strategy follows the decision to assure its income through a nine-year rolling funding agreement with Lloyds Banking Group. Following the Bank’s renaming, the Foundation’s name has changed. It was formerly the Lloyds TSB Foundation for England and Wales.
Sir Winfried Bischoff, chairman of Lloyds Banking Group, commented:
“Our commitment to the Foundations is deeply held and unwavering. Over the course of the Foundations’ history, the Group has invested well in excess of £500 million, enabling each of the Foundations to play an important role in supporting charities and, in turn, help some of the most vulnerable people within our communities. Ensuring that
charitable legacy continues, the Group has committed to provide an investment of at least £100m between now and 2020, guaranteeing the Foundations continue to play a critical role in supporting charities.”
One element of the new approach will be to partner with other fundraisers to secure positive change by identifying issues and contributing to policy and practices in the charity sector.
Sir Stuart Etherington, Chief Executive of the National Council for Voluntary Organisations, welcomed the new strategy. He said:
“Many organisations in the voluntary sector have the aim of addressing and redressing disadvantage in society, and Lloyds Bank Foundation’s new strategy is very well matched to supporting them in a difficult funding environment. I am also pleased that the Foundation has recognised the long-term benefit of helping organisations to develop their own effectiveness in order to best support their beneficiaries.”
How to apply
Details of how to apply to the new funding programmes of the Lloyds Bank Foundation for England and Wales will be released in April.
About Howard Lake
Howard Lake is consultant editor of UK Fundraising. He founded the site in 1994 and successfully sold it in 2022. As director of Giving X Ltd he is exploring growing giving on a massive scale.
He is the founder of Fundraising Camp and co-founder of GoodJobs.