The Miss Lawrence Trust joins The Good Exchange as new funder
Melanie May | 11 June 2018 | News
Not-for-profit cloud platform The Good Exchange has announced The Miss Lawrence Trust as a new funder on its site.
The national grant-giving charitable trust, based in Kintbury, was originally established in 1973 by Miss Winifred Lawrence, a local resident who left an estate in trust to benefit local and national charities. The Miss Lawrence Trust has since operated with three trustees, who aim to continue Miss Lawrence’s wishes to support national, regional and local good causes, particularly those involving children and young people.
The Trust typically provides approximately £100,000 worth of grants per annum, with on average £2,000-3,000 allocated per applicant. A wide range of charitable projects are supported, from youth and disability services, education, employment and training, poverty, deprivation and homelessness. Preference is given to Kintbury, Berkshire and surrounding counties, but the Trust also supports projects further afield nationally and sometimes internationally. It also prefers to fund smaller good causes, and generally does not consider applicants with annual incomes exceeding £2 million.
To date, the Trust has processed the hundreds of applications it receives each year manually, which takes a significant amount of time.
Jonathan Bastable, one of The Miss Lawrence Trust trustees said:
“The main draw to The Good Exchange was the ability to simplify our paper-based system of processing grant applications. The platform allows us to streamline the annual shortlisting of applications, and also enables us to delve deeper and with greater ease into our applicants’ objectives, while also enabling us to see the support they’ve received from other funders and donors. The platform provides a great deal of transparency and it also greatly simplifies matters for applicants, who now have to complete just one application form for consideration.”
The Good Exchange is also helping to greatly increase the Trust’s profile, which has so far relied on the personal local contacts of its trustees.
Ed Gairdner, COO of the Good Exchange added:
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“Today’s era of platform technology has created a prime opportunity for funders to more easily identify and provide funding to those who need it most without the need for multiple applications. It’s great to see The Miss Lawrence Trust reaping the benefits.
“In addition to streamlining processes, by amalgamating data through our platform the Trust will also be able to build a complete picture of who or what needs funding and will be instantly matched with funders with shared objectives.”
About Melanie May
Melanie May is a journalist and copywriter specialising in writing both for and about the charity and marketing services sectors since 2001. She can be reached via thepurplepim.com.