£1.37mn partnership for London Marathon Foundation & Access Sport, plus other funding news
Melanie May | 28 June 2023 | News
Recent funding news, from a partnership between London Marathon Foundation and Access Sport, to the final impact report on Big Issue Invest’s Social Enterprise Investment Fund, and more.
London Marathon Foundation announces £1.37mn funding partnership with Access Sport
The London Marathon Foundation has announced a £1.37 million funding partnership with Access Sport, to support disadvantaged children and young people to participate in inclusive basketball and cycling activities in London and across the UK.
The £1.37 million funding is expected to support more than 8,000 children and young people by 2025. It builds on a previous partnership between the Foundation and Access Sport, which saw more than £900,000 invested between 2018 and 2022 to create more inclusive cycling opportunities for children and young people from marginalised communities across the UK.
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The latest funding will enable Access Sport to continue delivering inclusive cycling activities across the UK, as well as develop a new basketball programme in London. There are plans for 12 new or enhanced community cycling and basketball facilities in deprived areas – with a focus on London, whilst also building on the partnership’s previous work in other UK cities. There is also a commitment to grow Access Sport’s national network of community cycling and basketball clubs, and to upskill coaches, volunteers and young people to lead inclusive activities for their community.
150 charities receive share of £1 million Benefact Group fund
150 charities across the UK and Ireland have received donations of £1,000 each as part of Benefact Group’s Movement for Good Awards.
For the fifth year running, Benefact Group is giving away £1 million to charities through its Movement for Good awards. Members of the public are invited to nominate causes close to their hearts, with 150 awards of £1,000 announced this week, including Berkshire-based Link Visiting Scheme, Horse Sense Wirral, and London charity Arts For All.
More than 11,000 charitable causes in the UK and Ireland received votes, with over 135,000 nominations from supporters. The 150 winning charities were picked at random from those nominated, with a further 150 winners to be selected in September. Further gifts will be awarded throughout the year. Since the awards began, more than 1.6 million nominations have been received resulting in over 2,200 charities benefitting from donations.
This year, 420 charities will be awarded £1,000 donations, while 40 good causes will be awarded £5,000 via special grants throughout the year, aimed at helping charities in specific sectors. Winners will be drawn at random and the more times a charity is nominated the more chance it has of being selected. Further gifts totalling £500,000 will also be donated in larger amounts later this year.
35 UK organisations receive Amazon Literary Partnership Awards
Amazon has announced the nonprofit literary organisations that will be receiving grants through the Amazon Literary Partnership in 2023. This year it is supporting 35 organisations across all corners of the UK with grants that will go toward supporting and championing writers of all ages and stages on their creative journey.
This year’s grant recipients include continued relationships with a number of organisations such as National Centre for Writing, Arvon and Super Power Agency, as well as new groups including York Inspirational Kids, Sharing A Story CIC and Winchester Project.
Amazon Literary Partnership grants began four years ago in the UK. The grants support various nonprofit writing centres and organisations who empower those from underrepresented communities to tell their own stories, and who offer opportunities to aspiring writers.
Applications for 2024 grants from the Amazon Literary Partnership will commence towards the end of this year.
Cadbury Foundation announces funding to tackle hunger in local communities
The Cadbury Foundation is partnering with FareShare to support the launch of a project involving community meal production and training kitchens in the Midlands and Yorkshire.
FareShare has been awarded a grant of more than £243,000 from The Cadbury Foundation, which will enable FareShare to invest and redevelop two existing food production and training kitchens in the Midlands and Yorkshire. The investment into the space located in Nottingham will allow the charity to scale up the local existing meal production kitchen in the Midlands, as well as find permanent facilities.
Once located, the permanent space will produce meals using fresh produce that would otherwise be wasted, which will be delivered directly to local charitable and not-for-profit organisations across the Midlands tackling hunger, poverty and the effects of the cost-of-living crisis. The kitchen will also further grow and diversify the range of surplus food that FareShare can accept.
Yorkshire’s FullCrumb Kitchen will also receive regeneration as part of the grant from The Cadbury Foundation. The Barnsley-based training kitchen is set to receive a new, bespoke kitchen and upgraded premises, which will enable the charity to continue training and supporting individuals, charities and community groups on how to get the best out of the surplus food available at FareShare Yorkshire.
In addition, the grant will help FareShare continue to provide a supply of fresh, quality and varied ingredients to be used across the regions, as well as invest in training to upskill local community chefs in how to cook healthy, nutritious meals.
Big Issue Invest releases final Impact Report for Social Enterprise Investment Fund
Big Issue Invest (BII), the investment arm of the Big Issue, has released its Social Enterprise Investment Fund (SEIF I) 2022/23 Final Impact Report, showing how the fund has helped to drive social and economic change for people affected by poverty in the UK.
The Social Enterprise Investment Fund was the first fund managed by Big Issue Invest, and has, the report shares, positively impacted over 550,000 people, supported 21 social enterprises, through 25 investments, and delivered financial returns to all its investors.
Established in 2010, SEIF I invested in organisations with socially-driven and sustainable business models that worked to improve the lives of the most disadvantaged individuals and communities.
By 2022, the report says, it had recovered all funds, with a return to investors, and had positively impacted over 550,000 individuals through the social enterprises it had invested in. Since the launch of SEIF I there have been four successor funds, including the recently launched Growth Impact Fund.
The report says that the success of the Fund was driven by 5 key factors: financing for scale, taking a patient approach, driving innovation, meeting enterprise need through flexible finance and putting people first.
One of the Fund’s investees was Sandwell Community Caring Trust (SCCT), which provides a range of residential and day support to 650 people across the West Midlands and Southwest (Torbay), including adults with profound disabilities and older people with dementia.
In April 2013, SCCT acquired Hall Green, a 62-bed residential care home in Sandwell, for £4.25 million. Unity Trust Bank was willing to provide SCCT with 75% of the funding required, provided they raised the additional funds elsewhere. BII invested £725,000, structured in two equal parts, which represented a 25% equity layer and was a deal enabler without which SCCT would have been unable to proceed with the acquisition.
As of 31 May, BII has had total commitments of over £51 million, which it says makes it one of the leading social impact investors in the UK. Its objective is to positively impact over 10 million people through its investments, delivering over 70% of these in areas of highest deprivation in the UK, and maintaining over 90% of the portfolio aligned to core solutions to poverty.
More on BII’s funds here.
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.