John Lyon's charity Annual Report 2024 - Report - Page 29
What is the reason behind this focus?
Achievements so far
The process of developing each Collaboration starts with
members of the JLC Grants Team consulting with the
local YPF as to the current issues within their borough for
children, young people and their families. Organisations
are identified that have the potential capacity and local
relationships to work together with a school. The Grants
Team and local YPF then begin a series of local discussions
with a short list of organisations and schools from which a
proposal is developed. The initial proposals set out the issue
the fledgling Collaboration wants to address. The focus at
this stage is on agreeing a clear ‘why’ (the rationale) rather
than the ‘what’ (task based).
The total allocated for the Collaboration Fund across the six
years of the HSC Strategy is £6,480,000. At the end of March
2024, six of the 12 Collaborations have received funding.
Three organisations are involved in a Collaboration project
(one schools and two charities) with funds committed
totalling £2,533,513 of £6,480,000. Each individual
organisation receives their own grant to be responsible for
and grants range from £61,000 - £185,000 over three years.
After feedback from the Grants Team on the ‘why’ proposal,
formal applications to the Charity for funding support of
the ‘what’ are discussed. The focus is on how together the
Collaboration partners will use their shared expertise to work
in a different way to better meet the complex needs identified
in the proposal. It is vitally important that organisations
seeking to participate in the Collaboration Fund projects
were locally based with a strong reputation of delivering
high quality work. Projects are intended to meet a real and
pressing need, that has emerged or been exacerbated by
the pandemic and, as such, it is important that the local YPF
provide strategic oversight and guidance on how the intended
Collaboration meets these needs and fits within the context
of the setting. It is therefore designed as a closed funding
programme due to the targeted nature of the work and the
architecture involved in creating the Collaborations.
Impacts and lessons learned
These new Collaboration projects represent a new way
of grant making for John Lyon’s Charity and tempering
our own enthusiasm and belief in the power of local
Collaborations has been a challenge. We have needed to
bide our time to only commit to funding when the partners
are ready, rather than rushing ahead to meet our own
aspiration to fund the development and delivery of 12
Collaborations over six years. We recognise the sizeable ask
we are making of key individuals and local organisations
that are already significantly over-stretched post-pandemic,
requiring them to take risks and work differently. Likewise,
as a funder we have needed to try to work differently as
well, a path we are exploring and like our grantees, learning
as we go.
An early challenge for the Charity was that five of the
key organisations initially identified as being strong early
contenders for being in a Collaboration needed Recovery
Fund support to stabilise in 2021/22. Each have gone
on to be crucial partners in their local Collaboration but
demonstrate how vulnerable post-pandemic many of the
critical local organisations across the Beneficial Area were.
JOHN LYON’S CHARITY ANNUAL REPORT 2024
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