Recent Grants Awarded

Social Change Grants Awarded in 2008

Please note these relate to former programmes which are now closed.

Environmental Awareness

  1. Drive
    £15,000 towards the cost of a project that will test the feasibility of a new accelerated composting technique, recycling kitchen waste in a former coal-mining area of Wales.

  2. National Communities Resource Centre
    £20,000 towards making the building carbon-neutral and developing a model to help others to do likewise with older community buildings.

  3. Policy Exchange
    £25,000 towards a research project looking at who drops litter and why in order to find ways of dissuading them from doing so.

  4. Sheila McKechnie Foundation
    £25,236 for an environmental award scheme which includes support and mentoring to environmental campaigners and a dedicated training seminar for recipients of Gulbenkian grants.

  5. Transition Town Totnes
    £12,500 to set up Transition Teams of volunteers who will help individuals and groups take environmental responsibility and local action to reduce their area's impact on climate change and reliance on cheap fuel.

Financial Inclusion and Literacy

  1. Catalyst Communities Housing Association
    £20,000 to provide a good practice guide and toolkit to voluntary housing associations on providing debt advice and information to tenants.

  2. Central Belfast CAB
    Up to £75,500 to fund two Minority Rights and Financial Literacy Officers to develop a financial literacy programme for new migrant communities across Belfast, with particular emphasis on migrant workers.

  3. Cheshire Gypsy and Travellers’ Voice
    £15,000 towards the cost of enabling gypsies and Irish travellers to access financial services and products through an outreach project in the North-West of England.

  4. Community Finance Solutions
    £15,000 to engage financial institutions in developing a new financial product for Community Land Trusts.

  5. Fawcett Society
    £10,000 to produce a report that evidences, for the first time, the risks and challenges facing financially excluded ethnic minority women, and ethnic minority women in poverty.

  6. The Grandparents’ Association
    A sum of up to £20,000 towards a national welfare benefits and tax credits advice line service for grandparents and kinship carers who are raising grandchildren.

  7. Information Centre about Asylum and Refugees in the UK
    (ICAR)
    Up to £58,500 towards a research project to identify the main issues affecting financial inclusion among new migrants and explore strategies for addressing them.

  8. Runnymede Trust
    £9,500 for research comparing the density of bank cash machines on average in the UK with that in areas with high ethnic minority populations, highlighting the incidence of fee-charging machines in each area.

Older People

  1. 4 Children
    Up to £3,500 to cover printing costs of a pamphlet For All Ages to be produced in partnership with Counsel and Care. The publication will address the perceived growing gap between generations and argues for a new approach to build the connection across generations.

  2. Age Concern Cheshire
    £10,000 towards a pilot project entitled ‘Men’s Sheds’ for older men at risk of becoming socially excluded.

  3. Independent Age – The Royal UK Beneficient Association
    £25,500 to investigate the current and potential use of new technology in reducing the social isolation of older people.

  4. IPPR
    £35,000 towards the second phase of research into the emotional well-being of older people, ‘The Politics of Ageing’.

  5. NCVO
    £23,500 towards a sub-sectoral foresight project with and for voluntary sector organisations supporting older people, a continuation of the Third Sector Foresight project previously funded.

  6. One Voice 4 Travellers
    £8,000 to produce a best practice guide for service providers, written in tandem with travellers and obvious service providers such as Help the Aged, so that services can be tailored to meet the needs of older travellers.

  7. Royal Society of Arts (RSA)
    Up to £50,000 for a design award for work which looks at innovative and user-centred ways of engaging older people in a process of co-designing solutions to issues of direct concern to them.

  8. STEER Mental Health
    £15,000 to trial inter-generational methods of helping older people avoid or recover from mental health difficulties caused by caring, bereavement or isolation, leading to an accredited course for mental health Recovery Guides, adapting a US model to the Northern Irish context.

  9. WRVS
    £12,320 towards a loan box scheme to enable older people who are unable to go to a museum, to see objects in their local environment.

Exceptional Grant

  1. The Young Foundation
    £4,000 to help fund the first Summer School on Social Innovation held by the SIX network in partnership with the Young Foundation and MIK Group (Mondragón Innovation & Knowledge).

Social Change Grants Awarded in 2007

Environmental Awareness

  1. Asthma Support in Rural Scotland (ASIRUS) – GRIP Project
    £15,000 towards the cost of extending the GRIP service to the Tay region.

  2. Botanic Gardens Conservation International
    £7,070 towards the costs of publishing a special edition of their educational review, Roots, looking at how climate change threatens plant diversity and focusing on practical actions to address the threat.

  3. The Conservation Foundation
    £6,000 to support the 25th anniversary edition of their newsletter, Parish Pump News.

  4. Corporate Watch Co-operative
    £5,000 towards the cost of their Food without Oil project, researching the processes used to produce food, and promoting informed consumer choice by providing a guide to the foods which are produced using fossil fuels.

  5. Creative City
    £15,000 to fund the research and development phase of an interactive public installation called the Newspaper House, encouraging interest in reducing consumption, reusing and recycling waste.

  6. Friends of the Earth Scotland
    £10,000 towards a programme of support for local individuals and small groups, to enable them more effectively to raise awareness of environmental issues and practical actions in their own communities.

  7. Friends of the Earth Trust
    £15,000 towards the costs of a new programme working with communities in the North-East to enable them to understand and influence the decision-making processes which affect their environment and lives.

  8. Inside Out Trust
    £5,873 towards the costs of a recycling programme based in 40 prisons in the UK, helping 3,000 prisoners to refurbish wheelchairs, computers, hearing aids and spectacles for re-use.

  9. Royal Society of Arts
    £15,000 towards the development of a personal carbon trading marketplace, workshops on carbon-based transport and travel options and a carbon calculator for use in schools.

  10. Sheila McKechnie Foundation
    £18,653 for a Gulbenkian environmental award scheme to offer support and mentoring to environmental campaigners and a seminar for recipients of the awards.

  11. South Yorkshire Forest Environment Trust
    £8,110 towards the cost of one Treecycle Project, which gives people living near a park or woodland where trees are to be felled the skills to make use of the timber made available.

  12. South Yorkshire Forest Environment Trust
    £8,110 towards the cost of one Treecycle Project, which gives people living near a park or woodland where trees are to be felled the skills to make use of the timber made available.

  13. Stop Climate Chaos
    £15,000 towards the development of ICOUNT, a programme which increases awareness of climate change issues, encourages behaviour change and campaigns for governmental action.

  14. Sturminster Newton Community Learning Centre (STUR-IT)
    £10,000 towards the development of a sustainable rural model for community-based learning which will extend the opportunities for older people both as students and volunteer tutors.

  15. Sustainable Communities Initiative – Scotland
    £16,634 towards a year of monthly seminars on green living for families on low incomes.

  16. Swansea Environmental Forum (SEF)
    (The Environment Centre)
    £15,000 towards their Get Sust project, which aims to increase understanding of and personal responsibility for environmental sustainability, leading to greater levels of individual action and more sustainable communities.

  17. Women’s Environmental Network
    £11,338 towards the cost of developing a Carbon Counter Guide and Tracker and trialling it with women’s groups over a six-month period.

Financial Inclusion

  1. Action for Business (Bradford)
    £14,000 towards the cost of a series of financial planning and literacy classes for Asian women, Asian couples and disabled adults in Bradford and Keighley.

  2. The Big Issue Foundation
    £15,000 towards the costs of a savings incentive scheme to encourage vendors to save some of what they earn, help them to access basic bank accounts and manage their finances.

  3. Cares Sandwell
    £11,640 towards the cost of a series of money management, budgeting information and advice sessions for unpaid family carers and the people they look after within the borough of Sandwell, which is made up of six towns in the West Midlands and is one of the most deprived areas in the country.

  4. Commonside Community Development Trust
    £15,000 towards a financial literacy project and peer mentoring programme for a group of young single mothers, under the umbrella of an existing training and development programme called Aiming High.

  5. Freshwinds
    £10,000 towards the costs of a trial outreach debt-counselling programme for parents of disabled children in a marginalised ward of Birmingham.

  6. Quaker Social Action (BIA)
    £15,000 towards the cost of the Street Cred project aimed at enabling women who are unemployed or on low incomes to access micro-credit schemes and a range of financial literacy support options.

  7. Rainbow Saver Anglia Credit Union
    £15,000 to launch a prepaid Maestro Card in partnership with a Building Society, enabling migrant workers and other financially excluded people to use banking services.

  8. Single Parent Action Network (SPAN) UK
    £15,000 towards a project working with faith organisations across south-west England to raise awareness of triggers for bankruptcy and debt and help them to signpost financial support sources for people on low incomes.

  9. South London Refugee Association
    £15,000 towards a one-year pilot programme, with Citizens Advice Bureaux, Merton and Wandsworth, to train community leaders to give basic financial advice to refugees and asylum-seekers.

  10. Space Counselling Service
    £5,261 towards a pilot programme of one-to-one support by qualified debt counsellors to help clients face and deal with their financial problems.

  11. Unlock (National Association of Reformed Offenders)
    £15,000 towards the cost of a project working with UK banks to provide prisoners nearing release with access to bank accounts.

Older People

  1. Age Concern Calderdale
    £16,500 to set up a Meet to Eat project, a befriending programme for older people who do not eat adequately, especially widowers, which will pair them with a volunteer who will help them devise menus, go shopping, cook and eat with them.

  2. Age Concern Lincoln
    £11,750 towards the costs of a one-year pilot of a new telephone befriending service, which will offer regular telephone calls to isolated elderly people.

  3. Age Concern Norfolk
    £14,547 to set up a 'Dementia Cafe' where people with dementia and their families can meet, seek advice and information and receive support on a monthly basis.

  4. Age Concern Oxfordshire
    £16,500 towards the costs of developing a network of Local Link volunteers in rural areas of the county who can help isolated elderly people access Age Concern and other relevant services.

  5. Birmingham Settlement
    £15,000 towards a project to support and involve older people in the multicultural area of Aston and Newtown in Birmingham.

  6. Cara Trust
    £8,270 towards the cost of a pilot project providing peer support for older people suffering isolation because of their HIV/AIDS status.

  7. Cornerstone Vesey Home Link Project
    £11,230 to set up and run the Home Link project for one year, overcoming isolation and loneliness through a befriending service.

  8. Forest Community Media
    £15,000 towards a pilot project involving older people, especially the housebound, in recording their memories, producing an audio magazine and learning the skills associated with the process.

  9. From Here To Maturity Dance Company
    £7,000 towards the costs of an organisational development programme for this dance company, which creates opportunities for older people through dance and movement projects.

  10. Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR)
    £14,975 towards the initial phase of a research proposal into the emotional well-being of older people.

  11. MECOPP (Minority Ethnic Carers of Older People Project)
    £14,892 to support and develop a programme of outings and discussion groups for older minority ethnic carers, accompanied by the older people they look after.

  12. Royal National Institute of Blind People
    £15,000 towards the costs of developing a Vision Passport for people with dementia, giving a clear pictorial representation of their sensory difficulties and requirements and simple instructions on how to communicate with the individual concerned.

  13. Shared Learning in Action
    £12,510 to run a series of Stay With It 12-week mental health courses for older people in the Manchester area.

  14. Streets Alive!
    £5,930 towards the cost of a project to improve older people’s experience of community events by promoting cross-generational activities and so reduce the feelings of isolation and fear expressed by some older people in their evaluation of previous neighbourhood events.

Exceptional Projects

  1. The Children’s Society
    £14,500 to help with publication and dissemination costs of the interim launch of the Good Childhood Inquiry 2006-08.

  2. National Council for Voluntary Organisations (NCVO)
    £25,000 towards the continuing costs of the Third Sector Foresight programme, which helps the voluntary sector to plan strategically.

  3. Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI)
    £10,000 towards the promotion of a better understanding in schools of how to use public rescue equipment (PRE) through the production of an education resource pack.

  4. Save the Children Fund
    £10,000 towards the cost of their BUMP project which befriends unaccompanied refugee and asylum-seeking minors, specifically for a volunteering scheme that will enable such children to build links with their local communities.

Grid Reference Identification Project, Asirus, 2006