News

Pebbles Grants Closed

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The Rank Foundation’s Board of Trustees has paused its Pebbles Grants programme. It will review this decision at the end of the current strategy period in late 2025.

Pebbles is The Rank Foundation’s small funding stream for UK registered charities and churches. The grants, of between £250 to £4,000, were spent on respite breaks, equipment, or capital costs.

David Sanderson, CEO said:

“The Rank Foundation builds long-term relationships with the organisations and individuals in its Network, investing to nurture and build on their strengths, leadership, and capacity. In line with our strategy, we wish to support the Rank Network members as they face the ongoing cost-of-living crisis and increased demand for services and for our support.”

The Rank Foundation’s Network includes around 1,500 members from charities and social enterprises across the UK. In October 2022 and January 2023, Rank surveyed the Network to understand the impact of the cost-of-living crisis on their work.

More than 360 people told us about their experience of the cost-of-living crisis, which combines increased demand for services along with significantly increased costs and a more challenging fundraising environment.

In 2023, The Rank Foundation awarded almost £1.5 million in cost-of-living grants to 130 Network Members using a mutual trust-based model of grantmaking. A further £9.5 million was awarded to 840 grantees, making a total of £11 million awarded by the end of 2023.

We continue our mission focused work and our next review of strategy will be in 2026.

Rank Ripples Magazine – October ’23 Edition Out Now

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The rebranded edition of Rank Ripples magazine focuses on the power of the collective. Alongside your regular Fellowship update, it features articles about collective working from across our network.

Steve Arnott, Jordan Ignatius and Nadia Alomar share insights on collaborative leadership from personal and professional perspective. Memorial Award Winners, Niamh Mawhinney and Calum Johnston share their incredible journeys and there’s inspiration from Liz Weaver, Co-CEO of Canada’s Tamarack Institute. Their Communities Ending Poverty programme has contributed to poverty being reduced for 1 million Canadians. Plus, some at a glance tips for collaborative leadership on page 28.

We hope you enjoy reading it!

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Rank’s Ripples Reinvigorated

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A new brand for a powerful philanthropic collective!

Rank Foundation is delighted to reveal a new brand identity that better reflects the power of its thriving network.

About a year ago following research, interviews, and visits with many members of the network we realised that the Rank brand did not reflect the dynamism and progressiveness of the Foundation.

It was time to update our brand. The brand development gave the staff team a chance to reflect on what makes the Rank Network quite so special. The whole process was inclusive and collaborative with the people Rank cares about; our 1,200-strong network of social sector leaders.

Network members told us that together we inhabit a supportive, mutual, space. And that this shared space is distinct from other philanthropic communities.

“Rank are bold, stepping out doing things differently. They should have the confidence to say that.”
Network member

What makes Rank so special?
Clearly what we’d always proudly referred to as ‘relational philanthropy’ had to play a central role in our refreshed brand. With support from Louise Kavanagh, Purposeful Marketing, and Richard McGillan from Steers McGillan Eves, we set about developing the words and visuals to reinforce what makes Rank special: the collective power of our network.

While retaining the Christian values of trust, respect and empathy that drove our founder to set up the Foundation, we’ve adjusted the way we talk about the Foundation to clarify that it’s the Network where the magic happens.

Our thriving network tackles inequality to improve life in the communities they cherish.

“My grandfather would be delighted to see his legacy reinvigorated through this brand project. The focus on those we work with – rather than the Foundation itself – builds on his original values and intentions. I’m excited to share it with our members and to see where it takes us next.”
Joey Newton, Chair of the board

With our new brand we will encourage more collaboration, and continue to celebrate the power of the collective.

We are excited to be rolling out the new branding in the coming months!

Thriving Plymouth event

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Evaluating year 1 of the Participatory Grant Making Fund.

Last week Plymouth welcomed over 100 guests to a celebratory event hosted by Real Ideas at the Devonport Market Hall. It was a fantastic opportunity for our Chair, Joey Newton to present certificates to the ten participants who recently completed the School for Social Entrepreneurs’ Match Trading programme – the third cohort in Plymouth to do so, which means there are now 30 SSE fellows who are part of the local Plymouth Rank Network.

The occasion also marked the end of the first year of the enormously successful thirteen projects supported by Rank’s Participatory Grant Making fund.

This brochure gives a flavour of the projects’ achievements as they address and combat loneliness and social isolation in the city.

Finally, the event was an opportunity to celebrate supporting the next round of Participatory Grant Making projects with Livewell’s CEO explaining to the audience why they had committed £500,000 to match fund the loneliness and social isolation projects.

It was great to see the commitment and the energy in the room – it was a really inspiring afternoon.

Welcome to our Coworking space in London

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We are delighted to be able to give you a sneak peak tour around our brand new coworking space at Garden Walk, our centrally-located office premises in London’s Shoreditch.

The Rank Foundation’s Coworking Space in London has been designed for the social sector to work, collaborate and network in style. Whether you want a permanent workspace, occasional desk space or to hire a meeting room we’ve got a hiring option for you and your team.

We are now taking bookings for in-person tours of the coworking space. If you are interested in seeing it for yourself, contact our Assistant Director Sonia Talsi via this form.

FIND OUT MORE ABOUT OUR COWORKING SPACE

Collectively The Rank Foundation’s Network ensures funding goes further

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The Rank Foundation has awarded a total of almost £1.5 million to 130 Network Members using a mutual trust-based model of grantmaking.

The Rank Foundation’s Network includes around 1,500 members from charities and social enterprises across the UK. In October 2022 and January 2023, Rank surveyed the Network to understand the impact of the cost-of-living crisis on their work.

More than 360 people told us about their experience of the cost-of-living crisis, which combines increased demand, increased costs, and a more challenging fundraising environment.

In response, Rank designed two grant programmes and have awarded funds to 130 Network members totalling almost £1.5 million.

Increased demand for services

Demand for services has increased from an already high post-pandemic level. An average of 54% of members told us that demand had increased either ‘more than ever before’ or ‘a large amount’ in October 2022 and January 2023.

Between October and January, the number of members saying demand had increased ‘more than ever before’ rose from 12.87% to 30.83%. Reasons for the increase included both the negative “reduced statutory service capacity” and the more positive “good reputation”.

Increased costs of operating

Members who told us their running costs had increased ‘more than ever before’ went up to 24.38% in January 23 compared with 11.44% the previous October. One member told us:

“Every budget line is up, staffing, overheads and fees”.

Challenging fundraising

Increased demand and increased food, fuel and other bills are compounded by stretched funder resources – and in some cases pausing of grantmaking activity – after increased grantmaking during the pandemic.

Challenges in fundraising also increased between October 22 and January 23.

The cost-of-living grants

With a scarcity of funding for the sector we targeted our grantmaking at those who have struggled to secure funding elsewhere. The mutual trust that characterises our relationships with grantees in the Network enabled us to fund a variety of bespoke needs at the grassroots level.

A Cost-of-Living Core Grants Programme was open to members of the Rank Network who are struggling to meet core running costs this year. The maximum grant offered was £25,000 and we encouraged applicants only to apply for what they needed so we could share our limited funding pot with as many members as possible.

Full awards averaged around £18,500 and the part awards around £13,000, showing that most people didn’t ask for the maximum amount. This collegiate approach to applications means we were able to award 80 core costs grants.

A Cost-of-Living Small Grants Programme was also created to cover minor but essential costs such as transport, fuel, and other consumables. Again, we asked members only to apply for what they needed, up to a maximum of £5,000. We were able to award grants to 94% of applications, which totalled 50 grants.

While we will never be able to support every applicant every time, this trust-based approach is possible because of the strong relationships we build with our Network, and their collective good will.