News

Resilience Fund: Horatio’s Garden and DCFRP

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On 3rd April 2020 The Rank Foundation launched the Resilience Fund in response to the Coronavirus pandemic. Applications are open to all RankNet members, and the fund has been implemented to cover cashflow, fundraising and loss of income challenges relating to the current covid-19 related climate. This includes those facing significant, unplanned demand on services. Within hours of opening, applications were received and the Grants Manager and Foundation Executives began processing the applications, assessing management accounts and cash flow forecasts, knowing that access to this type of funding was a priority.

We will be looking at some of the Resilience Fund grantees each fortnight, with this week spotlighting Horatio’s Garden and Devon and Cornwall Furniture Reuse Project.

Horatio’s Garden

Organisation Overview:

Horatio’s Garden creates and cares for beautiful gardens in NHS spinal injury centres. Once the gardens have been built the charity maintains them and organises activities to take place in the garden. A Head Gardener leads a team of dedicated volunteers who keep the garden looking beautiful, run rehabilitative garden and art therapy sessions, serve tea and cakes, and host food events and music concerts. The feeling of being free from the hospital means that longer-term patients can use the garden for things they can’t necessarily do on the ward.

Difficulties due to Coronavirus:

As a result of the lockdown, the charity has had to cancel all its Spring and Summer fundraising events which will lead to a loss of income in the region of £240,000. As a garden charity, Horatio’s Garden hold the majority of their fundraising events over these months when the gardens are at their most beautiful so a large proportion of their fundraising income is raised during these months.

What will the Resilience Fund grant be used for?

The uncertainty around how long the pandemic will last means Horatio’s Garden is not getting the exposure it would usually recieve. Therefore a grant of £20,000 towards new fundraising efforts has been awarded.

Devon and Cornwall Furniture Reuse Project

Organisation Overview:

Devon and Cornwall Furniture Reuse Project (DCFRP) help people in the local community to make their houses into homes. They help around 340 people per year who may be moving into a property after being homeless or moving home because of domestic violence. Many of their clients have been given properties with no carpets or curtains and haven’t received any help or advice.

The charity believes that every person should have a bed to sleep in and a sofa to sit on and every family should have a dining table.

As well as furniture, DCFRP provide advice via a free coffee and advice corner. They will help people to look for jobs and write their CV’s, and also help with applications for benefits and housing advice.

Difficulties due to Coronavirus:

“At the moment, and to be honest, we are trying to take it day by day and week by week. We are concentrating on what we can do to survive for now in the hopes that we will recover.”

The furniture shop has closed due to the Coronavirus pandemic, therefore this revenue stream has stopped. The only income they have is when Plymouth City Council rehome an individual or a family, but this is nowhere near enough income to pay salaries and cover rent. DCFRP are still donating furniture, but are unable to collect donated furniture due to social distancing and lockdown, therefore stocks are low.

What will the Resilience Fund grant be used for?

Bringing forward DCFRP’s Match Trading grant of £10,000 will help them to recover far quicker than the anticipated 6-12 months and will significantly decrease the likeliness of the charity closing its doors.

Handling Covid19 – The Circle Dundee

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The Circle is a “More Than Profit” organisation based in Dundee and is focused on working with social entrepreneurs, community activists, charity leaders, commercial business leaders, trustees and non-executive directors. The Circle is a hub for charities, social enterprises, community groups and socially aware businesses in Dundee. They provide affordable offices, co-working and community space, as well as affordable meeting and event spaces.

We spoke to The Circle’s Founder and CEO, Kirsty Thomson on how the charity is adapting to the challenges of Covid19.

In a usual week, The Circle are based in a thriving community hub in a large 1970’s building right in the heart of the community. They are usually offering 5 main services: affordable office space, event space, consultancy services, The Circle Café and The Circle Academy. They currently have a team of 13 staff and has 15 tenant organisations within the hub. The building usually sees up to 700 sign-ins every week which includes tenants, volunteers, service users and visitors attending meetings or events in our spaces. Kirsty explained “we have a wide variety of tenants and host events on almost a daily basis and as such, we don’t  have too many ‘normal’ days – we’ve been known to turn our hand at becoming renovators, delivery drivers, wifi experts, and even emptying flooded drains with buckets!”

However with the lockdown in full force due to the Coronavirus pandemic, The Circle have been working to adapt how they work in order to continue supporting their tenants and other clients. They were in the midst of delivering their ‘Circle Academy‘ to their second cohort of candidates when the programme had to be swiftly changed to be offered digitally.  The team has also been offering free one-to-one consultancy sessions and will be running a series of webinars during June and July for people in the third sector.

Kirsty explained that one of the hardest parts has been not being able to run their café, and being unable to see their volunteers and regular visitors who access the services of their hub tenants. However, the team have been keeping the spirit and social culture of The Circle alive and their daily team lunches have become daily team catch up calls and Friday evening quizzes.

So what next? The team at The Circle are busy planning for the next cohort of The Circle Academy and trying to find ways to get their café back up and running. They are also continuing to support the local community through The Circle Superstars, a new initiative to be launched this summer supported by the Wellbeing Fund to support children and young people in the local community. Kirsty told us “the biggest challenge for us during this period is making sure everyone is well and supported through a time that is undoubtedly posing emotional, health and financial challenges for our staff, volunteers, tenants and service users.”

You can access more information about The Circle at www.thecircledundee.org.uk

You can find us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram @thecircledundee and on Linkedin. RankNet members can find Kirsty Thomson and the current Time to Shine Leader, Alice Watts on our online community platform members directory.

For any specific enquiries, please email reception@thecircledundee.org.uk

Covid19 Update – June 2020

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Nearly one-third of lower-paid employees have lost jobs or been furloughed, compared to less than one-in-ten top earners: in numerical terms that is around 7 million jobs overall. The Resolution Foundation reports ‘significant anxiety’ amongst those furloughed as to immediate and future prospects, especially as furloughing is likely to obscure or hide future job losses. On this we might not see a clear picture until the year end.

About one million under 25s hit the labour market for the first time each year, mostly in the third quarter, and it unlikely that we will see any significant economic recovery before then. Given the predicted degree of economic contraction, there is little doubt that the young will bear the heaviest burden of this post pandemic recovery. With an extra 600,000 young people likely to be added to existing unemployment figures in the coming year, the challenge for the young is likely to eclipse those experiences of 2008: we are mindful that Rank’s exemplar leadership programme, Time to Shine, emerged from the rubble of the financial crash nearly 12 years ago.

Why do we mention this? Because Rank’s long standing interest in challenging inequality, especially around issues of social mobility and the emphasis we have placed on encouraging and supporting a generation of young, enterprising leaders is not likely to disappear. We might frame it differently, but we sense the need for greater focus and to ensure that our resources are maximised to greater effect.

As an ‘engaged’ funder the Foundation has concentrated on meeting the needs of its 450 strong network of organisations: ‘RankNet’ has grown steadily over recent years. If you are funded by Rank, then, by definition, you are part of the network and, through this, you have access to a range of funds, activities and support.

Governed by an elected group of ‘social leaders’, working closely with the Rank executive, we have been operating two funds for the last 8 weeks: an Emergency Fund (for small capital or training needs) and the uncapped Resilience Fund, created for those in the network experiencing immediate shortfalls in planned income, especially around meeting cashflow needs. Both of these operate with a short turnaround – anything considered by the weekly Resilience Fund committee is paid a few days later.

Through both of these funds, we have made 107 grants and supported 88 organisations. What is interesting, especially regarding the Resilience Fund applications, is that the size of the respective ask has been relatively modest with an average request of around £16K, perhaps reflecting the respect and understanding gained through existing relationships?

We have also followed up with 15 of those organisations recently supported, to assess the immediate impact of our grant whilst trying to better understand the complexities and significance of their respective challenges, and how we might better help going forward. But there is no doubt as to the significance of the uncertainty felt amongst our RankNet leaders, where for some the real crunch might not be felt for another 6 – 12 months.

The Rank team has also been busy managing the wider needs of our network including supporting our various leaders (including those furloughed) as part of our Time to Shine (T2S) or Rank Aspire Programme (RAP) and the Leadership Award holders. Part of this is the decision to consider extending those on our current schemes, where applicable, not just because of the upheaval caused by the pandemic but mindful of the challenges of leaving these schemes at a time when new job opportunities will be severely limited.

Adapting quickly to ‘remote’ working has ensured that we have been able to continue with much of our routine support of the network including the management of our place-based and social enterprise programmes. Across the network, we have run nearly 60 ‘Zoom’ events for some 550 people since lockdown. We have been struck by how responsive our members have been, building on the strength of strong networks and a mutual understanding on how powerful collaboration and partnerships can be.

The coordinated effort to help feed the most impoverished and the most vulnerable in Dundee, has been led, for most part, by a Rank funded coalition. As we look across RankNet, we have been overwhelmed by stories of exceptional practice, of innovation and, above all, of strong, community centred leadership: this is what we see as ‘engaged philanthropy’ in action. But ‘food poverty’ is but one strand of many, from digital poverty to poverty of opportunity, especially regarding the young, where other issues around mental health and well-being will sharpen our focus over the coming months.

What next? Mindful that the dust is yet to settle, we will look to ensure that the Foundation is well set to meet these emerging challenges, deepening our understanding of the opportunities this engaged, focused approach can bring. But more than ever, Rank is willing to collaborate and share with our partners, both within and outside of our network and across the various sectors, as the challenge to ‘reset, recover, rebuild and renew’ begins.

Handling Covid19 – Reaching Higher

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This week we are spotlighting Reaching Higher, a youth charity based in the London Borough of Croydon.

Reaching Higher has been known to The Rank Foundation for a long time, recieving their first grant back in 2013 to fund a YAP apprentice. Since then, Reaching Higher has hosted GAP apprentices, Time to Shine Leaders, and Community Action Placements. A previous Reaching Higher employee won the Rank Memorial Award back in 2016, and Jordan Ignatius, current Strategy and Operations Manager at Reaching Higher, was recently appointed as a member of the RankNet Leaders Action Group.

We spoke to Jordan about the trials and tribulations of managing the Coronavirus pandemic in youth work, and how Reaching Higher have adapted their services.

At Reaching Higher, their vision is “to see a wider community working together to best serve young people” by drawing synergy between schools, community and home life. Their mission is to “challenge young people to be leaders of their own lives”. They employ eight members of staff and engage with approximately 250 – 300 young people per week.

In a usual week, Reaching Higher are visiting schools delivering their transferable skills programme, running their Football and Drama Academies and Leadership Programme in the community, as well as doing home visits and parent induction meetings. However, during the pandemic Reaching Higher have had to drastically adapt their programmes and services.

With the help of some of their service users, Reaching Higher quickly developed Isolation < Aspiration, which is an initiative designed to raise the aspirations of each young person and provide a catalyst of hope for them and their families during these uncertain times. The main objectives are to provide young people with high quality, fun and meaningful activities in their home, support families by providing them with practical tools and resources to use whilst at home with their children and to sign post young people and their families to organisations that can provide them with the support they need.

Reaching Higher has committed to building their online communities via interactive workshops, youth-led content, hosting competitions and engaging with young people across their social media platforms. They know their audience, their needs and how to keep them engaged and inspired.

There has been so many positives and learning opportunities since Reaching Higher had to digitalise their service delivery. The team have sent out educational and community resources to parents and carers, offered Drama related activities (tangible advice about how to develop acting and writing skills), run football skill workshops, match review sessions, fitness workouts and online FIFA tournaments, and they have held mentoring sessions on CV and Personal Statement writing as well as timetabling.

Although this has been hugely successful, Jordan explained that lockdown has come with some very real challenges. Maintaining contact with young people and their families is a delicate art; they are very conscious of overwhelming and alienating their service users. A lot of their youth have shared a lack of motivation to get involved in online activities and are bored of staying at home. Jordan explained:

“There’s no blueprint for times like this and a lot of what we do is face to face youth work so we are really figuring out how things work as we go. Working face to face is what makes our jobs feel so rewarding, so working virtually makes it difficult to measure our impact in the same way“.

If you have any questions for Jordan or the team at Reaching Higher, or want to know more about their programmes or services you can contact them at info@reachinghigher.org.uk or visit their website at www.reachinghigher.org.uk

Resilience Fund: CHAC and HYST

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On 3rd April 2020 The Rank Foundation launched the Resilience Fund in response to the Coronavirus pandemic. Applications are open to all RankNet members, and the fund has been implemented to cover cashflow, fundraising and loss of income challenges relating to the current covid-19 related climate. This includes those facing significant, unplanned demand on services. Within hours of opening, applications were received and the Grants Manager and Foundation Executives began processing the applications, assessing management accounts and cash flow forecasts, knowing that access to this type of funding was a priority.

We will be looking at some of the Resilience Fund grantees each week, starting with Hull Youth Support Trust and Cleveland Housing Advice Centre.

Cleveland Housing Advice Centre

Organisation Overview:

Cleveland Housing Advice Centre (CHAC) was opened in 1992 and provides one to one advice, lay advocacy, and representation in all aspects of welfare benefits, housing, and debt issues along with the various spin-off problems arising from them such as repossessions, evictions, domestic violence, poverty, and distress. They offer their services to their local community in Middlesbrough, currently ranked as the eighth most deprived local authority area in England.

Difficulties due to Coronavirus:

Due to the high demand in applications for universal credit, CHAC are unable to reduce the numbers of staff or take advantage of the Government Job Retention Scheme (JRS), as all of their staff are needed to deal with the surge of Universal Credit advice and assistance on completing forms.

They are also unable to provide their Job Training programme for prisoners and young people at risk which means that the charity is losing an average £6,000 per month, an income which contributes directly to staff wages.

What will the Resilience Fund grant be used for?

CHAC will be able to continue providing telephone and online advice on welfare and debt, and assisting in completing Universal Credit applications. They deal with 105 clients per day and issue an average of 30 food vouchers per day. Due to the increased demand on their services, CHAC has had to consider using some of their small reserves to pay staff. The Resilience Fund grant of £20,000 will allow CHAC to pay their staff salaries for the next 3 months without accessing reserves, which may be needed in the future.

Hull Youth Support Trust
Organisation Overview:

Hull Youth Support Trust (HYST) first came to Rank’s attention in 2016 and were part of the second phase of Place-Based funding in Hull. Since then, they have been significant and engaged members of the Rank Network.

HYST provides young entrepreneurs (aged 18-30) with heavily subsidised office space for a two year period in order to make those first few years as comfortable as possible. Together with dedicated one-to-one business advice and personal support HYST aim to give every young person the fundamental skills to succeed in business. HYST look to work with young people who have previously been; unemployed, under-employed, disadvantaged in some way or totally new to the world of business.

Difficulties due to Coronavirus:

HYST have a 23 office incubation centre where their businesses (during normal times) work out of and use meeting facilities.

The biggest concern is ongoing cashflow if the tenants are unable to pay their rent due to the downturn in work within their own businesses. A loss of 60-70% of HYST’s rent (on average) coming in would result in a significant loss per month to the charity.

What will the Resilience Fund grant be used for?

“We would hope that with a support package to help our cashflow over the next 6 months we would have what we require to not only support us as a charity get through the downturn but to offer our tenants the support they need to get back on their feet and start trading effectively again”

The Resilience Fund grant of £15,600 will cover 6 months of predicted office space rental losses, allowing HYST to help their tenants get back to usual or adapted business.

Handling Covid19 – Khulisa

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This week, we are shining the spotlight on Khulisa, a charity based in London providing mental health and wellbeing support to vulnerable children and young people.

Khulisa first came onto our radar back in 2013 via The Rank Foundation’s Major Grants scheme, and they have also benefited from a Time to Shine Leader twice, back in 2016 and 2018.

We picked up on what Khulisa has been up to via their Twitter (@KhulisaUK), where they are addressing the ups and downs of the current lockdown and what they might be able to do to help.

Before the Covid19 pandemic Khulisa’s team of highly qualified art and drama therapists were working with young people in schools and prisons to build their social and emotional skills. Khulisa also recognises how important it is for young people to have positive relationships with trusted adults – particularly for children who do not have supportive parents or carers at home. As such, the team also delivers training and self-care support to professionals (primarily teachers, social workers, prison officers and police officers).

With schools closed and social distancing rules in place, the team cannot work with young people in person and so have moved their programmes online.

A new suite of digital toolkits, group webinars and virtual 1:1 support sessions have been developed and will be delivered until schools can safely reopen for all children. The digital programmes replicate much of the same content in our face to face programmes, and provide young people with a trusted person to talk to, qualified therapists and access to a safe space.

Their partner schools are relieved that Khulisa can work more flexibly and support them through this difficult period. As a result of the pandemic, the number of ‘vulnerable’ children they’re supporting has increased significantly.

Young people have told the team that they feel relieved to know that they have Khulisa’s support to process their feelings of fear, frustration and anger. One young ambassador said:

“A lot of young people are feeling angry now in lockdown – they don’t have anywhere to put that anger.  For a lot of young people in alternative provision, their home life is not great – spending so much time at home with all this stuff going on. They have nowhere to escape.”

Khulisa told us that the biggest challenge for them during this period was accelerating their digital programmes. It had always been part of their longer term strategy, but they were forced to make rapid changes with relatively little resources or prior experience.

If you’d like information on wellbeing and mental health support for young people or professionals and parents, please email  info@khulisa.co.uk, visit their website (khulisa.co.uk) or send them a tweet @KhulisaUK .