Grants database

Teachers, support staff and school leaders from six Derby primary schools will partner with artists from Derby Theatre to learn and embed drama-based and creative approaches to support students to develop language skills and to build their confidence and interpersonal skills. Participating schools have a higher than average intake of pupils who speak English as an additional language and/​or serve communities experiencing socio-economic inequity.

Teaching for Creativity focuses on how arts can support school improvement and the development of blended approaches to continuing professional development and learning. This project aims to reactivate arts-based experiences (which were paused due to the pandemic) and to enhance the schools’ cultural entitlement. Each school will focus on either theatre or the visual arts, working with an artist from that field to learn the skills necessary to deliver high quality arts-based teaching.

Sacred Heart RC Primary School is collaborating with Digit Music, Manchester Poetry Library and five further schools in the Manchester/​Bolton/​Salford area, to support teachers to embed spoken word and digital music approaches in their practice, and make links into the stories of human rights heroes from the Manchester area.

This project is focused on Year 1 pupils’ Communication and Language, and Personal, Social and Emotional skills, working with eight schools in Doncaster, one in Scunthorpe and darts (Doncaster Community Arts). It aims to build teachers’ arts-based practice, using drama and storytelling to improve core skills such as focus, empathy and vocabulary.

Big Change is a charitable trust that works with partners to influence a society where every young person is set up to thrive. Through their community of supporters, they direct funds and provide support to pioneers and projects that deliver bold approaches. This grant will fund the creation of a policy report which will set out a new narrative and vision for education policy for schools in England – this aims to bring together young people’s and the wider public’s perspectives and priorities for change with an existing evidence base and credible examples of innovation in education systems.

The Justice Together Initiative is a funder collaboration that offers funding and support to grant partners to build the power and influence of people with lived and learned experience of the immigration system and embed anti-racism strategies. Through grant-making and collaboration, they aim to connect lived experience, front-line advice and influencing strategies to create lasting change. This grant contributes to helping achieve their vision for people who use the immigration system to access justice fairly and equally, so that they can get on with their lives.

The Charity Reform Group is a programme to promote the reforming role of the charity sector, in keeping with Sheila McKechnie Foundation’s role as the infrastructure body for campaigning. This funding will enable the recruitment of a diverse group of charities, and will support a programme of learning activity for the sector.

London Funders is the membership network for funders and investors in London’s civil society. They will be hosting their third Festival of Learning in May 2023, for funders to come together with civil society to share learning, make new connections and build deeper relationships. This funding will enable the sharing of learning in ways that funders can act on to make positive change.

The Civic Power Fund is a new charitable fund that will support community organising, and build the infrastructure and leadership it needs to thrive. This grant will support a second iteration of Funding Justice, exploring where social justice funding goes in the UK, allowing them to analyse an additional 53 funders (on top of the existing 47) and look in detail at the full data set from 2020 and 2021.

Charity Evaluation Working Group (CHEW) supports charities to share evaluation best practice and demonstrate their impact. This grant will support the development of an equitable evaluation collective by funding a scoping phase to investigate and share evidence of the need for change, and establish a model that will address these needs.

The Disasters Emergency Committee (DEC) is made up of 14 member charities who are experts in humanitarian aid and specialise in different areas of disaster response. They come together to speak in one voice and make fundraising more efficient when the DEC launch an appeal. This grant supports DEC charities and their local partners to respond to the series of devastating earthquakes in southern Turkey and north-west Syria, providing urgent help. Immediate priorities are search and rescue, medical treatment for the injured, shelter for those who have lost their homes, heating in safe spaces, blankets, warm clothes and ensuring people have food and clean water.

RESOLVE is an interdisciplinary design collective that combines architecture, engineering, technology and art to address social challenges.This grant will support the ongoing development of their practice, including planning and operationalising community-focused projects in London and across the UK, in line with their strategy. Funding will be used to resource this work, as well as document and communicate the organisation’s aims.