London Funders

Social welfare advice is crucial for creating a just, safe, and healthy London. Each year, thousands of Londoners receive support to address financial, social, and legal issues, often preventing problems reaching crisis point. In collaboration with 360Giving and the Greater London Authority, London Funders have mapped the funding landscape of social welfare advice in London. Key findings include:  ▪ Only 26% of known grants were for longer than one year.  ▪ Around 40% of income in the cohort is from government sources, representing £42.7m in grants and £66.9m in contracts.  ▪ 20 funders are responsible for at least 77% of known grant funding received by advice organisations.  ▪ Funders are finding it increasingly difficult to meet demand amid increasing need from communities. The findings show why we need longer-term funding to address the increasingly complex and interconnected needs of those seeking help and why collaboration among funders is so important to meet our shared ambition of challenging poverty in the capital. Check out the full report here: https://lnkd.in/eJwWHZfs  

At London Funders we’ve kept ourselves busy this year, from launching our Resource Hub to hosting our annual Festival of Learning in Spring, publishing our report with 360Giving on social welfare advice funding, to embarking on our new project mapping equity & justice infrastructure. Before we enter into the new year, we wanted to reflect on the past year – to celebrate our successes and the hard work that has gone into advancing our mission to build a better London. Some of our highlights this year include: 💠 Growing our membership to 172 funders 💠 Bringing together 1459 people at the 82 events we hosted 💠 Welcoming 5 new colleagues to our team 💠 Launching the Collaboration Circle 💠 Announcing the Farnsworth Fellowship ….and much more! Thank you to all of our amazing members for your continued involvement in our movement. We will be back in full force in the new year, with events, learning, collaboration and more. Until then, we wish you all a lovely and restful break 🙌

This time last week, we brought our members together to discuss some of the findings from our survey looking into how funders are responding to the recent surge in funding applications. Over the last few months we've heard from funders across our membership and further afield about a rise in the volume of applications. We conducted this survey to help us better understand how applications and demand from funded organisations is changing and effective strategies to adapt to this. Some of our results include: - Most respondents reported a 10-25% increase in funding requests - Respondents noted a trend of grantees seeking larger grants - Most reported adopting restrictive strategies in response - Funding pots have stagnated Head to our website for the full results: https://lnkd.in/edAQkZxP

Have you heard about our latest flagship initiative, Collaboration Circle? Launched earlier this year, Collaboration Circle is our new subsidiary company, set up to create change through a more equitable and collaborative funding system, making it easier to pool money across different geographies, enable funders and civil society to share decision making, and much more. Find out more about the initiative and how you can get involved here -https://lnkd.in/eSv6MYPi

A reminder that we're currently hiring! Head to the link below to discover more about our latest role 👇

London Legal Support Trust is very proud to be a part of this significant London Funders initiative, working in partnership with some of the key players in the sector under the Advice Workforce Development fund (AWDF) to respond to some of the systematic issues impacting London's advice sector. Thank you, London Funders, for making advice one of the priorities and for all your hard work around diversity, equality, and inclusion. Want to find out more about AWDF, please visit www.awdf.org.uk.

🚨 Final reminder for our last insight meeting of the year! Members, head to the link below to sign up 👇

"We recognise that there is more than one approach to systems change. What all of the various approaches have in common is the desire to tackle complex social issues and the causes of inequalities and injustice" As part of our ongoing learning programme on what it takes to fund and support systems change, we’ve reflected on what Propel – the long term funder collaboration coordinated by London Funders – is teaching us about funding change *and* changing the funding system. Check out our latest learning blog here➡️ https://lnkd.in/eJgAEEuJ

Last week, we attended London Funders inspiring Autumn Conference! It centred around putting communities in the driving seat, to build wealth, power and leadership, paving the way for a better future. Our 3 key takeaways from the brilliant panel talks: ✨ Communities know best what communities need ✨ Mathu Jeyaloganathan discussed exciting social impact initiatives happening right here in Camden to redistribute wealth, build inclusive economies and reduce inequalities, such as Camden's visionary £30m Community Wealth Fund. ✨ The power of the collective ✨ Jane Elizabeth Dawe rightly highlighted that we can achieve more together, by harnessing the power of our collective voice. ✨ Putting people first ✨ Beatrice Animashaun discussed the importance of building trusted relationships with grantees, and reframing growth to mean more than scale, but deeper relationships and deeper impact. At YCF, we share London Funders mission, working in solidarity with the communities we support.

Ready for a new challenge? 🤔 We're currently looking for someone to join us as our Programme Development Manager for the first six months of 2025 to provide high quality support to our collaborative initiatives, working across the team to provide additional resource and expertise to help drive forward our key programmes. We need someone who can help turn our ambitions into action - you will need to be strong at working collaboratively, facilitating meetings and project management, and come with an understanding of how the grant making world works, experience of championing equity and justice, and be a natural communicator across the communities and organisations we work with. We know this is a short application window, but due to the nature of this role being fixed-term with an early January start we will be reviewing applications as they come in, with interviews taking place in the week commencing 16th December with a view to the successful candidate starting with us in early January. Find out more about the role here: https://lnkd.in/e9prc3ij