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One Year On… My reflections on the last 12 months

In my April blog, I highlighted The Foundation’s response to support the immediate and urgent needs of vulnerable people and communities across the UK through the launch of our Hardship Fund.  To date, we’ve supported around 30 charities through the Hardship Fund across the UK. Our funding supported people and families in refuges and homeless shelters, provided food, PPE and welfare care packages, and funded a range of counselling services for young people.  Please view our September blog for an update on Tranche 2 of our Fund which has now closed to applications.

The pandemic, lockdown and now evident recession have amplified the challenges facing the UK’s most vulnerable people and communities.  In this post, I wanted to reflect on the positive consequences of the pandemic: partnership working with purpose.

Our relationships with Foundation charity partners have deepened and strengthened. This has been evident through FARE’s recent employability programmes in Glasgow, supported by MyBnk (providing a continuing focus on financial education and resilience).  Charity partners are increasing their joint working by developing joint funding applications, supporting referrals.  The Foundation can also signpost charities to the excellent pro bono services from Scottish Tech Army and Covid Tech Support. A special shout out to Kirsty McIntosh at Scottish Tech Army for her unwavering support and guidance!

We have actively listened to our charity network to jointly design the Foundation’s sustainable support with local charities and younger people in education, training, employment and volunteering.  In the coming month we will announce an additional funding initiative directed to young people with our youth based charities fully engaged in its future delivery.

Finally, a thank you for all the ongoing support and interest in the Foundation.  I’d particularly like to highlight the work of our Hymans Robertson partners: Helping Hands colleagues who have been key to engaging local charities with the Foundation. We want to hear from you if you have safe volunteering or local fundraising opportunities which we can support in London, Birmingham, Edinburgh or Glasgow.

Keep Safe

Marcella Boyle, CEO

 

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Hardship Fund Update

In April 2020, The Foundation launched its Hardship Fund as a response to the pandemic and subsequent lockdown. The Foundation recognised the need to immediately support charities working with our most vulnerable communities and people. The first tranche of funding was directed at existing Foundation partners.  In June, the launch of a second tranche of funding expanded eligibility to include community-based charities across the UK supported by staff at Hymans Robertson LLP.

In the last 3 months, we were able to support a further 24 UK charities with emergency funding to provide food, care and PPE packages. As charities responded to online and remote delivery of services, funding was also used to support the provision of data and technical gadgets enabling young people to access counselling and welfare services.  

Our charity partners have demonstrated care and support to their communities throughout. Their resilience has been outstanding and humbling.  Our Chair, Clive Fortes, commented:

“It’s sobering to remember how much £250 can support: 15 families for 2 days with essential food supplies; 6 counselling appointments for young people in distress. At a time when many charities are facing reduced income and meeting increasing need, The Foundation was compelled to take immediate action.”

We are pleased to share a few of the responses from our charity partners on the positive impact that hardship funding has had:

“The Hymans Robertson award has helped us to purchase PPE so that we can re-open our building to the families we support and ensure that the important connection between counsellor and family can be established.” Edward’s Trust

“We are very grateful to The Hymans Robertson Foundation for their grant, which will go towards helping Sebastian’s Action Trust provide emergency provision packs to families of seriously-ill children. Whilst lockdown restrictions for many of us are easing, for our families, the reality of isolating at home stays the same. With this grant, we will be able to provide six families with much-needed emergency provisions’ packs.” Sebastian’s Action Trust

“We were delighted to receive the funds which have been used to purchase PPE and new, cleanable seats for our waiting area. As restrictions have lifted, we have opened our Glasgow office to run a Low Vision clinic in partnership with NHS. It has been fantastic to once again welcome our service users and provide much needed face to face services.” Visibility Scotland

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The Ongoing Impact of Covid-19 and Lockdown

The Foundation’s operational plan now reflects a different reality: charities we support can no longer (for most services) deliver to young people and communities, our jointly agreed planned priorities are on pause, and charities are focusing on meeting urgent and emergency needs from vulnerable people and communities across the UK.

In March 2020, NCVO reported that UK charities expected to lose at least over £4 billion income (resulting from lockdown closure of retail shops, the cancellation of fundraising events, the repurposing of reserves and demand for services increasing). Like other charities, the Foundation has concentrated on its purpose and refocused short-term effort to provide ongoing and further financial support to our charity network.

We launched the Hardship Fund in April 2020: open to eligible charities across the UK where the Foundation and Hymans Robertson had relationships. Tranche 2 of the Fund was approved by the Foundation’s Board in May, underlining our ongoing support to the charity sector in its vital work with the UK’s most vulnerable people and communities.

We’re also working with our Foundation partners to identify more areas for their joint working and where possible, opportunities to develop online and remote resources, particularly with MyBnk’s involvement in financial education for young people. 

We continue to talk weekly with partners demonstrating our interest and support. In the worst of these times, it’s humbling to see the effort charities are making to provide much needed services and lifelines to the most isolated and vulnerable. 

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Hymans Robertson Foundation is a registered charity (1168951 / SC046931).

2020 Hymans Robertson Foundation