Grants For Policy / System Change
Over the last 12 months, we have pivoted towards thinking more about systems change, which resulted in the recent approval by the Board of the place-based funding model, that we will implement through the funds we committed to the DCMS Community Match programme.
There is an opportunity to integrate some of the work of the policy organisations we are funding into the place-based model and strengthen the connections between the frontline and the national and local policy campaigners.
Projects
Pay and Progression of Women of Colour – Fawcett
In November 2021 the Fawcett Society published a Smallwood-backed report, as part of a wider project run alongside the Runnymede Trust, which produced an article in the Financial Times concluding that ethnic minority women are “almost invisible from positions of power across both public and private sectors” in the UK. The project and its findings are set to be presented to the government, employers and the public to mobilise support and bring about change.
View Pay and Progression of Women of Colour Literature Review.
Domestic Abuse Bill (2021) – Surviving Economic Abuse (SEA)
In March 2021 it was announced that a campaign by SEA that Smallwood have supported has led to the government announcing that post-separation abuse will become a criminal offence under the Serious Crime Act when the Domestic Abuse Bill passes into law.
Smallwood and SEA have been working together to oversee the implementation of the act since.
The Local Data Project – Women’s Budget Group (WBG)
The Local Data Project is supported by Smallwood and run by WBG and aims to build the capacity of local women’s and equalities organisations and groups to access, analyse and use local data. This in turn will improve their ability to influence local and national policy making and hold decision makers to account on issues of women’s poverty and economic wellbeing.
As well as producing reports, the project has also provided to workshops wanting to make use of local data as well as workshops related to themes highlighted in the reports such as the gender pay gap.