Continuation funding awarded to Community Grant Partners
The Smallwood Trust currently funds 27 Community Grant Partners, representing 30% of our total grants. This initiative seeks to shift decision making power directly to local women’s organisations who can then award grants to individual women integrated with their specialist support services.
This programme recently won the grant-making and funding category at the 2022 Charity Awards.
We are delighted to announce that Inspire at St Peters and YSS have received continuation funding as part of our Community Grant Partner Programme over the next 3 years.
Both organisations will continue to disperse grants to individual women experiencing economic hardship and mental health difficulties, both of which have been compounded by the cost of living crisis.
Inspire at St Peters
Inspire at St Peters is a local organisation in Walworth and has been working in partnership with the Smallwood Trust since 2019.
The funding will help to deliver their Parenting Support Programme, a service that has been running since 2011, and provides vulnerable young women who are usually lone parents aged 18-30 facing challenging circumstances such as:
- Possible homelessness
- Rent arrears
- Universal Credit difficulties
- Urgent assistance in fitting, repairing or replacing home fixtures/fitting
Inspire will also support young women through their ‘Into Work’ programme which often compliments Parenting Support, therefore providing a wrap-around approach and encouraging greater resilience.
Nigel, Inspire at St Peter’s Chief Executive, anticipates that the funding will reach 170 women based in the London Borough of Southwark who have experienced severe displacement and dislocation.
YSS
YSS have been delivering grants to women through our Community Grant Partnership scheme for over 5 years.
This continuation funding will enable YSS to financially assist women and their children who have been affected by the following:
- Exploitation and criminalisation
- Parental imprisonment
- Social services
- Women at risk of entering the criminal justice system
Deb, Operations Director at YSS, states that feedback from their previous Community Grant Partner work has shown how significant a grant is regardless of its amount. For example, small amounts for food vouchers or larger grants for safe accommodation deposits, can be transformative.
The Smallwood Trust is committing £8.5 million in grants and operating support to deliver our 2022-2024 Strategic Plan. A large part of this is devolving power to our grant partners through the Community Grant Partnership programme which appears increasingly vital as organisations strive to support vulnerable women through the cost of living crisis and the increased need for financial support it is producing.
https://www.yss.org.uk/
Big congratulations to Inspire and St Peter’s and YSS!
