Middlesbrough Collaboration – Lessons from co-production in grant-making
June 18, 2025We’re proud to have contributed to a recent article on the NPC website, sharing reflections on the Middlesbrough Collaboration—a £1 million partnership between Smallwood Trust, Buttle UK, and Turn2us, focused on tackling gendered and child poverty in one of Middlesbrough’s most deprived wards.
This programme was co-produced with local partners Ubuntu Multicultural Centre and Creative Minds Middlesbrough, along with local women. Together, we shaped a grant fund that has already supported 50 women, while helping to map the deeper systems contributing to financial insecurity.
As Rutendo Ngwena, our Shifting Power and Learning Manager, explains: “The women in the group are now empowered to start to think about long-term systems change, both in how they can collaborate with us and how they can personally contribute towards it.”
Four Key Lessons from Co-production
- Trust takes time.
At first, many women were cautious. Building trust required safe, welcoming spaces, plain language, and support from trusted local partners. - Flexible frameworks work best.
Having clear parameters helped, but being open to changes—like offering two-stage grants—was crucial to maintaining collaboration. - Start with a prompt.
Rather than presenting a blank page, offering a starting idea made workshops more productive and less overwhelming for participants. - Stories reveal impact.
Traditional evaluation tools didn’t capture the full picture. Using storytelling and the ‘most significant change’ method helped surface personal successes—from launching small businesses to gaining confidence.
Why It Matters
This collaboration is about more than grants—it’s about shifting power. Co-production with local women has not only shaped a better programme but laid the foundations for long-term systems change. We hope our learning encourages other funders to embrace this approach.
