Smallwood Trust shortlisted for Charity Collaboration of the Year

We are delighted to share that the Smallwood Trust has been shortlisted for the Charity Collaboration of the Year Award at the ACO Annual Conference 2023.

The nomination is in recognition of our Middlesbrough Collaboration in which we work with our trusted partners, Buttle UK and Turn2Us, to tackle gendered poverty and transform the lives of women and children in the local area.

Ellie Young, the Programme Manager for the Middlesbrough Collaboration, has worked hard with local organisations Ubuntu Multi-Cultural Centre and Creative Minds Middlesbrough, and local women to map the root causes of gendered and child poverty in the ward – which identified a combination of systemic and short-term causes.

From there, we took the collective decision to initially co-design a local grant fund informed by these workshops to address immediate need and build trust with the local community. Smallwood’s own Community Grant Partnership Programme has shown that delivering hardship grants to cover basic costs (food, electric, bills) can allow for much needed ‘breathing space’ to think about wider, long-term changes to be made that will improve the lives of local women and their children.

Through the co-production process the group defined the vision for the project as:

“We want to see financially independent women and their children, who are happy and healthy, and who are able to reach their dreams.”

Paul Carbury, Smallwood CEO, says:

“We’re delighted to see collaborative efforts to tackle UK gendered poverty recognised by the ACO Annual Conference 2023. Ensuring women are financially resilient and able to speak up about issues that impact their lives is key to Smallwood’s mission as a specialist women’s funder and we thank all involved in the Middlesbrough Collaboration for their incredible efforts so far.”

Winners of the ACO Annual Conference will be announced 27th September.