Smallwood win Charity of the Year Award

We are honoured to have been selected as the Association of Charitable Organisations’ (ACO) 2021 Charity of the Year for organisations with an income of between £1m and £5m.

The ACO stated that this award was primarily for our ‘large increase in grants spend in response to the pandemic, both direct and through community frontline partners.’

The Smallwood Trust responded to the pandemic by tripling its grant expenditure from £1.4m in 2019 to £4.5m in 2020 to help meet the unprecedented demand from women who were disproportionately affected by the crisis. £2.5m of this was awarded as emergency funds thanks to the substantial external funding received from DCMS, The National Lottery Community Fund and Barclays.

In 2020, our funding supported 19,000 women. The key target groups included black and minoritised women, women escaping domestic violence and economic abuse and women who had been pushed into poverty as a result of the pandemic.

This funding also helped safeguard 300 vital frontline roles to ensure crucial services in the women’s sector could continue to help women with housing, debt and employability support and to escape from economic abuse and violence.

Paul Carbury, Chief Executive of the Smallwood Trust, said: “We are humbled to receive this award which we believe recognises the importance of helping marginalised women whose circumstances have been exacerbated by the pandemic. I would also like to thank the staff at Smallwood for their incredible work and dedication during such a challenging time.”