Earlier this month, the government announced a one-off endowment of £40m to create a new UK-wide charity, The Queen Elizabeth Trust, in memory of the late Queen. With a mission to strengthen communities across the country, it will focus on shared spaces that bring people together, including under-used buildings, green spaces, and neighbourhood hubs.
This follows similar announcements by the DDCMS, who in January announced £11.5bn of funding to be shared by 15 areas across England as part of the new Local Covenant Partnership Fund. The fund will focus on communities most affected by the cost-of-living crisis. It also re-opened its City of Culture fund and launched an exciting new Town of Culture Fund for 2028.
But We’re About People Not Places
If, like many charities, however, you’re thinking the above, then think again! The DDCMS is suggesting that the Local Covenant Partnership Fund will support activities in areas such as;
- Mental health
- Adult social care
- Women’s refuges
- Child poverty
In 2021, The King’s Fund ventured to define ‘place’ in their report, ‘Developing Place-Based Partnerships: The Foundation of Effective Integrated Care Systems.’ They suggested, “The factors that determine the size and boundaries of a place will vary. In some cases, place footprints have been established around clusters of district councils, the area served by a hospital or established groupings that are already being used for joint working across the NHS and local government.”
So then, perhaps this summer is the time for your charity to undertake a strategic piece of work to identify;
- Where it fits within this multitude of place-based giving schemes
- What it can offer
- How it can tailor its approach
- Who it should partner with
- How they can access funds together
Challenges of Partnership Bidding
Of course, we’re not suggesting any of this is easy! The Office for Civil Society and the DDCMS commissioned the Researchery to undertake an evaluation of place-based giving schemes in 2018, which identified the following key challenges;
- Seed funding
- Ongoing core cost funding
- A dedicated development worker
- A degree of local affluence alongside deprivation
- Inertia
- Capacity issues / resource scarcity
- Building a reputation and track record
- Evaluating impact
- Marketing and Communications
- Building partnerships
- Making and maintaining relationships with corporates
- The problem with partnerships
- Avoiding unhelpful competition
- Engaging with the local community
- Jurisdiction issues.
At Underwood Consulting, we understand that partnership bidding can be fraught with difficulties, and have been delivering a session on the practical solutions you can employ to tackle some of these difficulties for many years.
Time For a Strategic Re-Think
So, if you’re undertaking the strategic work mentioned above or you’re considering establishing a place-based partnership to bid for much-needed funding, call us to discuss how we can help.