Meet our team
Sarah Hedley
Sarah Hedley
Sarah is part of the social investment team, managing a portfolio of investments, developing new proposals, and supporting Esmée’s broader social investment work.
Before joining the Esmée, Sarah worked at the Stone Family Foundation supporting water and sanitation enterprises in Africa and Asia, and as a senior consultant at the charity think tank and consultancy, NPC.
You might be interested in
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21 November 2023Using social investment to improve our natural world
Sarah Hedley, Esmée’s Social Investment Portfolio Manager, writes about our social investment plans to improve our natural world. This is part of a series of blogs on how our social investment strategy will contribute to Esmée’s mission.
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Changing how we fund youth-led culture and creativity
We are changing how we fund youth-led culture and creativity and plan to share our plans for a new funding programme in the New Year. To prepare, we will close to applications towards youth-led culture and creativity at 5pm on 10 November 2023.
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Developing our social investment strategy to support our mission
Jonny Page, Esmée’s Head of Social and Impact Investment, outlines our plans for social investment and the opportunities it offers to support our mission.
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Testing a new approach to make New Connections
We want to test a new approach to funding and are ringfencing £1.5m for New Connections funding to find and support organisations that could not, or would not, usually apply to Esmée. For the first phase in 2023 and 2024, we are starting with work led by and for communities experiencing racial inequity.
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Pre-application Q&A webinar: 27 September 2023
We hosted a pre-application Q&A webinar on 27 September for organisations interested in applying to Esmée for support who have questions about our application process or guidance. Catch up on the recording and see all the questions answered.
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Esmée Fairbairn Foundation’s strategy extended to 2027
Esmée’s Trustee Board have agreed a two-year extension to our 2020 strategy, committing to our current funding priorities to the end of 2027.
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Esmée Fairbairn Foundation welcomes three new Trustees
We are excited to welcome three new Trustees to Esmée’s Board: Elspeth Jones, Clare Moriarty and Mary Ann Sieghart.
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Blue Spaces – Wales: our approach to assessing expressions of interest
Earlier this year, we launched Blue Spaces – Wales, with an open call for expressions of interest for projects that support communities to improve their local freshwaters. Jenny Wheeldon, Esmée’s Freshwater Partnerships Manager, shares our approach to assessing applications and what’s next.
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Inclusive Histories: engaging communities to reflect our shared past
A new report on Inclusive Histories by British Future explores how arts and culture organisations are reflecting the complexity of our shared past, engaging communities to help shape the work, and navigating polarised responses.
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Our response to the draft Children’s Social Care National Framework
Janet Grauberg, Esmée’s learning partner for our Leaving Care Learning Programme, shares her reflections on the Government’s draft Children’s Social Care Framework and Dashboard, and how we and organisations we work with, have responded.
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Annual Report and Accounts for 2022
Our 2022 Annual Report gives an overview of our operations, funding and investments during the year.
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Funding Plus 2023 survey findings
We asked people to share their experiences of capacity building support to help us understand what organisations most need right now.
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Pre-application Q&A webinar: 20 June 2023
We're hosting a pre-application Q&A webinar on 20 June for organisations interested in applying to Esmée for support who have questions about our application process or guidance.
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Acting on feedback: what we've done so far
After asking for your views on Esmée, we wanted to share back the steps we've taken so far to improve our processes and the information we share.
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Update to Esmée’s expression of interest form
We are making a couple of updates to our expression of interest form for applicants, which will be in place from 26 June. Applicants submitting an expression of interest before this date will still be able to do so using our existing form.
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Invitation to Tender: review of Nature friendly farming
We're looking for someone to carry out a review to inform how we deliver our Nature friendly farming strategy.
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Impact of the rising cost of living on organisations we fund
At the beginning of 2023, we offered most organisations we fund a 10% uplift on their grant to support them with the rising cost of living. We asked those with higher incomes how rising costs are impacting their work. Esmée's Learning Officer, Philippa Wilkinson, shares a snapshot of what people told us.
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Funding the UK Women and Girls Sector: Where Does the Money Go?
Research commissioned by Rosa, the National Lottery Community Fund and Esmée maps the UK women and girls' sector and its funding. Annabel Durling, Funding Manager at Esmée, shares her reflections on the report's findings.
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Funding in memory of Baroness Linklater of Butterstone
The Trustees of Esmée Fairbairn Foundation have made a grant of £160,000 to the charity Coram Family and Childcare in memory of Baroness Veronica Linklater, who was a Trustee of the Foundation from 1990 to 2013, and sadly died in December 2022.
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Foundation Practice Rating Year 2: How Esmée did
The Foundation Practice Rating (FPR) has published its second annual report assessing foundations on three areas of practice: diversity, accountability and transparency.
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Blue Spaces - Wales, Mannau Glas – Cymru: Call for expressions of interest
Blue Spaces – Wales is a new initiative to support imaginative approaches to looking after local freshwaters – rivers, streams, lakes, canals and ponds. As part of this, we're launching an open call for ideas and projects in Wales.
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Funder Commitment on Climate Change: 2022 update
Read our 2022 update on our work towards the six goals of the Funder Commitment on Climate Change.
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Invitation to Tender: mapping work on diversity in the environment sector
We are commissioning a review of existing and planned initiatives which aim to address a lack of diversity in the environment sector in the UK.
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Working in partnership to support Blue Spaces in the UK
Esmée’s Freshwater Partnerships Development Manager, Jenny Wheeldon, shares our plans for a Blue Spaces programme to support people and organisations to take imaginative approaches to looking after their freshwater environments.
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Government consults on its plan for children's social care reform in England
Read a summary of the Government's response to the recommendations of the Independent Review of Children's Social Care in England, along with their plan for children's social care reform.
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Cost of living uplift
Caroline Mason, Esmée's Chief Executive shares her reflections on the additional support we are offering to most organisations we fund in response to the rising cost of living.
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Remembering Baroness Veronica Linklater
Baroness Veronica Linklater was a Trustee at Esmée Fairbairn Foundation from 1990 to 2013.
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Esmée's response to the Cost of Living crisis
In recognition of the extraordinary rise in the cost of living over the past year, we are committing an extra £7.4m to organisations we fund who are being affected by rising costs.
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Reflections on the Commission on Culture and Local Government
Following the publication of the Commission on Culture and Local Government’s final report, Cornerstones of Culture, Veda Harrison, Esmée’s Director of Creative, Confident Communities and A Fairer Future, shares her reflections.
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Who is our funding reaching?
Using the DEI Data Standard, we started gathering data on organisations we fund as well as those applying to us so that we can better understand who our funding is reaching, and make progress towards our commitments to diversity, equity and inclusion.
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