Veda Harrison, Director of Creative, Confident Communities and A Fairer Future, shares our new strategy for A Fairer Future. We will open to applications in A Fairer Future in October 2022.
Over the past year we have been working on our “A Fairer Future” strategy, to identify where we can make more of a difference for people in the UK. We wanted to share our new strategy now, as soon as it was agreed, and we're currently working on the guidance, which we'll share when we open to applications in October.
Since joining Esmée in September 2021, I’m now really excited to share our new approach and priorities in A Fairer Future.
View the PDF in full screen or click the download button in the top right hand corner. You can also view our strategy on a webpage. Alternatively, click on a priority below to learn more about the long-term outcomes we hope to contribute to.
Five priorities
We have five priority areas where we believe we can make the most effective contribution:
- Arts and creativity making change
- Children and young people's rights
- Racial justice
- Gender justice
- Migrant justice
We will do this by using our existing knowledge and relationships, by working at the intersections of issues, and by building our understanding through working with others - especially those with experience of the issues we are trying to address. Through identifying these priorities, I think Esmée will truly be able to work alongside those we fund, using the full range of our resources to support new unusual alliances, or to enable existing ones to really unlock change.
Next steps: developing our roadmap
Having identified the priorities we wish to focus on, our next steps will be to develop our route to the long-term outcomes we have set out. We will use various approaches to develop this roadmap, but key to this will be our relationships and collaborations that ensures sector expertise helps guide us towards the collective change we are all seeking.
Thank you to everyone who has helped us and challenged us. We had difficult choices to make, and we are grateful for all the insights and advice we’ve had from people and organisations we support.
What the new strategy means for you
If you’re reading this and unsure as to where, or if, your work fits into our strategy, we plan to share much more about this in October. As well as our updated funding guidance, we will also hold webinars where you can ask us questions.
To be kept up to date with our plans for A Fairer Future, please sign up to our newsletter. If you have any questions about the strategy, you can email: communications@esmeefairbairn.org.uk.
FAQs
- Can I apply for funding?
We are closed to new applications under our A Fairer Future aim until October. You can still apply under Creative, Confident Communities and Our Natural World, however, please note that we are experiencing very high demand for our funding this year. We already have a full pipeline of potential grants for 2022 and, as ever, will be weighing every application carefully against our strategy and what we are looking for. We will have to make some hard choices and there will be a lot of brilliant work which we won’t be able to fund.
- What does the new strategy mean for my existing grant or application?
If you have an application or grant in progress in A Fairer Future, the advice on our previous update still stands. Your Funding Manager will contact you if there’s any action you need to take.
