We are targeting more Funding Plus support towards preventing burnout and improving wellbeing for the people we fund.
Learning from our funding has identified that recruiting and retaining staff and volunteers has been a key challenge over the past 18 months. In 2024 we will be committing an extra £250k in Funding Plus support towards preventing burnout, and improving wellbeing for the people we fund.
Working for social or environmental change in a time of rising costs is taking a toll on the wellbeing of staff, volunteers and trustees, so we are offering additional Funding Plus support to 50 organisations we fund, specifically for wellbeing.
Funding Plus support for wellbeing
- How will the support be offered?
- Funding Plus support of £5,000 will offered to 50 organisations we currently fund, identified from our learning data and our funding relationships.
- No application is required, but we will ask organisations to let us know what they plan to do with the money. We will ask for a short report or survey later to find out what people did and its impact, so that we can share learning with organisations we fund and with other funders.
- Organisations offered wellbeing support are still eligible to apply for Funding Plus for other capacity building work.
- All organisations we fund can apply for Funding Plus support, including wellbeing work.
- Links to advice, guidance and toolkits on workplace wellbeing can be found in useful sector resources
- How can the Funding Plus wellbeing support be spent?
The support is intended to improve staff, volunteer or trustee wellbeing. We trust organisations to use it in a way that works for them. The only limit is it should not be spent on staff remuneration. Below are some suggestions of how the support could be used.
- Opportunities to reconnect e.g. team building, away day, social events
- Training and development e.g. mindfulness, counselling, conflict management, mental health First Aid training, personal resilience
- Professional one to one support e.g. coaching, clinical supervision
- Improving working practice and culture e.g. trauma-informed support, facilitated reflective practice sessions, ergonomic office equipment, gym membership, yoga classes, employee assistance scheme/programme subscription, staff gift vouchers, wellbeing packages
Testing an approach
Through Funding Plus, we can test new ways to meet the capacity building needs of our funded organisations.
We are just getting started on wellbeing work and will use feedback and learning from the support to develop our understanding and approach.
As with all our work, we welcome feedback. If you want to share your thoughts with us on our plans, please email our Impact Support Manager, Shemain at shemain@esmeefairbairn.org.uk.
