This page has the transcript of the webinar held on 12 May 2025. There are also links to watch the recording and additional questions we gave written answers to during the webinar, or have responded to after the webinar.
Webinar recording and additional Q&A
- Watch the recording and download the presentation
- Additional questions - these were given written answers either during or after the webinar.
Speakers
- Hannah Lim, Funding Manager Lead - A Fairer Future
- Alison Holdom, Funding Manager Lead - Creative, Confident Communities
- Simon Wightman, Funding Manager Lead - Our Natural World
- Luna Dizon, Communications Lead
Welcome and housekeeping
Hannah Lim:
Good afternoon everyone. Welcome to this pre-application Q&A. We're really pleased that so many of you could join us today, and hope that you find it useful. I'm Hannah Lim:. I'm a funding lead for A Fairer Future, and I'm here with my colleagues, Alison and Simon, and we'll spend the next half an hour sharing information about our grant funding, what we're looking for and how we make decisions. We'll use the rest of the time to answer questions, which Luna will facilitate, and our colleagues, Annabel, Laura and Siân are also on hand in the background to help with the Q&A. Thank you, folks.
For accessibility, we have Nana and Altan who'll be providing BSL interpretation and interpreting what's spoken live. To make sure that they're always on view, we recommend keeping your view on gallery view, including when the slides are being shared. We've also asked speakers to describe themselves and where they are. So, I'm a white woman with shoulder length brown hair and a blunt fringe. I'm wearing a denim shirt, and I'm sat on my desk at home with some scenic pictures from various trips on the wall behind me.
Alison Holdom:
Hi, thank you, Hannah. I'm Alison Holdum. I'm funding manager at Esmée Fairbairn. I'm an older white woman with fair hair and wearing a dark top, and I'm sitting in my home with a door behind me.
Simon Wightman:
Hi, I'm Simon Wightman:, I am a slightly greying white man who's looking slightly unshaved this morning and wearing glasses, and my background is fuzzed out so you can't see the terrible mess.
Luna Dizon:
Sorry, I'll just introduce myself. I'm Luna. I'm the communications lead at Esmée Fairbairn foundation, so you might have seen a few emails from me about the webinar. I am a South East Asian woman. I've got brown skin, long, black, straight hair, black T shirt and snowdrop earrings on.
Hannah Lim:
Okay, great. So for your practicality before we start, then. Live captioning is available for this session, so there's a link in the chat if you'd like to see the captions in a separate window, you can also click the closed captions button at the bottom of the window to see them within zoom.
You can post questions at any point using the Q&A facility which you can find at the bottom of your screens. And I'd encourage you to vote for questions submitted by another participant if you'd really like to see that one asked. And you can do that by just clicking on the thumbs up icon next to the question. As mentioned, we'll also have Luna, Annabel, Laura and Siân typing responses to questions in the Q&A. We'll try to answer as many questions as possible, and we'll prioritise questions that are upvoted. That's the ones that have the little thumbs up. If there are questions that we miss, we'll answer them afterwards, and we'll also be using this to update our FAQs on the website. And you might find that the answer to your question is already there.
We are expecting a lot of questions, but please don't worry if you miss anything. We're recording the webinar, we will share the transcript with additional questions covered on our website as soon as we can afterwards. So on to some slides.
We're holding pre-application Q&A webinars because we know that you want to ask us questions before applying to resume, but we can't speak to all individually. We've had about 500 people sign up to this webinar, so hopefully this is a good way to answer as many of your questions as possible. We make changes after every webinar based on feedback, and we'll ask you for your thoughts following this one too.
So, today we'll cover a quick introduction to Esmée what we don't fund and what we're looking for, the things that we consider when we're making decisions, our application process and what that looks like, and then we'll move into the Q&A.
We are aware that we do need to try strike a tricky balance today. We want to be more transparent, but we also need to be absolutely honest that we're not holding this webinar to encourage more applications as we're continuing to make a similar number of grants, the need is rising in the sectors that we support, and as a funder that's open, we have been receiving more applications. So we want to do more to save people from spending precious time applying to us when it's not likely that we'll fund their work. So we hope that this webinar will help you to decide whether you should invest time in applying to us or if your efforts might be better focused elsewhere.
We want to answer as many questions as possible, but we know that the main question for many of you is: Will Esmée fund my work, and I'm sorry, but the answer for most of you will be no. We won't be able to give you that one to one advice or feedback about your own organisation, but we hope to give a clearer picture of what it is that we're looking for, how we make decisions and how we use our application process to do that.
About Esmée - slides 3, 4 and 5
Hannah Lim:
So our strategy, which will run until the end of 2027, focuses on three main aims. They are improving our natural world, securing fairer future, and strengthening the bonds in communities in the UK. Across these aims, we have 13 different funding priorities, as well as assessing and managing grants, our funding managers are exploring other ways we can be proactive in making progress towards our goals and that can include inviting applications, commissioning research, convening and co-design and using our influence.
This next slide, yep, has an overview image of our funding aims and priorities. You can find the details of our strategy, including a full text version of the screen readers on our website, and also on the website, you'll find our full funding guidance with more information on what we're looking for in each priority and the long term outcomes we're focusing our support on. And there's also lots of examples of the work there that we funded, which we know can be really helpful. And I'm now going to hand over to my colleague Simon for some stats.
Simon Wightman:
Thanks, Hannah. So, here we can see some of the sort of numbers that made that kind of trying to describe the size and shape of our grant making towards the aims and priorities that Hannah outlined in the last slide. We try and focus our funding on fewer, longer term grants wherever we can, and we are really open and keen to support core costs of supporting organisations where there's that strong fit with that, with that strategy. Last year, we made 241 grants across 13 funding priorities. 94 of those grants were to organisations we haven't funded before. The remaining 61% or so going to organisations that we have funded, even if not continuous with the previous grant at some point in the past.
What we don't fund and what we're looking for - slides 6, 7 and 8
Simon Wightman:
And in the next slide, I'm just going to look through some of our exclusions. So, here are some of the things that we don't fund - exclusions because our focus is on that long term grant making and that strategic focus, a line of strategy we don't tend to fund very small organisations, and we assess size by turnover in this in this case, and we don't fund those without well established governance. I'm not going to go through those exclusions in any great detail, but you can find a full list on our website.
And now on to some of the things that we're looking for when we when we're assessing a grant proposal. Applicants must show that they're leading the way, either themselves or as part of a collaborative movement or partnership. They must be driving change for the future, and that must be doing something new or using tried and tested models to push things forward. It's a really difficult bit of being a funding manager is that it isn't enough for work to be good and impactful in a limited environment. We need to be able to see whether sort of wider implications might be wider practice that can be applied more widely. We support work that aims to make a lasting difference, reaching beyond those directly engaged to influence policy, practice and behaviour. I'm just going to very briefly take a recent example from the Our Natural World, so the one of our environment programme, to try and illustrate some of those things in a real example, I'm going to go with Afonydd Cymru.
All of our grants very different, so each will illustrate a sort of a different range of things that we might be looking for. But Afonydd Cymru represents a network of rivers trusts working across Wales. So it's a collaborative association of organisations working to improve rivers and streams across Wales so clearly a very strong link with our funding priorities. But it was able to demonstrate a clear track record for impact. It was able to point to specific cases where its interventions led to different policy outcomes, to different ways in which Welsh Government and Natural Resources Wales approached regulating polluting industry, it clearly articulated its priorities looking forward. So it wasn't only able to show its impact so far, but it was also able to show clearly what it wanted to do over the coming years, and what difference a grant from us would make to delivering that work. And we also understood their role. So what we wanted to understand was, obviously, you have a fun Cymru working within Wales, but that's in the context of The Rivers Trust at a UK level, where does the responsibility of The Rivers Trust and what specifically is Afonydd Cymru's role within that. And within Wales, working on policy and advocacy, you have Wales Environment Link, so where would work fall to Wales Environment Link, where would it fall to Afonydd Cymru. How can we be confident as a funder that we're avoiding those risks of duplication and that sort of thing? I think I'm going to pass over to Alison.
How we make decisions, and Diversity, Equity and Inclusion - slides 9 and 10
Alison Holdom:
Thanks, Simon. So what are we looking for? I'm just going to go through this and read this slide through, because it's quite important. So we're interested in also interested in unusual collaborations and ambitious partnerships. These could be operating regionally or nationally, involving a range of partners, from the charity, the public sector or corporate stakeholders. There's unusual partnerships, there's new partnerships or existing partnerships. We can look at we're also looking for work which makes connections across our aims, so work that happens within the communities, but also within Our Natural World or within A Fairer Future. We want to see across all our work, the communities or people most affected involved, most affected involved in leading the change. This is a really important point across everything we do.
We take a support we support work which takes a preventative approach, and we support work that has practical plans to achieve and sustain change that long term or sustained ambition is really important to us. I have to make clear, however, that even organisations that meet all of these points of interest will not guaranteed to be funded. I want to take a little time, as Simon did, to just give an example here of something that fits into these points of interest, and that's a grant that was made through Creative, Confident Communities for an organisation called We're Right Here.
And We're Right Here is a national campaign for community power, calling for legislation which would devolve power to communities. So, that can be over how money is spent locally, how sign services are commissioned or delivered, and also the ownership of local assets. It's a coalition, so it goes back to that collaboration and partnership, and it's a collaboration of civil civil society organisations, community leaders and champions, and that matches the way that a lot of us grantees, particularly in Creative, Confident Communities, work in collaboration, alliances and networks.
Esmée's role here, in with We're Right Here, is to support a group of committed community leaders with experience and expertise in serving and advocating for local change. The funding supports them to broaden and strengthen the community base, to reflect a more diverse leadership. And that is another element that crosses multiply across all our aims, is that diverse leadership is something that we're really interested in. We're Right Here, also in terms of Creative, Confident Communities, crosses over two of our priority areas. It both fits in with Communities working together for change, and Local economies work better for the people who live there. So it matches that a connection across our aims. It matches the communities of people most involved, and it definitely has a preventative approach. Now, if we move on to the next slide.
So, what do we consider when we're making decisions? We have to make judgments. That's what what our job is about, and by what we're trying to do here is putting the track record is one of the key things we look at. We don't just look at successes though. We also look at what was learned when things didn't go to plan. We look at connections. How could this link to and complement other work we support? How could it increase the combined impact of the work that we're supporting. Then the broader context, we don't understand all the context across every work, piece of work that applies to us across the country. So we want what we're looking for in an application is one that explains to us what are the opportunities and the barriers? Who are the allies, who are the collaborators, and what implements or leverage will that work have within that context?
And then finally, we also consider what difference our support could make. What value is our funding having? What extra support will that add to your work? And when we you're putting your work on our radar, if you submit an expression of interest to us, and you let us know that you think it fits our strategy. And these are the sort of things that we're thinking about from our point of view in response to your application. And I will now pass back to Hannah.
Hannah Lim:
Thanks, Al. So we also consider diversity, equity and inclusion and DEI, for short. In our application process, applicants will be asked at the expression of interest stage to complete a DEI monitoring form about their organisation using the DEI data standard. So, the DEI data standard collects organisation level information on whether an organisation is working for and led by a group sharing a single characteristic. It's not a way to capture the breadth of how DEI is present or not in an organisation. So at proposal stage, we asked applicants to tell us about their approach to DEI within their organisation and through their work, and we use the information to help us understand who our funding is reaching, as well as identify and address structural inequity in our funding. It forms a part of our assessment of applications, and we're interested in how people and communities most impacted by the issues shape the work.
For some areas of our strategy, we will be prioritising applications from organisations led by people with lived experience of the issues, and this is highlighted in our guidance for those priorities and is relevant for a number of our fairer future priorities, in particular, for example, within our arts and creativity making change priority, our work on a more representative cultural workforce is currently focused on disabled people and communities experiencing racial inequity, and we are prioritising applications from organisations led by those groups. That doesn't mean that all organisations we fund will be led by those with lived experience of the issue that they're working on, but DEI is still an important part of our assessment. So we'd be looking to understand, regardless of the work you do, how the organisation represents the community it works with, how it ensures equity in its work, and what mechanisms it has in place to ensure voices that are more likely to be excluded are heard.
We know, though, that our eligibility criteria are an unfair barrier for organisations that are led by communities experiencing racial inequity or that are disability led and tend to be smaller organisations, and we're exploring how about to tackle this with our new connections funding. Based on DEI data we gathered about who our funding is reaching, last year, nearly half of the grants we made went to organisations led by people who faced structural inequity as a result of their identity or lived experience. And you can find more information about the DEI data we gathered in a recent story on our website. Luna will share that link in the chat and now, as well as a link for more information about our new connections funding as well. And now, I think Luna is also going to share a video about the application process.
How to apply - slide 11 (video)
Genevieve Ford-Saville
Next, we're going to show you a little video on our application process.
There are six steps to apply.
One, Take our quiz to check you meet the minimum eligibility criteria. You'll be asked quick questions on the funding you're seeking and your organisation. The quiz takes a few minutes.
Two, read our funding guidance. It has three sections. A, more detail on how to apply. B, what we do and don't support, and C, our strategy and funding priorities. Sections A and B take 30 minutes to read. For C, our strategy, read the parts relevant to your work. You'll find information on the outcomes we are focusing our support on.
Three, if you think Esmée is a good fit for your work, submit an expression of interest. Use this to tell us briefly what work you would like Esmée to support, about the change you're focused on achieving, and how your organisation is well placed to deliver it. You'll have 300 words. We'll also look at your website to learn more about your organisation and work. You'll hear from us within four weeks to let you know whether we'll take your application further.
Four, if your work is a potential match, we'll invite you for a conversation to learn more. The conversation will cover fit to our strategy, your approach and your track record.
Five, if your plans are a strong fit, we'll invite you to submit a proposal. You'll have three months to submit a proposal. If you already have a document that describes your work and shows how your work aligns with our strategy, you can use this.
Six, after receiving your proposal, we'll invite you for a follow up conversation. We'll then do a detailed assessment of your application. We aim to give you a decision within three months of receiving your proposal.
Assessing applications and expression of interest tips - slides 12 to 16
Simon Wightman:
It ended rather abruptly. Is that on to me for a little bit of an insight into the into the what happens outside the behind the scenes? So with just a couple of slides, just to give a little bit of a flavour for the sort of sort of things that we'll be looking at, some of the conversations that we'll be having about your proposal. So the expression of interest is used as a basic screening step. Effectively, we're checking, do you meet our minimum funding requirements? And we've talked a little bit about what those are. Is the work a good fit with our funding priorities? Is it leading the way? Is it driving change for the future, and is it aiming to make a lasting difference? We might also, at this stage, look at material that's publicly available, so stuff that might be on your website or that you've submitted to the Charity Commission, and for those that look a really good potential match, we'll invite for a phone call with for a chance to explore the application further. This is usually a fairly informal chat. It really helps us to get into the depth of what you're proposing and why you're the right organization for taking that forward. And next slide. Thanks, Luna.
And I just think at this stage, we just want to be really upfront about the number of applications that we receive. So 7% of expressions of interest that come in through the website where there'd been no previous contact are invited to submit a full proposal. That's a really small percentage. We would like that not to be such a small percentage, and we are trying to be as clear as possible where we can around the sort of applications that are likely to be successful, to try and reduce wasted effort in terms of applying for us and then not progressing any further. But that has been a stubborn figure to change. It should remain reasonably constant that that's the number of of sort of unsolicited expressions of interests that are invited on to fully full proposal. Once you're invited onto a full proposal, we have a quite a different picture in which 84% of organisations invited to a full proposal go on to receive a grant, and that's high because we're inviting only those organisations which are a really strong fit with with our strategy.
For in for expressions of interest that we've invited, the success rate is higher, and we're mindful that there's likely to be a bias here. We're asking the same questions of expressions of interest we've invited as for those that we don't but we know that our existing knowledge and learning will factor into our decisions. In addition, many of us working in the funding team at Esmée have worked in the sector previously, and so there comes with a wealth of information on what's worked and what hasn't, and it wouldn't be fair to say that that doesn't influence at all our thinking about proposals going forward. I think there's also a load more information and stats on the website, if anybody wants to dig into that in a bit more detail. Now, Al.
Alison Holdom:
Thank you, Simon. One of the questions we get asked a lot is, How do we get on your radar? And when you consider the previous slide, you can understand why people ask that question. It's important that we remain open to expressions of interest as applications, but also that we support organisations that are already known to us or some new connections that we make. So there are two ways that we learn about organisations work, and this is how it works. One is by us proactively seeking them out, and to do that, we attend sector and community events, we carry out research and we follow up on recommendations we fund or work from people who we fund or work with. The other is through submitting an expression of interest on our website. And we've said this before in the in this webinar, but it has the support that has gone to organisations we haven't funded before is increasing. In 2024, 39% of grants we made were given to 94 organisations that we hadn't previously funded, and half of those came in through the website. So it is a route that can work. If you want to get on our radar, the best way, honestly, is to put in any an expression of interest. To go on to the next slide.
We often get asked, What makes a good expression of interest? That's a very tricky question. So what we decided to do was to give you an example from Participate Projects in Bradford - they've kindly let us share this. You have the slides already so you can read them at home at more leisure, but you can see from the details provided that Manningham Mills, which is the project and involved matched our broad funding priorities, but also the information that was in that what we are looking for section that I mentioned above, this application came into our Creative, Confident Communities aim, and it aligned really well with the funding priorities for community driven enterprise and communities working together for change. It was an uninvited EOI, that's the important thing to say. It came from through our website, from someone we haven't funded before. And just to highlight another thing about why we thought this was a good expression of interest, is that in Creative, Confident Communities, we have a set of principles that we look at when we're funding, when we're doing assessments for funding. Those are available on our website. If you look at the guidance for for support area for Creative, Confident Communities, and it's about putting the place first, being community led, prioritising equity and creating long term change. And those are specific to Creative, Confident Communities, but equally, apply to the other areas that we work on, and that this expression of interest met all of those really carefully.
And I'm now going to hand back to, oh, just one other last thing, sorry, one other last thing was just to say, what makes a good EOI, there are some tips here. Be clear about what you're asking for funding for it can only take a line or two, but it's really important to say exactly what that is, whether that's a particular project or a salary or a post. Please remember that we also look at your website as part of the expression of interest process, because this helps us understand so much more about your organisation and your track record. So you don't need to put all of that into your into your expression of interest. Really use that to focus on your work in relation to our strategy.
So the example above gives a really strong sense of all these things, what they're aiming for, an understanding of what change will be like, why the work is needed in that specific place, and how it builds on previous work. They've got a little bit about who they are as an organisation and what they're trying to do, but specifically in terms of the people and partnerships that will be involved. And that gives us a much clearer idea about the link and the context for the work. And it's clear that the local community will be at the heart of change. They also give very brief descriptions of the activities that they're trying to have funded, and talk about the broader systems change they're seeking. So they're managing to talk about the broader systems change, but also add something about the actual activity that they want funding for. And now I'm going to pass back to Luna.
Q&A - questions are in bold
Luna Dizon:
Thanks everyone. So we are going to move on to the Q&A section. And just quickly, because I know that there's a lot going on in this webinar with lots of questions, some questions being answered, given typed answers by some of our colleagues behind the scenes. And I know there's been a couple of tech issues. I just want to assure you that this is being recorded, and all the information will be up on our website, including a full transcript and all the questions that we answer, including ones that we might not answer during the the webinar. We'll answer them afterwards and send you a link to those to those answers. Thanks to everyone who's already started putting in their questions.
I'm going to go to one from Sarah first about our governance requirements, and how we define well established governance. She asked: does this include newer organisations?
Hannah, if that's all right, I'll go to you.
Hannah Lim:
Thanks, Luna. A good question. So I'd say there's a mix across our portfolio of newer and more established organisations. Where an organisation is newer, obviously we're looking at different things in terms of track record. We're looking more at the people involved and the kind of previous history of work that's been done that way. When we say well established governance, it doesn't necessarily have to have been long running to be sort of set up in a way that we could fund. We would use our usual assessment and processes to look at how the organisation is managed, day to day; how strategic decisions are made; and look at the robustness of processes and policies that are in place that way. So, taking it on the two different fronts: track record, we would use different mechanisms to assess that in terms of the people involved; and for for the governance, we would be looking at your policies, practices and procedures that you're using in terms of the day to day management of the organisation.
Luna Dizon:
There were a few questions that were sent to us in advance, so I'm going to ask some of those. There's a question here from Andrew, and he says that they appreciate that Esmée prefers to make its own approaches to organisations who do not meet the £100k turnover. And he asked: what can we do to get on your radar?
Unfortunately, we can only accept applications from those who meet all of our eligibility criteria. So we'd recommend that they focus their efforts on other sources of funding. If things change and they do meet all our eligibility criteria, and they feel like they're a strong fit to our funding guidance, then they're obviously welcome to to apply. The main thing is that we already receive so many more eligible applications than we can fund. So the criteria reflects who we're most likely to fund and means that we're, you know, we're hopefully saving lots of organisations time applying when they're only going to be disappointed. I know that's not answer that lots of people will be hoping for, and so sorry about that.
There's another question here from Lucy about whether Esmée would fund the continuation of an existing project, or if we would expect or prefer a new project or a pre-existing project which is aiming to become more ambitious in scope.
Al I'm going to go to you for that.
Alison Holdom:
As you can see from the presentation earlier, a lot of our funding is for core or unrestricted costs. About 66% so only about a third of our funding is for projects. We're pretty flexible about this. If you're applying for funding for a specific existing project, and it offers a strong match with our funding priorities, and you match all our governance and finance requirements, then we will consider it. We will ask you about the impact of the work to date. We'll ask you how it was previously funded and why that's not continuing.
If you're applying to us for an existing project that's scaling or becoming more ambitious, we'd ask you all of that as well, but we'd also want to understand the impact so far and why you believe that growth or a more ambitious approach would offer stronger impact, and what you need in addition to your existing funding to achieve that, so that we could understand exactly what our contribution would be to that. So yes, we can look at all stages of a project.
Luna Dizon:
I'm going to move on to Laura's question, which is about our exclusion criteria around health care with a clinical basis. They are a peer community of people in and seeking recovery from substance abuse. The community provides one to one group and social support, but they do not provide counseling, treatment or therapy. Would they be eligible to apply for funding?
Hannah Lim:
As the question points out, we do have an exclusion around the provision of clinical health care, but we do fund work where there are various aspects in different settings, of one to one support, or even some more therapeutic and counseling support, where it forms part of a wider piece of work. I'd say the most important thing in those circumstances is that the application meets those points that that Al and Simon talked through earlier on the slides about the work must be leading the way themselves as part of a collaborative movement or partnership, that it's driving change for the future, and that is aiming to make a lasting difference and reaching beyond those directly engaged to influence the policy, practice and behavior of others. So because we fund generally unrestricted and core costs of organisations, we fund organisations whose work does provide some type of one to one support. There is always an angle there in terms of our funding, about looking at what the wider influence of that work will be. So that would be my best guidance on that question.
Luna Dizon:
I'm gonna ask Venus' question. It's a bit long, so just bear with me. Their new strategy focuses on supporting grassroots groups in Scotland to work collaboratively across movements through conflict transformation, accompaniment of cross issues, campaigns and upscaling organisation and facilitators of colour. They see facilitation as a form of decentralised leadership, and are building a pool of mediators of color. Their work spans multiple Esmée priorities and options as movement infrastructure. They also collaborate with other infrastructure organisations and grassroots partners across different movements. Do we fund infrastructure organisations whose work cuts across themes, and is there space for that in our current funding approach.
Hannah, sorry, I'm going to go back to you for that one.
Hannah Lim:
No worries. Thank you. I think there's a few questions that aren't exactly the same, but touch upon a theme of work that cuts across multiple priorities and aims. So I'll try and address that here as well. Essentially, yes, we're very happy to support work that fits across multiple priorities, or even multiple of our strategic aims. When you submit an application, you will be asked to select a priority that your work fits within. We consider that to be the primary priority. You should pick the one that you think most speaks to the work that you do. However, there is space within that section of the expression of interest to also select secondary priorities. So you can give us some sense of the other areas that you think your work aligns to. And when we're assessing your expression of interest, we will always look at that in the whole as well. So if we think the priority that you have applied under is not the strongest fit, but actually another priority is, that would form part of our assessment in the process as well.
Though there isn't a criteria to hit multiple priorities or aims, and we would much rather see a really solid fit with a singular priority than a sort of stretched and ambiguous fit across across multiple priorities. And maybe, I don't know, Al, if you want to say anything more broader about the kind of infrastructure and organisations point from a from a Creative, Confident Communities perspective as well.
Alison Holdom:
Yes, you'll probably find that we're doing more backbone or infrastructure organisations in Creative, Confident Communities than we are in other areas of our funding. And I think that's because what we're looking at is organisations or collaborations and networks that are forming models or frameworks or modes of practice that can be shared geographically into other areas. It tends to be very much about enabling people to do place-based change and lead change in their own neighborhood, but that there's this infrastructure that supports people to do that. That would normally be the way that we would work.
Luna Dizon:
Thank you both, Simon. I'm going to give you a heads up to say I'm going to you for the next question.
This is Alex's question. They asked about our funding priority areas and whether they will remain the same beyond 2027. They have had funding from us before through Our Natural World, and it would be great to know about the expected priorities to enable their long-term planning.
Simon Wightman:
Well, I guess the short and slightly cop out answer is, we don't entirely know what the strategy will be beyond 2027 but we do hope that we will be able to give organisations notice of what those changes are. I don't want to preempt any decisions that trustees make, other than to say that we will always look at where we're a particular important funder, where the need is within, in my case, within the environment sector, and what that looks like going forward. I can't give any totally concrete guarantees where there is clearly ongoing work and where we are an important funder. In that context, there'll be a really strong case for that not to fall off a cliff in 2027.
Luna Dizon:
Thanks, Simon.
Simon has a question about our approach to risk. Can we elaborate on our approach to risk as where outcomes might be more uncertain, more unknown, in spearheading community arts in their particular area, all approaches are risky. Al, I might pick on you.
Alison Holdom:
To be really honest, it is different in certain areas of work, because I think we appreciate that some of our work that we fund is much more high risk and some much lower risk. So I think it depends what area you're coming to us just for support. I would say, if there is considerable risk in what you're doing, I think it's worth just expressing that in your expression of interest, in terms of what you're talking about in community arts being risky. When we look at the impact that a piece of work is likely to have, or is having, if they're coming to work that already exists, we would consider the level of risk in that and whether that risk is about the outcomes and the impact not happening, or whether it's a different kind of risk. And we would discuss that with you.
If you are invited to send a full proposal, we would discuss how that level of risk is reflected and how it balances with the potential for impact. There's not a one size fits all answer to that question. It really does vary, but it will be something that we would consider in any assessment so that we understand how you're dealing with risk and what the balances of risk and impact are within the work that you're doing.
Luna Dizon:
Thank you.
The next question is about how we focus the assessment during the EOI, the expression of interest stage. Do we mainly look at the organisation, or do we look at the project for the actual work that's being done? For example, if there's a charity that's focused on supporting veterans, which is doing a project to connect community in a programme, but they also support mental health, give grants, etc. Then do we look at the organisation as a whole, or the project?
Luna Dizon:
Who wants to take that one?
Hannah Lim:
I don't mind, Simon, I think put a finger up as well. I think really the answer is, it depends what is being applied for. So as I think was highlighted earlier, about 70% ish of our funding is for unrestricted and core costs. So then both the request itself and our assessment will be focused on the organisation because that is the nature of what is being requested, and if the request is for quite a specific project piece which is maybe a bit different to the rest of the organisation's work, we'll of course look at the organisation, because we still want to understand why that's the right organisation to do that kind of specific project focus piece of work. But we probably will also be asking slightly different and more in depth questions about the nature of the project and how that specifically aligns with our funding priorities.
Anything you want to add to that, Simon?
Simon Wightman:
No, no, I think that's well covered. Thanks, Hannah,
Luna Dizon:
I'm gonna ask Robbie's question next about our support for food. So Robbie says that the discussion amongst charities that they're in touch with, oh, wait, sorry. Basically they're asking if Esmée is likely to find food-focused programmes going forward.
Simon Wightman:
I can take that one from a food systems point of view. Yes, food and nature friendly farming is a really important part of what we do. What became really clear during our mid-strategy review of the food and nature friendly farming priority is that it wasn't sufficient to just look at food production on site, but also to look at the supply chain and what access to market there was for farmers that were working to higher environmental standards and delivering for nature and the environment alongside food production. So that's a really important part of our work going forward, I guess. And I'm not sure what sort of work the questioner is doing, but the other aspect of that is community-focused work, where there might be a food component within that. And Al, I don't know if there's anything that you can say on that one?
Alison Holdom:
Yes, within Creative, Confident Communities, we do get quite a lot of applications and expressions of interest where some of the work links into food projects. At the moment, we are trying to work out exactly how we fund that and how that fits within our strategy and with our priorities. I'm afraid that's work that's slightly on hold at the moment while we decide exactly how it works. But we do see it as it comes in a lot to us as part of wider community activity. If it's that sort of thing where it's just a part of a wider community activity will still be fine. Specific work around food in communities where that's the main activity, we are trying to take some time to think about at the moment.
Luna Dizon:
Thanks both.
There are a few questions here about what we mean by communities. So there's a question from Sarah: must communities be geographically specific? Or might a community be a specific constituent of the population across the UK? And then, just before we move to answer that, there's also a question from Simon about what extent do we attempt a spread of financial support geographically. Do we prioritise areas which are traditionally low in receiving funding? They're different questions, but we'll answer them together. Al, can I go to you please?
Alison Holdom:
In terms of Creative, Confident Communities, the first key thing for us is that the work is place-based, and that the community in that place is involved in leading it, or is leading it completely. So that means that we tend, through Creative, Confident Communities, not to fund communities of interest or constituent groups in multiple parts around the UK, because we really are focusing on place-based work. My colleagues may be able to talk more about what happens in their priorities, whether communities of interest across the UK will be considered.
I don't know if my colleagues want to talk about communities of interest or constituent communities in their aims.
In terms of the spread of financial support in Creative, Confident Communities. Obviously, that is something we are looking at currently. We're trying to see exactly, we map where we are funding and being both responsive and proactive in the way we work. That can be quite tricky, because obviously we're responding to applicants from across the country, and we are funding on the basis of that of the impact and the modeling and the strength of the work and strength of the organisation. So it won't always be geographically equal, but it is something that we monitor so that we're really clear on areas where we might not be funding.
Simon Wightman:
Yes, provided there's a really strong link with some of the aims and priorities that we've described, and the information on the website, we can consider communities of interest within, for example, the Our Natural World priorities. For example, we recognise that within the environment sector, we have particular challenges ensuring that everybody, irrespective of their background, is involved in environmental decision-making, and that might bring us into working with communities of interest across multiple geographies. But it would have to fit within those other aims.
Hannah Lim:
I'd say for A Fairer Future, it sort of flipped the other direction to Creative, Confident Communities. We're primarily looking at communities of interest, but sometimes work that we fund might have a place-based approach to it as well. So it can be a mix, too.
Luna Dizon:
Thank you, I also want to add another geographic related question from Laura: when we're seeking out organisations to get on our radar, how do we ensure we're engaging across the country geographically? I wonder if perhaps someone from the panel can expand a little bit more and there's also discussions that happen internally about, you know, when, when things come up, and how we consider our existing portfolio and that kind of stuff.
Simon Wightman:
Luna was that specifically to the question of geography. How do we consider when something comes in?
Luna Dizon:
So with organisations that we're proactively inviting to apply, how do we ensure that we're engaging across the country, geographically? What is the process that's happening when we're inviting things to apply.
I feel like regardless of which applications will come in, they will still be discussed at an internal meeting where we will look at some of those in the slide about what we consider when making decisions in terms of what the broader context is and what we're currently funding. I don't know if there's something more that you want to add, that somebody wants to add around that.
Simon Wightman:
Yeah, it's a bit of a tricky one, because I'm going to give two answers, and they might appear to be slightly contradictory to some extent. So sometimes we might look at our portfolio and identify that there are particular gaps where our networks aren't strong, and therefore, there's a chance that there's really good work going on that we aren't we aren't aware of. So, for example, not too long ago, we looked at our fresh water portfolio and realised that we had a lot going on in England and Scotland, but that perhaps we didn't know what the state of play was in Wales and Northern Ireland. And therefore we put some particular proactive effort into understanding that better and finding out where we could intervene, where we could support good work. So that's kind of filling the gap.
The flip side to that is sometimes within environment. It's probably true of other aims as well, a focus on place and a focus on work, supporting a community of practitioners in that place can be really influential in terms of demonstrating and advocating for best practice. So in that case, conversely, we might be looking at where the gaps are in a place, and who's doing the best work and who's working with who, and can we support that sort of wider collaborative approach.
Luna Dizon:
Thanks, Simon. I'm going to answer a couple of quick questions, but I just wanted to highlight the question I'll move on to afterwards to give the panel a bit of time.
So Lizzie's question is, can you give me more examples of how to show tangible impact at a wider national level, especially when a project might be very focused on one community or location? So I'll let the panel have a think about that.
But to answer a couple of questions quickly, Tyron's asked, if there are any particular application deadlines. Unless specified, we accept applications on a rolling basis. There might be specific programmes that will have a deadline. But that will say in the guidance. I think currently, all our funding is we're accepting applications on a rolling basis.
And then there was another question, asking about our policy regarding applicants using AI to assist their application to assist them.
We don't have a preference. We appreciate that AI can be a really useful tool for people. We did share some guidance about how we're using AI in our work, but we've also added some guidance for applicants too. I just put the link in the website and hopefully that's clear. Obviously, if there's any thing that you want to clarify, just just come back in the Q and A.
So I'll go back to the panel. Is there anybody who wants to take Lizzie's question?
Hannah Lim:
I'll go first go and then let colleagues add in. So yeah, some kind of tangible impact at a wider level. I think the first thing to say is that the level that the wider impact is at doesn't have to be national. I know several of the examples that we've spoken about today have talked about national, but it can be regional and more local as well. And the important thing is that point about influencing the policy, practice and behaviour of others. So that's what we're looking for examples of.
We fund an organisation through our leaving care funding, for example, Greater Manchester Immigration Aid Unit, who identified the issue of young people being in care with uncertain immigration status, and that being significantly more of a problem to resolve once they turn 18. So they did really focus work with local authorities in Greater Manchester, with social workers and personal advisors to help them identify when a young person might have a potentially uncertain immigration status, and arm them with the kind of tools and information that they needed in order to get that addressed as soon as possible, and including making connections to kind of legal specialists. They also then worked in collaboration of other kind of specialist immigration legal organisations who were working with young people to spread that to other organisations as well, so that they could do work in their local areas. And collectively, those organisations work together to try and influence the Care Review. So Greater Manchester Immigration Aid Unit really focused on the Greater Manchester area, but really trying to to use that knowledge and the influence that they had with partners to spread what they had learned further.
Don't know if Simon or Al you want to add any other examples of that.
Alison Holdom:
In Creative, Confident Communities, we are working, in some cases, at an incredibly small, grassroots level. So I would give an example of Nudge Community Builders in Plymouth orEast Marsh United in Grimsby. They're both concentrated on very small parts of their city or their towns, but what they're doing is work which is modeling a way that other people could work, and they're building a framework, they're building a set of ways of working that are beginning to get attention from other people. They're open to sharing. They're open to partnership working. So that's the kind of thing we're looking at, is that it's not that we won't fund you if your work is at a grassroots because we're looking for national impact. We could fund you at a grassroots local level, but we'd have to understand that there was a mechanism or a way in which your learning and your impact could have a wider influence, or could influence other people in their way of working, and an attitude of being open to sharing the learning that you have and working with other people.
Simon Wightman:
Yeah, and not much to add to what Hannah and Al have said. Really, I think it's being confident that the work that you're doing has that wide replicability. So for example, one recent example was looking at natural flood management with nature based solutions to reduce flood risk to communities. We know that funding that nationally is a barrier to wider roll out. So a project that's come up with a really robust idea to fund that using innovative solutions in a particular place. Clearly, we know there's an appetite for that nationally, so being able to demonstrate that is quite important. And I guess the other thing is having a credible route to influence so whether that's networks or collaborations that you are or have been part of is really helpful. And being able to, even if it was a different topic, being able to demonstrate how in the past, you might have been able to influence those wider conversations, can also help to give us confidence that you know the routes to influence, you know the levers to pull, and you'd be able to do it with the work that you're proposing.
Luna Dizon:
Thanks everyone.
So I'm going to move to Katie's question, and we we've mentioned looking at different ways to support organisations, including Social and Impact investments. Is the process to explore and apply for this type of support the same as the process described for a grant application.
I can answer this one actually, so you can apply for Social Investment support. There is a slightly different process for that, and I will share a link to how to apply for that support in the chat. There's detailed guidance about how that works. And so we'd recommend having a look at that.
In terms of Impact Investment, which we refer to as work that is aiming to achieve a social or environmental impact as well as a market rate return. That is not open to application, we're working proactively with an investment manager to find someone we might want to invest in. Hopefully that answers your question. If there's more that you want to ask, then just do add it in the chat.
The next question I'm going to ask is from Amanda, who represents a by and for domestic abuse service that provides support to transgender victims of abuse. I'm not going to read the full question, but given the Supreme Court's judgment two weeks ago, they're finding that a lot of trans women are being thrown out of women's refuges, but don't know where to turn, and they've seen referrals increase significantly. Would this project be something that Esmée would consider funding? Hannah?
Hannah Lim:
Thank you for the question, Amanda. So yeah, to take the kind of broader point first, as a funder, we're committed to gender justice. That means we fund work to ensure that women and girls can live in safety and fulfill their potential, and that trans and non-binary people's rights are recognised and protected. So as further guidance is published following that Supreme Court ruling, we're going to continue to engage with the organisations that we support about what that means for their work and for their services, and how we can best support them.
To answer the specifics, in terms of refuge provision, it comes back to, I think the answer I gave earlier about that kind of one to one support as part of what we fund, and really seeking to answer that question about how it meets that wider impact point that we look for. So how is the organisation leading the way? Is it driving change for the future? Is it aiming to make a lasting difference beyond those directly engaged, to influence policy, practice and behaviour of others? So it would really be a question to you as to how much that is kind of within part of the work or the request that you would be seeking funding for.
Luna Dizon:
Thanks. Hannah.
There's a couple of questions here about DEI, and so Peter's question is, when thinking about DEI, diversity, equity and inclusion, would you fund an organisation to improve its DEI and what they mean by this is that over 90% of the clients at risk of abuse that they support are not from an ethnic minority or marginalised groups. However, evidence suggests that these groups are more likely to be affected by abuse. They want to work with community partners to significantly improve their internal and external DEI representation to ensure that they reach more of these minoritised groups throughout each engagement, partnership and literature.
Hannah, is it alright if I go back to you.
Hannah Lim:
Yes, sure. We definitely have supported organisations who are seeking to improve the the range of people that their service or work supports, who, having done work on their own kind of internal system policies, processes, or the way that they present externally, know that there's particular groups that are not accessing their services, or who they're not reaching so well. I would say generally, that's not the sole focus of what we're funding that organisation for. And again, we're always looking at what lies behind that, in terms of a journey that an organisation has been on in terms of understanding their approach to diversity, equity and inclusion, whether they are best placed to meet those needs as well. So again, looking at putting more support into the 'by and for' sector to ensure that there is specific specialist support when that is the right kind of answer as well. So I'd say a kind of mixed answer to the question, really, in that yes, it has formed part of our support to some organisations, but as part of a wider assessment of an organisation's DEI journey and the place that they areholding within a particular sector or space so it would look quite different.
Luna Dizon:
Thanks, Hannah, I'm sorry. I realised I didn't ask the other DEI-related question that was here from Brugnello. Sorry if I pronounced your name wrong. They are a women-led organisation staffed by both men and women who focus on helping disadvantaged women to take charge of their lives in the UK, would that be valid in terms of DEI? I guess what they mean is just in terms of our definition of led by and for.
Hannah Lim:
I'm not sure if I've totally understood the question, so apologies if I don't answer it very well, but whoever asked it, feel free to follow up with us afterwards if this doesn't do the job. I'd say in terms of whether it's valid, that totally depends on essentially the kind of the work that you're doing and why that's the right approach for your organisation. So we would assess that approach on the specifics of the work that you're doing, who you're trying to reach, and why that staffing structure and mix works well for you. It, you know, it wouldn't meet the thresholds of being a led by organisation, for example, led by women, if you weren't meeting the criteria within the DEI Data Standard. But that's not the sole part of our assessment. Like I say, we're really looking at the quality and nature of DEI across an organisation, and why that approach is the right one for you.
Luna Dizon:
I'll pick on Al next. It's a question here from John. They're thinking of a project that would work intensively in more than one local area. Would you be happy to look at that kind of thing under our Creative, Confident Communities support?
Alison Holdom:
Thank you. Yes, we do make grants to pieces of work that are happening in multiple locations. I suppose the most obvious one is a very large project called LocalMotion, which is a multi-funder programme for long-term support into various different towns around the UK. So if we do do multiple places, it tends to be more those kind of big national pieces of work. If you're one organisation working in multiple places, the key thing for us would be to understand how that can be place-led, and how the communities in those places can impact and lead and design the work that's happening there. We have a couple of examples of that where there's a network which enables that to happen and that an organisation creates a network or creates alliances where it's working with organisations that are based within those communities to do its work, so it sets up partnerships in order to spread the model or to work in a particular way. But the key question for us would be, if you're working in multiple places, how is that work place-led in each of those places?
Luna Dizon:
Thanks Al. So and we've only got just over five minutes left in this webinar. We're probably not going to be able to answer all the questions, but we will do our best to answer any that we don't get to afterwards, and we'll share that with everybody who's registered.
I'm going to answer a question here about how we Esmée uses AI in our funding process. And then I'm going to ask the panel if there are any other particular questions that they want to answer before we close.
So somebody's asked: do we use AI within our grant funding procedures and processes? If so, when and where.
I shared in the chat our policy of how we use AI. We do not use AI in any of the decision-making processes. Really, what we use it for is to support us in terms of making notes. So, for instance, if we're on a call with somebody, you know, as long as everybody's happy in that call, for us to use AI, we use Microsoft Co-pilot, and that will do a transcript of the call and a summary. And then any calls like that, that we use AI for, we would share the notes with with anybody else on that call. But we don't use it in our funding process, in terms of helping us make decisions. Hope that answers that person's question.
So as we've got just under five minutes left, I'm going to go to the panel to see if there's any particular questions that they would like to answer.
Alison Holdom:
Yes, I just wanted to answer John's question about whether the impact that we're looking for is around government, policy and systems.
It often is the case that that's the change that ultimately occurs. But it's not exclusive. We also would be looking at localised in Creative, Confident Communities, localised policies or localised decision-making processes, or just the way people do things within that community, or the offers that they have, or the way they work. So it doesn't have to be government-level change. We would rely on you to tell us what the change is and what needs to be impact. Who needs to be impacted? Who needs to understand the change that's needed and how that change can then happen. But it doesn't have to be at government level.
Hannah Lim:
I can see two or three about governance structures as well.
We support not-for-profit CLGs. We support social enterprises. We support a variety of governance structures, not just registered charities, organisations. You just have to meet our minimum governance criteria currently. Those are around having three directors, some sort of asset lock, and the work that we are being asked to fund being legally charitable, because we are ourselves a charity. We are reviewing various criteria to do with our governance structures criteria currently, so we may make changes to those later in the year, but you should sign up to our newsletter or follow us on social media. If anything, we would notify that way.
Luna Dizon:
Any other final questions that people want to answer otherwise, I'll move on.
Simon Wightman:
There was a question around capital and whether we will fund capital costs.
Generally speaking, not within the environment sector, we found that in our conversations with organisations, the costs that they really struggle with are the core and staff costs. So that's where our focus is. If there is a work with acommunity, and I'm speaking for the environment portfolio here, and a really small part of that is capital, and it would clearly be a disproportionate amount of effort to go and get that funded by somebody else, then we can consider those costs. But by and large, we think our approach is not focused on capital, and I should just say that's within our grant funding. If you have a Social Investment proposal, then absolutely that can fund capital costs. So it depends on the sort of support you're looking for as well.
Alison Holdom:
And I reiterate that for Creative, Confident Communities as well. It's exactly the same model for us too, that if there's a very small piece of capital funding with a large piece of work that will unlock something, and it would be really difficult to raise from elsewhere, then we will consider it but that it would only be a very, very low level.
Further resources
Luna Dizon:
Thank you. I'm just sharing the last couple of slides, which has just a bit more information about support applying and further information. So our funding guidance has more detail about the types of work we're looking to support under each aim and funding priority. There are also links to a list of grants that we've made under each of those priorities. So that might help you see the sorts of things that we're interested in funding. We also have some accessibility related support. So if there's any part of our application process that is a barrier to you applying, we provide a £500 access payment to support you to apply. That could be for the BSL interpretation, for instance, or additional staff time, if that's what you need. There's a link in the slides that you will have received, and there's also a link to GrantNav, which is run by a 360 Giving, you won't just find all of our grants, but you'll also find lots of other funders' grants. Again, that's a useful way to kind of see who's funding what.
And then on the last slide, there's also a link to other funding sources, which has links to directories which we hope are useful, and also some useful sector resources which covers a whole range of topics, including fundraising, legal, campaigning, digital and and safeguarding. So do take a look at those.
Sorry, we haven't been able to answer everybody's question, but we will do our best to answer them after the webinar, and we will put up a recording of this webinar, along with the transcript, all the questions that have been answered, including the ones answered afterwards, up on our website, and we'll share that information with you all this week.
Hannah Lim:
Just a big thank you to close us off, to everyone for attending, to the panel, the team behind the scenes, to Nana and Altan for the BSL interpretation, and mostly, thank you to all of you for attending, for asking questions, and for doing the important and vital work that you do to make a difference in the sectors that we share. Have a great afternoon, everybody.