This page has the transcript of the webinar held on 28 September 2026. 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 download the presentation
Speakers
- Alison Holdom, Funding Manager Lead – Creative, Confident Communities
- Stephanie Morren, Funding Manager – Our Natural World
- Tom Cowie, Funding Manager – A Fairer Future
- Luna Dizon, Communications Manager (Q&A support)
Welcome and housekeeping
Alison Holdom:
Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to this pre-application question and answer session. We're really pleased so many of you could join us today, and I hope you find it useful.
I'm Alison, I'm the Funding Manager Lead for Creative, Confident Communities, one of our funding aims, and I'm here with my colleagues Tom and Stephanie, 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 that time for the… as part of the webinar to answer your questions, which Luna, my colleague, will facilitate.
Further colleagues, Jen, Hikmat, and Gillian, are also on hand in the background, and they're going to help to answer the questions as they come in. And my colleague Sarah is also here, so if you have questions about social investment, she's here to answer those, so please do share them.
For accessibility, we have Nana and Gloria, who will be providing BSL interpretation, interpreting what is spoken live. To make sure they're always on view, we recommend keeping your view on gallery view, including when the slides are being shared.
And we've also asked all our speakers to describe themselves and where they are. So, I'll start. I'm at home with a bookshelf behind me. I'm an older white woman with shoulder-length fair hair and glasses, and I'm wearing a blue jumper because autumn is definitely here.
And I'll hand over to Tom.
Tom Cowie:
Thanks, Alison. My name is Tom. I'm a funding manager on a Fairer Future aim, with a focus on children and young people's rights. I am a white male in my 30s with blonde hair, glasses, and I'm sitting in a very pink room.
And I'll pass over to Steph.
Stephanie Morren:
Thanks, Tom. Hi, everyone. My name's Steph Morren. I'm a funding manager in the Our Natural World team with a particular focus on nature-friendly farming projects. I'm a white woman with dark blonde hair and blue eyes. I'm sitting in my home office in Cambridge, and I've blurred my background so you don't see my washing, which is hanging out to dry behind me.
Alison Holdom:
Thank you both. So, just a few practicalities and housekeeping before we start. Live captioning is available for this session. If you click the closed captions button at the bottom of this window, you can see them.
You can post questions at any point using the Q&A facility, which you can find at the bottom of your screens. I'd encourage you to vote for questions submitted by another participant if you'd really like to see that one answered. And to do that, you can click on the thumbs up icon next to the question.
As mentioned, we have our colleagues typing responses to questions in the Q&A. We'll try to answer as many questions as possible, and we will prioritise those questions that are upvoted.
If there are questions we miss, we will answer them afterwards, so we'll be using the questions to… and we'll also be using these questions to update the FAQs on the website, the frequently asked questions that are on our website, so you may find the answer to your question is already there.
We're expecting lots of questions. Please don't worry if you miss anything, as we're recording this webinar, and we'll share the transcript with the additional questions that we've covered on our website as soon as we can.
So, if we move on, I'm going to start by giving an introduction to Esmée and some information about our grants. And we're just going to put slides up for this one for you.
So, you can see that. Sorry, just a moment. So…
Plan for the session
Alison Holdom:
It's great to have you all with us, thank you for taking the time to join. This is the plan for the session. We started holding pre-application Q&A webinars because we know that you want to ask us questions before you apply to Esmée. We can't speak to you all individually. We've had, for example, 200 people apply to join this webinar.
So hopefully this is a good way to answer as many 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, this is the plan for today's session. We're aware that we need to strike a tricky balance today.
We want to be more transparent, but we also need to be honest. We're not holding this webinar to encourage more applications. As we continue to make a similar number of grants. Our need is rising in the sectors we support, and as a funder that's open to applications, we've 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.
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're also not able to give you one-to-one advice on a feedback for your organisation, but we hope to give you a clearer picture today of what we're looking for, how we make decisions, and how we use our application process to do that.
I'm going to hand over to Steph now, who's going to talk about Esmée as a funder.
Overview of Esmée's strategy and funding priorities
Stephanie Morren:
Thanks, Al. So, our strategy, which will run to the end of 2027, focuses on three main aims. So, these are a… Our Natural World, A Fairer Future, and Creative, Confident Communities, which aims to strengthen the bonds of communities in the UK.
As well as assessing and managing grants and social investments, our funding managers are exploring other ways we can be proactive in making progress towards our goals, including inviting applications, commissioning research, convening and brokering alliances, and using our influence.
This webinar is focusing on our grants. But before we get stuck into that, we wanted to give you a quick explanation about social investment, which is repayable finance, such as loans, equity, community shares and bonds.
Organisations often use it to increase their sustainability and impact, for example, purchasing an asset or developing a product. It's worth noting that whilst we don't offer grant funding for capital costs, we can offer social investment.
The best place to go for more information and tools to help on navigating the world of social landscape is Good Finance and we'll put a link in the chat.
At Esmée we invest in organisations, funds and projects, creating an impact towards our funding priorities.
We work with applicants to find the type and terms of the investment that will best help them achieve their mission. This can include considering a blend of grant and social investment funding in some cases.
A link to more information on how to apply will be put in the chat, and there are also examples of organisations and projects we have invested in.
So, I'm now going to talk a little bit about our grants in numbers, which I think is going to come up. Yeah, perfect.
So, for our grants here on the slide are some numbers that show the size and shape of our grant making.
We have an annual budget of around £50 million for grants, and we choose to focus our funding mostly on a relatively small number of long-term core cost grants.
Last year, we made 241 grants across our 13 funding priorities.
Our average grant amount was 204,363 and the median was 195,000 which just gives you a little bit of a sense of the size of grants that we make.
What we don't fund and what we're looking for
Stephanie Morren:
Of course, it's also useful for people to know what we don't fund. So, this next slide details what we don't fund, or, in other words, our exclusions.
So, because our focus is on longer term grants for work with a more strategic focus, we don't fund very small organisations with a turnover of less than £100,000 or those without an established governance. By this we mean we don't fund organisations that aren't constituted.
Most of the organisations we fund are charities, but we also fund other organisation types like community interest companies and community benefit societies. If your organisation is not a registered charity, we will assess governance and the risk of disproportionate personal benefit. You can find out more information about this on our website.
It is worth bearing in mind that if you're not a charity, we won't be able to give unrestricted funding, but we might be able to give core or project costs depending an assessment.
I won't go through all the rest of the exclusions in detail, but if you do have a question, please do pop it into the Q&A. And I'm going to hand over to Tom now.
Tom Cowie:
Unmuted. So, big question, what do we fund? We fund work that fits into our strategy. So, this is kind of like our North Star. This slide here has an overview of our strategic aims and our 13 funding priorities.
So, as you can see here, Our Natural World and A Fairer Future each have five priorities, and Creative, Confident Communities has three.
Just to note, for our priorities in Creative Confident Communities, we mean communities as a term meaning connected by a place.
So, this is an example of the children and young people's rights, which is one of our priorities in A Fairer Future.
At the top here, you can see the three different long-term outcomes. When assessing strategic fit, we consider whether the work could contribute to these outcomes.
There is also additional guidance to help describe the types of work we're looking to support.
In the slides, you can see the guidance to the first long-term outcome at the bottom there.
We recommend reading the guidance relevant to the areas you're interested in. There are also, on the website, some case studies of work we funded.
Now, we don't have a preference in terms of work focusing on one of our priorities, or work that is across, say, more than one priority. We want applicants to tell us about their plans and how they align with these priorities. So, in general. A strong fit with one priority beats a lighter connection to several. So, read the guidance for the areas you're closest to, and really show us how well you match it.
Details of our strategy, including a full-text version for screen readers, are available on the website. And you may also find it useful to look at grants we've made and the type of work we've supported in your sector. We list all of our grants on GrantNav, which is linked to the relevant pages on the website, as well as in our annual report.
So, next slide. As well as a strong fit for our strategy, there are… there are five things that we're looking for.
We're looking for work that is an ambitious… that is ambitious in creating strategic change. Work that has a wider influence or spread. Work that has centres lived experience, justice, and equity. Work that takes a collaborative approach, and also we're looking for work that has strong governance and leadership.
I want to show you how this kind of looks like in practice, using an organisation we fund in Wales called EYST, which is the Ethnic Minority and Youth Support Team.
EYST was set up by a group of young people from ethnically minoritised communities in Swansea, and now it's one of the largest organisations supporting young people from those communities across Wales.
Now, at first glance, you might think that it's a service delivery organisation. It works with, like, thousands of young people and families every year, but for Esmée, that's not really what caught our attention. What interested us was what they do with the information that they learn.
So, with their work, the families and young people trust them with their very personal experiences of racism, discrimination, and exclusion. And then through their casework, youth work and community engagement, EYST builds up this kind of detailed picture of where systems aren't working.
And from here, they don't… they don't stop there. They take that evidence to the Welsh Government into, kind of, consultations and guidance processes to improve policy and practice. And their thinking is quite simple. If you change the systems that affect young people. You prevent harm rather than only responding to it once it's happened.
And I think, for me, that's what wider influences systematic change look like. We're often drawn as, like, organisations that are close to the issue, understand the barriers, and use that insight to change decisions, policies, and institutions.
And I think that's how we're working to create a fairer future. I think my colleagues also, shall I pass over to you, Alison?
Alison Holdom:
Thanks, Tom. Yeah, I wanted to give an example within Creative Confident Communities, of a grant we make to an organisation called Back to Ours, and it has a really strong link to the community-led art and creativity and the communities working together for change priorities.
They're a community-led creative arts organisation that produces outstanding arts and cultural experiences with and for the people of Hull.
And the work we're funding is really rooted in neighbourhoods in Hull, and involves local people as audiences and participants, but also as creators and commissioners. The work's co-produced with community programming hubs made up of local people, and they work together with artists to develop the programme, commission, promote events, and they're in the places that people know and love.
And what's really interesting about the work of Back to Ours is it's really specific to Hull. It's a journey of local people and artists reflecting on what culture and creative participation means for that city. It's very much rooted in its place.
It demonstrates the value of connecting all those local assets, like libraries and pubs and residence associations, to the people they're working with in a creative way of working, and through creativity. And the aim ultimately is to create really vibrant and enjoyable places to live.
The final thing that really attracted us to funding them was the fact that they're making a really strong contribution to learning about how to collaborate with communities and making decisions about their creative lives, and how you build that local community leadership and connection to act on those decisions.
So, they are very much place-based, but very much having a wider learning impact. And I'll pass over to Stephanie.
Stephanie Morren:
Sorry, struggling to unmute. Yes, I've also, for the example from Our Natural World, so we fund an organisation called Our Food Trust, based in Wales, and the project, work that they do is, aiming to acquire land from Powys County Council, to enable, kind of, new nature friendly farming… farmers to come in and grow fruit and veg, that also then links to the local supply chains and the markets within their local communities. So that fruit and veg is grown there, but then it also reaches the… communities that surround the farms there too.
So, what interested us here is not just the fact that they would… just what they were doing, but the fact that they've got significant expertise in specifically identifying barriers to people being able to access land for nature-friendly farming and growing, and also what the barriers are for that food to then reach the local markets.
And so their project has not just been about specifically finding the land, but it's been about finding the solutions to those barriers, working with local and national decision makers and also housing associations.
Because one of the barriers that we know for tackling inequity in access to land is that people have nowhere to live near the land that they want to grow on. So, I've been working with decision makers and housing associations, which has meant that the impacts of their work has gone way beyond the farms in Powys that they're working on.
And it really helped push us forwards in terms of our priority of a fairer food system for nature and communities.
And when we're working with other organisations looking at tackling inequity and land access and some of the barriers that exist to make this better, the work of Our Food Trust has been really instrumental in supporting those organisations too.
Back to Tom.
What we consider when making decisions and Diversity, Equity and Inclusion
Tom Cowie:
Thanks, Steph. So, how do we make decisions? So, every day now at Esmée, we have to make judgements and decisions. I wouldn't say there is a formula, but there are two big things.
One is how strong a fit the work is to our strategy, and also, secondly, how well-placed your organisation is to do it.
So, the link on this slide takes you to our page that lets you know how we make decisions. It sets out what we look for and how that plays out through our application process.
And, and if there was a one honest caveat, I think all of this is from our own point of view. So, in a way, we're weighing your application against our strategy, as well as, like, the other work we're already funding, and our own strategic plans.
So, a decline doesn't mean that your work is not good. Sometimes it just isn't a good fit to where we are now.
So now, importantly, one of the things we consider is diversity, equity, and inclusion, which stands for DEI. In our application process, applications will be asked at each stage of the assessment to complete a DEI monitoring form. So, this form is based on the DEI data standard, which is shared across numerous funders in the UK.
With the data standard, it's worth being clear about what it does and doesn't do. It asks for a simple question at… sorry, it asks for a simple question at organisation level.
So, for example, is your organisation led by and working for people who share a particular characteristic or identity? And that's about it.
It… now, it doesn't really tell us how DEI actually shows up in your organisation day-to-day. It's more of a high-level picture of who is applying to us.
And I think, for me, the real conversation happens later on in the assessment call. So, if you get invited to have this call, I think that's a great opportunity to explore your approach to DEI in more detail.
I wanted just to say what we do with the information on DEI that we gather. So, firstly, it helps us understand who our funding is reaching, as well as identifying and addressing structural inequity in our funding. It's also part of our assessment in our funding… of our applications, and we're interested in how people and communities most impacted by the issues kind of shape the work.
Now, for some areas of our strategy, we will be prioritising applications from organisations led by people with lived experience of the issue. You'll see this highlighted in our guidance, and it applies to a number of our A Fairer Future priorities. In particular, our arts and creativity making change priority.
Where our work on a more representative cultural workforce focuses on communities facing specific inequities, such as racial inequity, gendered inequity, and classism. And I think for that work in particular, we're prioritising applications from organisations led by those groups.
Whilst we say this, we know that not every application… not every organisation we fund will be led by people with lived experience of the issue they work on, but DEI still matters in how we assess applications. So, when it comes to DEI - what are we looking for?
We want to really understand your approach to DEI in three ways. First, how does your organisation represent the community it works with? Secondly, how do you make sure your work is equitable? And lastly, like, what do you have in place to make sure the voices most likely to be excluded are heard?
We know in our eligibility criteria, there's an unfair barrier for organisations that are led by communities experiencing racial inequity, or that are disability-led, as they tend to be smaller. In our experience, we don't think our application process is the best way to fund these smaller grassroots organisations. Instead, we're focusing on finding, finding and funding these organisations proactively. For instance, by expanding and strengthening our networks, through targeted referrals and monitoring the sectors that we're looking to fund.
We also fund in partnership with specialist organisations who have the relevant reach and expertise. So, for example, we have partnered with the Baobab Foundation, Civic Power Fund, and Comic Relief's Global Majority Fund.
And, based on our DEI data, we've gathered about who is… who our funding is reaching. Last year, around half the grants we made went to organisations led by people who face structural inequity as a result of that… of their identity or lived experience.
You can find more information about the DEI data we gathered on our website, and a lovely colleague will be sharing a link to this in the chat.
Application process, application numbers and tips
Alison Holdom:
Thanks, and Luna's now going to show a short, video on how to apply. Thanks, Luna.
How to apply for funding video:
Before applying, check if we're the right funder for you. Take our quiz to check you meet our minimum eligibility criteria. We'll ask you quick questions about your work and organisation. And it takes just 5 minutes.
If you're eligible to apply, read our guidance about the funding priorities relevant to your work. It has more detail about the long-term outcomes we're focusing our support on. We use this to guide our assessment on strategic fit.
Here's the guidance for one of our priorities, as an example. You can also find information on each stage of the application process. So you know what to expect, and how we make decisions. This will help you understand whether it's worth investing time in applying to us.
If you decide to apply, there are 3 stages.
1. Let us know about your work by submitting an expression of interest. Use this to tell us briefly about what do you want Esmée to support, The impact you're aiming for. And how it contributes to our strategy. And, your organisation. How you're well placed to do the work. You'll have 300 words.
We will also look at your website to learn more about your organisation and impact so far. You'll hear from us within 4-6 weeks to let you know if we'll take your application further.
2. If we think your work is a potential match, we'll invite you for an assessment call to learn more. It's also a chance for you to learn more about us as a funder and our strategy.
The call will cover fit to our strategy and impact you're aiming for. Your approach, and your track record.
The assessment call will help us understand how likely it is we will fund your work. We'll let you know the outcome within 2 weeks.
If we think your application is a strong fit for our funding, we will invite you to submit a proposal. With additional information we may need.
If you already have a strategy document and business plan. Covering the work you're applying for, you can use these instead of our proposal form.
We may have a follow-up call to discuss anything we need more detail on. We'll then carry out a detailed assessment. We aim to give you a decision within 3 months of receiving your proposal.
Before applying…
Alison Holdom:
Thanks, Luna. I'm now going to hand back to Steph.
Stephanie Morren:
Thank you. So, following on from that video, just a little bit more information about sort of behind the scenes here. So, we use the expression of interest as a basic screening process, checking specifically if it meets our eligibility criteria and is a good fit for our long-term outcomes.
Expression of interest may also be discussed at our weekly team meeting to consider potential opportunities with our strategy, and also look at it against other work that we're funding.
We'll also check the organisation's website and any other publicly available information, for example, via the Charity Commission, to learn more about the organisation and their impact so far.
For those that look like a really good potential match, we'll invite you for an assessment call, and that's a chance for us to explore the application further. More detail about each stage of these is on our website.
So, the next slide is looking at examples of our applications in 2025. So, you can kind of see the figures. So, we want to be upfront about the number of applications we receive.
As well as our open application process, we also proactively invite a smaller number to apply. Most of these are for follow-on grants, and others to organisations we've learned about through our work and think are a strong fit for our strategy.
So, this shot… this slide shows how many applications we progress at each stage of the application process.
Just a quick note, these numbers are for last year, but it's worth noting that this year, in 2026, we're already seeing a big increase in expression of interest compared to the same period last year. So, as a result of that, it is likely that success rates will be lower.
Hopefully, though, this infographic shown like this gives you a good idea of our process. So, in 2025, 11% of expressions of interest that came through our open application process were invited for an assessment call.
Most applications that were turned down at that stage are due to not being fit to our strategy. So, we really do recommend looking at the long-term outcomes for the work, the priority that you're interested in, as that's really kind of what we look to assess this at this stage.
And then half of the applications who had an assessment call were then invited to submit a full proposal, and of those, 91% received a grant.
This is high because we focus on inviting only those applications which are really, really strong fit to our strategy, because we want to avoid wasting people's time, if at all possible. For expressions of interest that we proactively invite, success rates are much higher.
Now, it's really worth saying at this point, we're really mindful of bias, so, but to reassure, we do ask the same questions and use the same assessment process for expressions of interest that we invite and those that we don't, but our existing knowledge and learning will obviously factor into our… into our decisions.
And then I think now back to Alison.
Alison Holdom:
Thanks very much, Steph.
So, the next slide is really about how you get onto our radar, having, listened to what Stephanie was just saying.
It's really important to Esmée that we remain open to applications, but that we also support organisations that are already known to us, and that we make some new connections ourselves. And there are two ways we learn about organisations' work.
One is by us proactively seeking them out, and we do that through different ways. For example, we attend lots of sector and community events.
We carry out research into areas that we're focused on, areas that we work in, and also we follow up on recommendations from people we fund, or people that we partner or work with.
The other way is through submitting expression of interest on our website, and in 2025, 30% of the grants we made were given to organisations that we previously hadn't funded, and most of these came in through the open application process on our website.
So, if you want to get on our radar, really the best way is to put in an expression of interest through our website process.
So, bearing that in mind, my colleagues and I are just going to have a very, quick sharing with you about what we think makes a good expression of interest, particularly in the areas we all work in. For me, really, there is… clarity is obviously really important, and being very, very specific.
In terms of the Creative, Confident Communities funding, it's all about communities and place, and it's really important if you're applying to that aim, that you tell us… you use the section called Tell Us About You to explain all of that. You know, how do you represent the place or the community that you're working with? Why is the work that you're applying for so important to that place and community, and how is the community leading that work? All that sort of information is really important.
If you click onto the guidance for CCC, there's a section that's called We Look for Work That, and it gives you a section of bullet points, and it's always worth looking at that if you're applying for CCC and making sure that your expression of interest is really clear and concise about how you match that list.
And I'll hand it over to Tom.
Tom Cowie:
Thank you, Al.
I think, so, in A Fairer Future, so you might be applying, under our children and young people's rights, or migrants justice, or gender justice, I think.
Echoing what Alison just said there, I think it does come to specificity. Be… be… oh my gosh, sorry, I practiced this… being specific.
So, I mean, we're looking to fund work that changes systems and have a wider influence, and I think a good EOI is specific about three things. So, like, what the change is. What evidence you have for you to achieve it, and how you spread that influence. Say that could be, like, through partnerships, for example. And I also think from leading from that, like, we live in this, like, new age of AI.
And more organisations are using it to build applications, and I think it is a really useful tool. But what I'm noticing is that plenty of applications now say all the right things about systemic change without really nothing beneath it to kind of back it up.
And I know it's really hard to do in 300 words, but my advice would be so… is to, like, kind of choose your strongest piece of evidence, and then really lead with it.
Yeah, Steph, would you like to come in?
Stephanie Morren:
Thank you. Yeah. So, echoing what the other two said as well, but just to add to that.
I think across all the aims, but, my experience is in Our Natural World, but, it's really important to see how the work fits in with others working in the same space. There are lots of organisations working across all of our different aims and priorities, and so it can be quite difficult to see.
What role each of those different organisations play, so be really, really clear about. How it fits with others, how collaborative you are, and, you know, acknowledging others working in that space, and how you work with them. And then, I suppose, explicitly, what is the gap that you or your work are filling in that space?
Alison Holdom:
Thank you both, that's great. I'm going to hand over to Luna, and she is going to, manage the question and answer session, which is the next part of this webinar.
Over to you, Luna.
Q&A
Luna Dizon:
Thanks everybody and thank you. Thanks to all of you who are submitting your questions.
We will try and answer as many as we can, and any that we don't answer, we will… we will, follow up, afterwards and share the answers with… along with the recording of this webinar, so please don't worry if you.
If you've missed anything or if you feel like we haven't asked your question, there might be questions that we need.
To spend a bit more time on. So, be patient with us, thank you. There was… there were a few questions that we got sent in advance. One of them… so, Yvonne sent us a few questions, and she… they popped, one of them here, which is about.
Within each outcome, do we need to meet all the guidance points on what we're looking for in organisations?
So, this… these are the points that were covered in the… in the slide on, what we look for around wider impact and co-production and… and sector collaboration. And I think the panel.
I think Tom covered it a little bit when he was doing his presentation about how I guess really there's no fine science to this.
These are… these give you… that slide and the guidance really gives you an indication of the sorts of things that we're looking for, the factors that we're considering when making decisions, and they're really from our perspective. So, in terms of thinking about what else we're funding and what where we feel like.
We can, you… Our resources will be most effective, and where maybe we can add the most value, which is really difficult then, because it's obviously that's from our perspective, but that's just to give you a sign, hopefully gives… those pointers give you an indication of what we're looking for, and those are things that are really important to us.
And that doesn't mean you have to hit every single one of those points. It just hopefully helps you give an idea of what the sorts of things that we're funding and the type of change we feel like we can be most impactful in. But panellists, do feel free to add to that if you'd like to.
Alison Holdom:
I'd just quickly say, within Creative Confident Communities, there are… slightly different approaches to this, in that in some areas, you will need to be able to match particular outcomes, jointly, or you might need to actually… there are areas where you need to match all of the outcomes for a particular priority. So, it's really just worth having a very thorough read of exactly what the priorities and the guidance says, so that you're clear which bits need to, to match that or which bits don't.
Luna Dizon:
Thanks. So, another of Yvonne's questions was about whether we had any general guidance on the amount applicants should ask for. Tom, do you want to kind of go with that one?
Tom Cowie:
Yeah, yeah, and I can see it in the… a few people have asked this in the Q&A, as well. And I think it's really tough to give, like, general guidance as we make such a range of grants across so many different sizes.
One thing is I really encourage applicants to kind of look at the grants we've made recently, within the priority that they're applying to, as that can give you a sense of the range and scale of funding we provide.
And I think, more importantly, I think it's important that applicants should ask for the work... applicants should ask for what they genuinely need to deliver the work.
Well, so, like, when we're assessing proposals, we're thinking about whether the amount requested is proportionate to the organisation, the work being proposed, and the impact it's going to have. And this is also kind of considered against our own grant-making budgets at Esmée, which… which are limited, but we want to help you do the work well. So, there's… it's always like, I don't… I'm really bad at analogies, like spinning plates, but there's a lot of things in motion.
But yeah, we always, consider the request in the context of other grants we've made, but I guess… The answer is there's not a single, like, right amount to ask for. And, like, as well, that's… if… if this is something that might be too high, there's been, like, in my own work, where we kind of go back to the organisation and look at that, the amount, and that can change in conversation, and seeing, like, what other funders can help support. Yeah.
Luna Dizon:
Thanks, Tom. And so, I'm going to take a couple of questions from the Q&A, both related. So, Gem's question is, what kind of sector or community events do you attend? And there was another question from Julianne about Esmée staff visiting Northern Ireland regularly. So yeah, maybe I know it's going to be different in your different areas. So, if you can each talk about the sorts of things, how you're getting out there in terms of understanding what's happening in the sectors that you're working in.
Steph, do you want to start?
Stephanie Morren:
Sorry, yes, I moved… moved my box around. Yes, of course, yeah. So, yeah, in terms of getting out and about, including Northern Ireland. I think the approach will vary for the different funding managers and the different aims, depending on what the projects are. So, for example, in the nature-friendly farming work that I lead, and there'll be some kind of national organisations that we support that are kind of doing, you know, policy advocacy work, where perhaps there's less of a need to kind of go out and see those organisations in person. But then obviously if they're place-based or it's going out to meet farmers in my case or projects on the ground or, or like you say, kind of, you know, national offices in the, you know, in Northern Ireland, Wales and Scotland, then there's definitely merit in going out there and visiting, and we try and do that as much as possible.
But with kind of being mindful of the amount of sort of time out of then the office in terms of managing our workload. So, I, yeah, we try and get out as much as we possibly can where it kind of is useful for the process, and when in the process we do that varies as well. So, sometimes we might do that, you know, when we're first put into contact with an organisation to explore it a bit more, but I also quite like to sometimes go out and speak to people as part of the assessment process, and have effectively an assessment call in person.
Because I sometimes think that can be really beneficial.
Alison Holdom:
Shall I go? Because he told me that… Yeah, obviously, Creative Confident Communities, as I've just said, is so much about communities and about place, so we do try and get out as much as possible. We have been in Northern Ireland a couple of times in the last year, members of the team.
And we try to visit as regularly as possible around the country. And as a whole team, we quite often go. In terms of events, I mean, obviously conferences, we go to a lot of relevant conferences, we do quite a lot of, visits to grantees, and if we do that, we tend to go and see, sort of, 3 or 4 applicants or grantees in one place, sort of in a cluster, and I think quite often, we try and bring people together and do some convening as well to understand, get some much stronger background and understand through meeting multiple people in a place.
So that's… but as Stephanie was saying, it's a difficult balance between the fact that, obviously, you know, we want to get applications processed, and we want to do as much in terms of learning as we can, but we have to base that around the amount of time out the office, but yeah, it's very important for the Creative, Confident Communities team.
Tom Cowie:
And, I think, as someone from Wales, I think it's really important to really reach outside of London. Esmée's based in, London, but, I think it's really important to kind of decentral our, kind of, focus. We have, like, we had a colleague, were, going to Northern Ireland who came back on the weekend, so it is… it's something where we are trying to make sure that we are going out, and definitely, I think, especially with Northern Ireland, I think that's really interesting to understand the communities and the kind of partnerships that are existing in the nation. And, of course, Scotland.
Luna Dizon:
Thanks, everyone. So there's a few questions here in the Q&A about our interest in creating wider change and whether that is primarily for us, focusing on like influencing policy and governance.
So, there's somebody here who's asked whether we see value in approaches that create change through conversations and engagement within communities themselves, including creating opportunities for young people to take on leadership roles.
Stephanie Morren:
I'm… I'm happy.
Luna Dizon:
Oh, can I? Oh, go on, you start, Steph.
Stephanie Morren:
Sorry Luna. Yeah, I mean I'm sure that Tom and Alison will have views on this from their aims as well. But yeah, certainly from the environment space, we do fund a lot of organisations that are looking to do policy advocacy and influencing change at sort of national or regional government level.
But no, we absolutely don't think that policy change is the only way to affect change. And actually, you know, often policy change can take an extraordinarily long time.
And you know the communities that we're serving or the issues that we're concerned about need change sort of sometimes faster than that so it's, it's really important in a lot of cases, that the policy follows what we want to see, but no, we… there are lots of other ways for change to happen. I think what's more important is really understanding the… just in… slightly jargony-speak, but the theory of change, so what… what is the route to the change that the organisation has identified? And I think as long as the organisation can make the case that they, you know, they've done their research, they've got the expertise to demonstrate how the work that they're doing will lead to change, however that change may happen. And like in the question, often that's via, you know, young people taking leadership or communities taking leadership, then absolutely we would, we support change in other ways.
Luna Dizon:
I think also for some of the priorities and outcomes, one of the things that we've identified is influencing public practice and also the general public in terms of narratives about the issues. We're also certainly in our, across our work on social and impact investments. We're also… and also in terms of how our endowment is invested, we're interested in influencing other investors to, you know, to… be more… think about their impact and what they choose to invest, so it is just to add to… to what… how it's broader.
But yes, thank you for those questions. There were a couple of DEI related, diversity, equity and inclusion related questions here. So, one person has asked about, if an organisation is committed to DEI and has in-depth policies in place to advance DEI, but their executive team is not largely led by those with lived experience. Does that mean they're not eligible to apply? And there is another question here about classism.
As part of the DEI assessment, what kind of criteria does Esmée use in considering an organisation's or an individual's social class? We shared the link earlier about the DEI data standards, so you can see, you can learn a little bit more about how that was developed.
But there is also a link in the resources for applicants where you can download different application, download sample application forms, including the DEI monitoring form. So, you can see the specific questions we asked. But in terms of how the criteria. We're not making these judgements, like the, organ… we ask organisations to complete the monitoring form so that… so they're… they're the ones, I guess, you're the ones that are self-identifying, or talking about the communities that you support.
Where we do have, I don't really know if it's, like, a criteria, but what we try to do is, like, so that it's… to help us classify, like. So that we can say what portion of our grants that we made last year were led by people with lived experience. We've got like a… like we use a definition of what that means. But that's all information that's based on the DEI data standards. So, do you have a look at that? And if there's, if you've got follow-up questions, do put them in. Yes, and there's a question here about if the organisation is not largely led with those with lived experience.
I don't know, like, yes, who would like to have a go at that one first?
Tom Cowie:
I'll give… I'll, I'll make a start, and, Alison and Steph, feel free to chip in. So, in answer to your question, does that mean we're not eligible to apply? It wouldn't exclude you, but I think… especially, and I'm speaking from A Fairer Future, viewpoint, a lot of the work is… that we're looking to fund is about sharing power, and where… so… if your organisation isn't, say, a led by and for organisation, we'll be really interested to see how you approach sharing power with the communities that you're working with. That could be done in so many different forms, and across the organisations we fund, that takes place.
Could be, like, an advisory panel, or it's… it's specific to the organisations, but I think that's something we would look for in the organisation, in the application, because I think that is, something quite central into the work that we want to support.
Alison Holdom:
Yeah, just to add to that, in terms of community leadership, and decision-making is really central to Creative, Confident Communities, and we will ask everybody that comes… that gets… that's either at an expression of interest call or a full proposal to talk more about how those decisions are made within the organisation and how porous they are to community leadership or to the leadership from the, people that they're working with. It will be a process that we'll make as part of the assessment, and it will, as Tom said, differ with each organisation in how we look at that, and what further questions we make.
Luna Dizon:
Thank you. I'm going to ask one of the questions that came in advance. This one is from Eleanor, and it is for Stephanie.
So, Eleanor's question is, would community-led work to reduce wildlife disturbance caused by recreational activities be considered to align strongly with our priority on space for nature?
Stephanie Morren:
Thanks Luna. Yeah, so it's in a lot of ways it's hard to tell without seeing more detail about the organisation, about the work but from that limited information I would say probably not. So Our Natural World Guidance online is really really helpful to have a look at it but essentially in summary the two kind of main areas of focus for space for nature is one restore nature across large areas of land which does include urban. But that's really about talking about either habitat creation or supporting species within that within those habitats. And then the second area, which I suppose is more connected, is around providing more nature-rich spaces for people to access and enjoy, particularly those facing barriers to doing so. So, we're looking for, you know, everybody to have equal access to nature for, you know, well-being, etc.
So obviously, in that context, you might find urban areas where you know you're trying to to mix, you know, accessing these spaces for people, but also mindful of the wildlife that's found there. But based on the information that's been provided, I would say that it's, it's not quite a fit. But there's always the opportunity to submit an expression of interest to discuss further.
Luna Dizon:
Thanks, Steph. Tom, I'm going to go to you for a few children's children and young people's rights questions. So, there's one from Saskia, which came in advance. So, they work, they have a advocacy forum of care experienced young people on drawing their lived experience to drive change. We do have a specific outcome that's sports that is for work for care experienced young people, which is currently closed.
But Saskia wants to know if we think their work would be strong enough for the outcome that is about youth-led change. Before you ask that, I'm going to just share a couple of other related questions. So, in the Q&A, Emily has a question about if you're applying under the children and young people's priorities, do you have to be a young people's organisation? Can you seek funding to develop a project? Or network supporting work led by young people with a learning disability, if there is a need for that in the sector.
And if you can hold on to those things, I can repeat these questions, Tom, if needed. There was also a question in advance about… about whether… about whether we plan to reopen to applications for the outcome on, early years, so children from 0 to 5 years.
Tom Cowie:
Unmute. So, first one… so, yes. So the youth-led change, you… so we don't… we don't… oh, so basically, applications come under… coming under that priority. We don't really dictate where, or, like, what the young people are focusing on within that change.
So we've… we can open that up to, all causes and areas, so if the young people are behind the work and leading the change, then I think that's interesting for us to kind of support it. As you note, the, so the care lever priority is closed. This is a… this is for us a kind of… we're focusing our resources on a learning programme, and as well as supporting the organisations that are part of it, and we wouldn't have… a… we're not looking to open it up, anytime soon. I think with this specific question.
We have a kind of… we kind of see things as, like, a priority, and then, like, a secondary. And in your… in the application, if it is… if this is, like, a youth-led change at the core application, I think it would be fine to, apply. It might be trickier if this was speaking to the… long-term outcomes, around children and young people leaving care. So that's… it's a… it's a trickier answer, but I think that will come out through the, through the application and how that work develops. But, and I think, as well, just to mention that I wouldn't… for the participants on this webinar, I wouldn't worry too much about selecting the perfect outcome at the EOI stage, because, we regularly move applications between outcomes and priorities where we think there's a stronger fit.
So… Where… So, I think really what matters is really explaining how that work creates change in that EOI text, and then we'll kind of take it forward from there.
The second question, if I remember rightly, was that about… The youth… being a youth-led organisation.
Luna Dizon:
Yes.
Tom Cowie:
I would say you don't… you don't need to be a dedicated youth organisation to apply. I think having that, there's a lot of intersections that children, young people's rights, that priority works within, and, so, and in the question. That can be, rights for disabled people, and it can intersect with other priorities that we have. So, we wouldn't… you don't have to be a youth… a young person organisation, you wouldn't be ineligible. I think one areas, though, is a lot of the outcomes, around, the children and young people's rights, it's… Thinking about how children and young people are quite centre to the work, how they're kind of inputting into the work, around the issues that they are facing.
So, it would be interesting to see how, if you're not, specifically a… a young, a youth-led organisation, or working specifically as a primary part of your mission with young people, it would… I think, I think… considering how that meets our outcomes on our website, I think would be a good head start. And then, I… forgive me, can you remind me on that third one?
Luna Dizon:
So, the third one was about reopening to occupations for our early years outcome, so children aged 0 to 5.
Tom Cowie:
Yeah, I think we so the early years outcome, so that's currently closed, and we don't really have any, plans to reopen it. We are keeping it on an invitation-only basis. I think this is to… we have a limited budget within A Fairer Future, and I think we want to make sure that we're focusing in on the areas that we have at this moment in time. I think… I think future… invitations for this work will be kind of… will become a bit smaller, and I think, yeah, I think we're keen to, like, think about how we can support this through partnerships with other organisations, and networks rather than an open application route.
Luna Dizon:
Thanks, Tom. I'm also going to share a link to some values that were developed by young consultants that we work with on involving young people. So I'd say for any youth-led work, we'd be interested to want… we'd want to know, understand how the organisation approaches involving young people, and this is… the involving young people values are something that we use to kind of help us understand this. So, I popped a link into the chat for that.
I'm going to ask a question by Karen next. Al, I'm going to go to you. So, Karen's question is, can you help support local authorities with non-statutory work aimed at breaking down financial barriers to access culture, arts and heritage?
And sport training and skills to help with high levels of unemployment.
This is an area with some of the highest areas of child poverty and unemployment in Scotland, and they're proposing to bring the voices of the people to the forefront of interpretation. Most of their funding is aimed at tackling these issues directly. They've also followed up that they are securing capital funding, and this question would be to support community development, train the community to deliver and celebrate their art, culture and heritage. And also allow them to find skills to develop their CVs for future employment.
So big question.
Alison Holdom:
Thank you. Obviously, we, have not funded, and we do not fund local authorities for their statutory work. With non-statutory work, such as culture and heritage, we are still very rarely funding directly to local authorities. This is largely because most of our arts funding, that would come under that sort of work comes through Creative, Confident Communities, and as we've said before, the principle there is that the community are leading the organisation, or that it's a place-based community-led organisation.
Having said that, we're aware that a lot of culture and heritage sits in sometimes a strange place where it's partially part of… has been part of the local authority, it may now be in a local authority-supported trust, or it could be an independent or arm's length organisation.
I think it's probably worth, looking at what… which of those structures you're currently working through, whether it's actually in-house, or it's delivered through other people. We fund a lot of projects that are working really closely with their local authority on delivering work in, for example, local authority-owned venues, but it's very unusual for us to directly fund the local authority to do that work.
I should also say at that point that if you're talking about heritage projects, it's worth having a look at the Esmée Fairbairn Collections and Communities Fund, which is, funded by us, but delivered by the Museums Association, and it has a focus on how communities and museums work together to use their collections for the better use of the community. So, I would say if it's a heritage thing, it's also worth having a look at that fund as well. It has a lot of the same principles that we have, but some different measures around how partnerships work.
But it is quite, as I say, retains the main point, it's still very unusual for us to directly fund into a local authority. We rarely do it.
Luna Dizon:
Thanks, Al. So, this is a question for all of you about whether partnership work is a priority across all three aims. So, if you could just say a little bit about each of your areas.
Steph, I'm going to pick on you first.
Stephanie Morren:
Sure. Yes, and like like I mentioned earlier in my advice about what makes a good EOI, I think, particularly in in my area, in the Our Natural World, I think you know, being clear, it would be very, very rare for an organisation to be operating completely in a vacuum on an issue.
And nobody else to be working in that space, so I think it's really, really critical for us to understand what role you play, what role, others play, so how you collaborate, and, you know, often the best work comes from partnerships bringing different areas of expertise and skills to the, to the, issue. So… In a way, it's a kind of overarching priority for everything, rather than… we don't… we're not necessarily seeking out the partnerships, but it's really important for us to understand how the work that you're doing is happening in partnership and collaboration.
Tom Cowie:
And I'll just jump in. So, I feel like, so with partnerships, when we speak, I think earlier when I spoke about collaborative approaches, I think it is quite key to the work that we're supporting, but it's not like, say, if there are, applicants on this call who are thinking that they wouldn't have a partnership, it wouldn't… it's not an… wouldn't make you ineligible to apply, for example. But I think it's kind of thinking about, well, you know, how your organisation is kind of working across, like, the sector and networks and using, kind of, like, alliances to kind of unlock systemic change and achieve that wider impact that we're looking to support.
Alison Holdom:
Yeah, I'd really echo what Tom said there in terms of the Creative, Confident Communities. It's very much about who are your partners, who are your allies, and how are you, you know, working with other people to unlock change.
The Creative, Confident Community's portfolio includes a lot of networks and a lot of collaborative, groups who are working together, within a place, but also across the country, to do… to work in certain ways in places. So yeah, it is quite a significant, piece of any assessment that we would do of an application.
Luna Dizon:
Thanks everyone. So, the next question, this comes from, so they are a young community interest company and they would be interested in applying under Creative, Confident Communities.
They are a good fit, most of Esmée's criteria, and they believe they have a model that could be replicated, but they have not yet tried to do this.
Could their wider influence be aspirational, or are we looking for very concrete plans?
Alison Holdom:
Yeah, thanks. So, I suppose… I suppose by wider influence, we don't necessarily mean replication or scalability. It may be replication or scalability, you know, you may… that may be part of what your plans are. But we're also looking at how people might learn from what you're doing, or how you might be sharing the models you're working on.
If you have a plan to replicate your model, or you know that people are looking at your model or talking to you about it, then that's interesting to us, that that's actually potentially a model that support from a funder like Esmée could help to be shared and have a wider advantage. So yes, it can be aspirational, but it doesn't necessarily have to be about replicating a model.
Luna Dizon:
Thank you. So, we've got about 5 minutes left, and there's a question here from Anne-Marie. So, Anne-Marie says, given that our strategy runs until the end of 2027, what is our process for renewing our focus, and how will we communicate this?
So, I'll… I can start, and if the panel wants to add any more, please do. So, we're still in the early stages of looking at our, of developing our next strategy. We don't think it will be completely new. It will most likely be a sort of evolution of what we've got right now. So, as I said, we're still… we're still in the early days of that, where we're also going to be planning to do… we'll be… we will also be doing some stakeholder engagement around it as well.
And… I guess once when we when we have a better idea, and when we have something more to share, we will do. Sorry, it's hard to completely answer that. But yeah, I don't know if the rest of the panel want to add anything to that.
Tom Cowie:
I was just gonna add that, I think all, asking questions to any funder about their future strategy, I think you will… you always get, like, the most clear response, because a lot of our work, the new strategy will be… it will be for the trustees to decide, and I think the work… but what we're seeing is the work that we're doing and the reports that we're, collecting. We're feeding into this kind of collective knowledge, knowing about all the different priorities and areas that we're working in, and how… our funding is best supporting them.
So, as Luna just said, there's going to be an evolution, because when this strategy was, I think, from 2020, and then it was, like, refocused in 2023, we live in a completely different world now, and in 2027, we'll be different again. And as, Luna says, like, talking about, like, stakeholders, we have, our amazing Involving Young People Collective, so… which is our, a collective of young people that we work with, across, say, assessments, but quite widely. And I think different areas and different groups that we're working with, I think we're going to go out to and really understand how we can be a better funder and, yeah, and rise to the… to the moment.
Alison Holdom:
Yeah, and also, just to say, we have an amazing group of advisory panels, for each aim who are also helping us with this. They're in each case, people, from the sector who really understand, or from the sectors, who really understand the work we're trying to do and can provide us with some really essential information to help us work out what to do next.
Luna Dizon:
I was gonna… well, if… Tom, if you can fit it in quickly, there's a question here from Zara about… so they're currently funded under one of the gender justice outcomes, and they're wondering whether they can apply under… if we would consider a separate application, for a different piece of work.
And I guess that applies across all our work about people who can submit a separate application for another piece of work.
But Tom, do you want to start? Whilst you answer, I'm going to share the last couple of slides.
Tom Cowie:
Oh, fab. I think, it would be… Maybe if, Alison, jump in if I've… if I'm saying this wrong. I think, maybe holding multiple grants might be… it's less likely. I think we… I think we would accept an application. Obviously, we, we, we invite organisations to make their next, applications once their grants come into an end. I think one, just for you, Zara, I think I would, just get in touch with your funding manager, to discuss, kind of, the prospect of what this application would look like, just so, yeah, we can best advise you on this.
Further resources
Luna Dizon:
Thank you. I might actually just go over the last couple of slides. So, the slide that's up now just shows some useful links to support applying and further guidance. So, I would have a look at the guidance. There is a page called Funding Priorities where you can kind of explore the long-term outcomes under each priority, and then they kind of signpost you to further guidance, which has a bit more detail for those specific outcomes. So, do have a look at those. You don't need to read everything, just the things that you're interested in, and where you feel like your work is the strongest fit.
We also have some accessibility-related support, so if there is any part of our process, funding application process, that is a barrier to you applying due to a disability, we can… you can apply for. I think, like, £650, so up to £650 for accessibility support. There is a link there, too, where you can download a sample application form, so you can see what kinds of questions you can expect and prepare your application in before actually going on to the online system.
A link to our online FAQs and our grant funding overview. And then the last slide, sorry, we're a couple of minutes over, is just two other useful resources. So, there are links there to other funding directories, which hopefully will help. And then the useful sector resources page, there are links to information on a range of topics, including fundraising, legal, campaigning, digital, and safeguarding. And I will pass on to Al to close the webinar.
Alison Holdom:
Thanks very much, Luna. Just to say thank you to everyone for attending, to my fellow panel members, to the team behind the scenes, and to Nana and Alton for their BSL interpretation. But mostly, thank you to all of you for attending, asking questions, and also for doing all that very, very important and vital work that you do to make a difference in the sectors that we share. Have a good afternoon, everyone. Bye-bye.