Search

Briefing Document for Community Grant Panel 2024

We are on the lookout for passionate, community-focused people who have knowledge and zeal for the London Boroughs of Hackney, Tower Hamlets, Waltham Forest and Newham to join our Year 5 independent grant decision-making panel, as part of our Westfield East Bank Creative Futures Fund.

We need you to help decide how our pre-shortlisted applications are assessed against the grant criteria and awarded to the grass root organisations improving the community and lives of people in these boroughs. In order to push our participatory grant making approach further across Year 5 we are also seeking your support in co-designing (and co-evaluating) our co-missioning approach for several larger strategic partnership commissions of up to £50,000 which will open for applications later in 2024, focusing on themes such as safer community spaces.

You will be playing an important part of supporting Foundation for Future London and will help us to make sure the Westfield East Bank Creative Futures Fund is transparent and accountable to the communities we serve.

The deadline to apply is Monday 30 September 2024.

Please read on for more information about the role, our Fund and our work.

About Foundation for Future London

Foundation for Future London is an independent charity established in 2015. We fund and fundraise for grant-making opportunities for East London communities and partners and facilitate creative placemaking, to support local places, learning, training and employment through arts, education, culture, and innovation.

We believe that inclusive places, creativity, culture, arts, innovation and education matter for people, places, local economy, and well-being. This is why our focus is to develop and invest in creative placemaking and delivery of a culture, education and innovation quarter that invests in the aspirations of and opportunities for underserved communities in East London. We want to build back better with no one left behind and so invest and collaborate with East Bank, Stratford Waterfront and City of London to ensure that the cultural quarters across London create a connecting corridor to open opportunities to our East London communities.

Equitable collaboration is at the forefront of all our work, which includes positive relationships with:

  • The diverse local communities living and working in the boroughs of Newham, Tower Hamlets, Hackney and Waltham Forest
  • East Bank Institutions
  • Donors, programme partners, sponsors, grantees, and ambassadors

About the Westfield East Bank Creative Futures Fund

In 2020 Foundation for Future London, through generous funding from Westfield Stratford City, opened the first community grant strand of the Westfield East Bank Creative Futures Fund. The fund aims to support local organisations and individuals to create new jobs, learning, skills, training, and educational programmes through the means of arts, culture, innovation, public realm and creative placemaking.

The Westfield East Bank Creative Futures Fund is an ambitious five-year programme that aims to invest £10 million into the local communities of Newham, Tower Hamlets, Hackney and Waltham Forest. The fund has gone from strength to strength each year with a further 37 projects being awarded over £577,000 in Year 4. We are now pleased to have opened Year 5 of the community grant schemes.

Each year we have evolved the design of the programme with feedback taken from our, grantees, community grant panel, impact evaluation and our ever-growing capacity-building network. Due to this the application process for Year 5 has been modified to ensure the outcomes and impact have a stronger focus on area needs and continues to drive forward our participatory awarding approach.

Year 5 – What is different this year and what is participatory grant-making?

As a funder that listens to our local community and truly wants to put resources in the hands of those who need them and know how to use them with the most impact we are expanding the role of our participatory community making this year to involve community grant panel in the design and evaluation of fundings streams running across Year 5.

Participatory grant-making is the practice of passing grant-making power to the local community members and those with lived experience. In practice, it means placing those communities/members at the centre of grant-making by giving them a role in deciding who and what to fund, matched against pre-established grant criteria. This form of grant-making is a conscious effort to rebalance power and create true transparency.

Who does it benefit and how we are tackling EDI?

Participatory grant-making particularly benefits those underserved communities, by ensuring you have a direct say in deciding how the Foundation’s generous funding from Westfield Stratford City and resources are used. It also allows us as a funder to learn from and better align our grant-making with the needs and aspirations of local communities, grass root organisations and individuals. It also helps us to reach new groups and continuously grow networks.

We have adopted a targeted and intentional approach to achieve diversity, equity, and inclusion. This means that we will be ensuring the processes for selecting panel members and inviting applications are open, inclusive, and accessible, with an intention to reduce selection bias and barriers to the participation of marginalised groups of our underserved communities.

Your involvement will benefit and empower local people to transform your communities.

The grants panel plays an essential role in making funding decisions. They are responsible for reviewing applications for financial support from local voluntary organisations and charities, and collectively making decisions on which community projects will be awarded funding via a grant to achieve positive benefits for the community.

A good panel requires a team of people who share knowledge and understanding of the local areas. Panel members can come from all walks of life, the one common factor is that each member has an active interest in the community. Ideally, members will represent a good cross-section of the local community, and we are keen to hear from anyone with a passion for the local area and those that are keen to see funding make a real difference.

We’re looking for 1 individual from each of the four East London boroughs that we work across (Newham, Tower Hamlets, Hackney and Waltham Forest) who either live or have a strong connection to that borough. No experience of grant-making is needed but they must have local expertise, passion for their community, who are supportive and understanding to the complex needs of the community, can be objective and are willing to express their opinions respectfully.

We expect community panellists to commit an initial 5 days (36 hours) to participate fully in the process and hold basic IT skills as there will be documents sent and reviewed electronically before the panel meets in person.

Skills, expertise and/or lived experience in the following areas are sought:

PLEASE NOTE:

  • If you are an existing grantee or have either successfully/unsuccessfully applied for funding in the past, you are still eligible to join the grants panel. However, you must declare this at the application stage.
  • If you are connected to or are working for a local organisation that may be applying for funding, you are still eligible to join the grants panel. However, you must declare any interest and you will not be eligible to be present for any discussion or decision-making on that application.

What’s Involved?

Q: What does the grants panel do?

The grants panel is responsible for reviewing and considering final application requests for our large grant strand for funding, and collectively and independently agreeing which projects to support. This will be in close collaboration with the two members of Foundation team who will also be part of the panel. Applications to be assessed will have already been shortlisted matched against grant criteria.

Additionally, the grants panel will also support co-design our co-missioning approach for several larger strategic partnership commissions of up to £50,000 which will open for applications later in 2024, focusing on themes such as safer community spaces.

Q: What is my responsibility as a grants panel member?

Your role as a grants panel member will be to apply the fund guidelines to consider the final shortlisted application requests for funding, and to contribute to the decision-making process. This involves, reading through the programme guidelines and the requests for funding in advance of the meetings, contributing at the grant panel meeting with questions and giving your objective view on the proposals being considered. You will be asked to consider each application on its merit to collectively agree on the grant awards.

Your role will NOT be involved in any due diligence checks or grant administration.

You will be asked to sign a confidentiality agreement and a code of conduct agreement prior to any documents and applications being shared. All declarations of interest must also be declared and recorded on appointment to the panel and prior to any decision-making discussions.

Q: How much of my time will be required?

The grants panel will meet twice. Once for an introduction and training session and once for the final decision-making awarding. Each meeting will last approximately three to five hours. However, there is an expectation of additional hours of self-reading to conduct individual scoring and reviewing of applications in your own time, prior to coming together for the final meeting.

In addition to the annual community grants, several large strategic partnership commissions of up to £50,000 will open for applications in Autumn/Winter 2024, focusing on themes such as safer community spaces. The community panel will meet a further 2-3 times as a group to support the design and delivery of this commissioning processes and future grantee networking and partnership development opportunities.

Q: What will be provided?

Training sessions and socials/networking will be provided for all panel members. This will cover the funding guidance and shortlisting criteria along with details of grant marking, awarding examples and case studies of grants previously awarded. 121 support from the team will continually be provided where needed.

Applicants must have their own access to IT eg laptop or tablet.

All panel members will be paid £900 for their time and commitment. This will be via BACS transfer to a chosen account. You are responsible for paying tax on the fee, if relevant. Alternative methods may be discussed eg this can be in cash or vouchers, depending on individual preference.

Childcare costs may also be discussed if needed.

On appointment, you will be provided with our safeguarding policy, Equality, Diversity and Inclusion policy and contract.

Q: What else you will get form it?

This participatory grant-making process will allow you to have a direct say in interventions that may affect your and your community.

Serving on the panel, allows you to be able to bring your lived experiences into the grant-making process. It will allow you to be an active participant in deciding which issues to prioritise and what approaches, projects and groups are best suited to address them.

For grant recipients, being supported and acknowledged by their peers offers a real validation of their approach.

Serving on a panel also provides an opportunity for you to develop your own skills further and access new opportunities. This can lead to developing own careers and professional development.

How to Apply and Timeline

If you think you have the lived experience and the passion we are looking forward, we would be thrilled to hear from you.

To apply please provide no more than 1 side of A4 explaining:

  • your motivation for applying
  • which borough you are connected to
  • your skills and knowledge, and your lived experience and characteristics that would make you a strong asset to sit on a community panel.

Please send your application to grants@future.london.

Your application should cover any additional support needs, you may require and all previous life experiences.

If you would like to apply in a different manner such as a video application, please get in touch with the team.

Following shortlisting of applications, we may arrange for a follow-up informal call with 1-2 members of the team to discuss your application.

If you would like to arrange an initial call before this, please email: ashtonmullins@future.london

Timeline

Deadline for applications: Monday 30 September 2024

Follow up calls: week commencing 7 October 2024

Appointment: week commencing 14 October 2024

Proposed dates for training, networking, panel meetings to be confirmed with panel upon appointment.

Let’s keep in touch

Follow us