Connecting People and Places Fund 2022 Evaluation Report – Public Summary

Foundation for Future London’s Connecting People and Places Fund, co-funded by the City of London Corporation, supports East London partners to deliver inclusive arts, education and employment programming and creative placemaking, focussing on ‘Fusion Skills’, partnership development and capacity building.

Fusion Skills are the combination of skills that businesses, cultural organisations and education providers know help young people prepare for and thrive in the workplace. They include communication, thinking, organisation, and creativity skills.

In 2020, the Foundation awarded 22 grants and 10 small development grants in response to Covid-19, which was evaluated in 2021.

In 2022, the Foundation opened the Connecting People and Places Fund: Collaborative Commissions to fund a smaller cohort of collaborative creative learning projects. There were 32 applications to the fund. Ten projects received grants up to £10k alongside a further three R&D commissions to support sector partnership development beyond the cohort.

The applications and funded projects had a strong focus on collaboration, equality, diversity and sustainability, in line with the Foundation’s aim to support a smaller number of high quality collaborative applications. Of the 32 applicants, 80% met the fund’s objectives and were deemed highly fundable. The fund was open for expressions of interest until 22 April 2022, and grantees delivered projects from June 2022 to November 2022.

A support network and programme of grantee support, advocacy, advice and training was provided alongside this funding called the Co-Lab. Grantees completed individual project evaluations and some participated in a creative storytelling process to collect stories from project leads and beneficiaries (five story collectors and eight storytellers from across the grantee network).

This evaluation report summarises the impact and learning from the Round 2 commissions.

To request alternative versions of this report, please contact us on info@future.london.