Grant Giving
Aims and Objectives
Grant Giving Form
For 2020 our aims are:
- To support certain charities previously supported by the Presidents Club which we have not been able to help to date. In the light of COVID-19, we may also be able to to offer small levels of emergency support to charities we have already helped who are able to demonstrate a clear need for additional funds which fit within our overall diversity, inclusion and social mobility goals.
- To promote diversity, inclusion and social mobility in sectors of the economy throughout the UK. We plan to achieve this by awarding grants to and working with organisations to tackle these issues. These may include charities previously supported by The Presidents Club.
For 2020 our funding and collaboration will be targeted at the following areas:
Putting Inclusion into Practice
Building on and expanding work we have already undertaken, to understand the progression of those from economically disadvantaged and other diverse backgrounds and characteristics within the financial and other services sectors. We want to develop practical approaches to supporting progression within organisations and examine more holistic approaches.
Why not me, why not you?
Supporting initiatives that enable individuals from more diverse backgrounds and characteristics to aspire to, be prepared for, and supported while working in, professional services, investment and savings and related sectors.
What don’t we know?
Specific research around diversity and the barriers to work and progression to inform our grant making.
As we grow and consolidate as an organisation during 2020, we plan to work with various charities and other stakeholders, not only supporting charities with grants but also working with organisations which undertake social mobility research and collaborating with education and training providers. We will also work with employers particularly in the financial and adjacent sectors, making use of our knowledge and experience of these sectors, to provide wider public benefit through better access to employment and progression. We recognise funding alone won’t be enough to bring about the changes we want to see, so we intend to embed collaboration and learning into our approach and adopt new tools and approaches to achieve the greatest impact for our supporters’ contributions.
To achieve our aim, we plan to be guided by the following values and principles:
SUPPORTING ORGANISATIONS THAT ARE TACKLING DIVERSITY, INCLUSION AND SOCIAL MOBILITY ISSUES
We believe in empowering people by respecting and appreciating what makes them different, in terms of age, gender, ethnicity, religion, disability, sexual orientation, education, thought and national origin.
EVIDENCE
We believe that inclusion, diversity and social mobility issues are complex and different for different communities (such as socioeconomic background, mental and physical disability, ethnicity, gender, religious belief and sexual orientation) and we recognise that we need to identify the practical hurdles preventing people from entering occupations and, as importantly, from making progress within organisations. We want to help identify what approaches work practically. That is, what do people need to do to enter and work in a specific industry? What do organisations within a sector need to do to attract and maintain a more diverse workforce. In order to do this we plan to support specific research. The findings and recommendations from such research will then influence where our funding will be focused and how we will work with other relevant stakeholders (especially, our target beneficiaries, charities and employers) to tackle the issue.
COLLABORATION
We recognise funding won’t be enough to bring about the scale of positive change we want to see in the diversity, inclusion and social mobility sphere so we intend to work collaboratively as much as possible. As such we plan to work with other stakeholders such as employers, trade associations and educational organisations so that we can join forces to achieve a sustainable positive and measurable impact.
Purpose
We believe by sharing evidence of what works and what doesn’t work we can drive change, and innovate, adapt and improve what we do. We plan to monitor, evaluate and cascade any learning on all the initiatives that we plan to undertake.
INFLUENCING
We plan to raise awareness of diversity, inclusion and social mobility issues through social media in particular, so that we can contribute to accelerating changes in attitudes, policies and practices. Given the impetus for our foundation, we may in particular focus on such issues in the financial services and professional services sectors, as pilots for the UK economy as a whole, and taking into account the benefits for wider society of more diverse groups accessing such sectors.
Grant Giving Form
Our Core Issues
We recognise that the resources of the Diversity Project Charity (TDPC) are unlikely to be sufficient to solve the breadth and depth of diversity, inclusion and social mobility issues within the UK economy. Therefore, we intend to be focused in order to achieve a sustainable positive impact.
The basic criteria we will deploy in awarding and managing our grants for 2020 onwards
Based on our aims and objectives, values and principles, and our areas of focus, our grant-giving for 2020 onwards will involve the following basic criteria:
Type of projects/intervention we fund
We will only fund activities/intervention that show a direct link to any one of our focus areas.
Type of organisation we fund
We plan to work with organisations that:
• Have aims and objectives in alignment with TDPC 2020 aims and objectives
• Are already implementing projects in our focused areas
• Can provide evidence of the impact they have had on tackling diversity, inclusion and social mobility issues
• Have a clear vision, strong management and robust governance (including relevant policies and processes)
• Have access to and are working with or otherwise supporting our target beneficiaries (i.e. individuals and communities that are impacted)
• Can show they are sustainable and can provide evidence of good financial planning
• The two remaining charities previously supported by the Presidents Club which we have not been able to help to date. We will not make repeat grants to the Presidents Club charities beyond 2020 unless they help meet our aims and objectives
Type of funding we offer
Amount of grant we can award per project and per org is min £5,000 – max £150,000 but typically in the £5,000 to £15,000 range. We would prefer to support a smaller number of charities and initiatives that will have sustainable impact than to spread our resources too widely. However, we are also aware that funding a smaller pilot project which is scalable may create value.
Length – one-year grant.
Other support – we may also be able to provide organisations that we support with capacity building/technical assistance and access to TDPC’s network. This collaboration could create interesting opportunities for projects.
Type of impact we want to see being achieved
What we will not fund
TDPC will not fund:
- Work that does not have a direct benefit in the UK
- Grants to individuals, including direct student grants or bursaries
- Research, unless it is linked to furthering diversity, social mobility and inclusion.
Grant Giving Form