Grantmaking

Comic Relief

'Coordinating the national response to domestic violence'

Having spent 15 years working with the domestic violence sector, Comic Relief knew there was an immense need for domestic violence emergency support, with 25,000 women and 50,000 children needing safe refuge accommodation every year. It had also seen how difficult it was for service users and service providers to identify suitable refuge vacancies.

'In the past many women contacted local helplines and agencies that were inadequately staffed and operated on shoe string budgets', according to Gilly Green, head of UK grants. 'The two national helplines previously run by WAFE and Refuge were also failing to met the needs of women and children. They were competing for limited resources, and were sending out a confused message to the public about services on offer.'

With the support of the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister, in 2001 Comic Relief brought together the key players for a process of review and resolution. At the same time, there was an ICT audit of the sector, the formation of a steering group and a feasibility study by the Resource Information Service. All this hard work culminated with the launch in December 2003 of the National Domestic Violence Helpline and an interlinked online refuge vacancy system, UK Refuges Online.

UKROL has become the standard tool to find refuge spaces within local women's aid services, and currently receives an average of 8,000 hits a month, while the helpline has answered 364,130 calls from women seeking help and advice since December 2003. The judges called it 'a phenomenal achievement by a grantmaker', adding: 'It is using the power of money up to a point, but no amount of money would have got these agencies working together if not for the sensitivity and diplomacy of the individuals in the organisations and agencies.'

Gilly Green
Head of UK grants
5th floor, 89 Albert Embankment
London SE1 7TP
020 7820 5566
Reg no: 326568
www.comicrelief.com

Community Foundation for Greater Manchester 

'Unlocking dormant assets for the benefit of the community'

The Community Foundation for Greater Manchester raises money from the private and public sectors for the benefit of grassroots community groups in disadvantaged areas of the region. A key aim of the Foundation is to create a sustainable source of funding for such organisations, and research conducted by the chief executive into community foundations in the US had shown that this had often be achieved by the effective management and growth of endowment funds.

As development manager Jean Mills explains, he then looked at how this could be done in the UK. 'He found that often, local authorities were sitting on dormant trust funds that they'd held for many years. He applied this theory to Greater Manchester's local authorities and realised that, potentially, there was approximately £2 million worth of trust funds in Greater Manchester alone.' Most of the trust funds dated back to the Victorian era, and were dormant for number of reasons, often because the original purpose had become outdated.

The pilot scheme took place with Rochdale Metropolitan Borough Council, and the Borough of Rochdale Fund was officially launched in October 2005. Having developed a proven model, similar funds have now been launched in Bury, Stockport and Manchester, while the Salford Community Fund will be launched this summer, and talks are underway with Bolton and Wigan MBCs.

At the time of application £720,000 of the dormant funds had been transferred to the Foundation's control, with a further £460,000 from Salford and £200,000 from Bolton and Wigan expected by June 2007. Using average fund investment performance rates these revitalised funds are forecasted to grow to £1.5million in 5 years and provide new cumulative funding of £311,000 (4 per cent of fund value each year) to support community groups and projects.

Tariq Ahmed
Director of marketing and development
Beswick House
Beswick Row
Manchester M4 4LA
0161 214 0959
Reg no: 1017504
www.communityfoundation.co.uk

CAN

Achieving a breakthrough for social enterprise

There are 55,000 social enterprises in the UK, which turn over £27 billion and contribute more than £8 billion to the economy. Yet relatively few have successfully scaled up their operations beyond the local community. Hence the Breakthrough Initiative, a partnership between CAN and private equity company Permira, which helps social enterprises scale up and overcome barriers to growth by deploying Permira's business skill and capital investment.

'It was a meeting of minds and fortuitous networking that brought us together with Permira, who were looking to do something innovative to engage in corporate social responsibility', according to Alan Ng, assistant director of CAN social investment. 'They met our CEO Adele Blakebrough, whose vision was to tackle the issues of scaling up social enterprises. She found there was a real alignment between what they do which is grow private businesses, and how it could be applied to social enterprises.'

Breakthrough tackles issues such as management skill, information systems, lack of external stimulus to growth, stretched financial resources and lack of access to high-level business skill. With most government support focusing on start-up SEs, Breakthrough is able to have the greatest impact with these more established organisations. Processes and procedures for Breakthrough were designed based on learning from examples of social investment practice from leaders in the field internationally, particularly in the USA, with a philosophy of taking an active interest in the whole business, not just its balance sheet.

The judges called the initiative an 'interesting model, well-executed, and way ahead of target'.

Denise Vergot Holle
CAN Social Investment Director
32-36 Loman Street
Southwark
London SE1 0EE
020 7922 7751
Reg no: 1075749
www.can-online.org.uk

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