Aims and activities
Aims and questions
Aims and activities
Collaborating on a new 10-year, unrestricted fund for the social sector in Edinburgh to work upstream towards big transformational change. This aligns with the city's ambitions of ending relative poverty and reaching net zero and being climate ready by 2030.
The fund is being co-designed by local organisations, individuals with lived experience of poverty, representatives from funders, local authority and Scottish Government. We want to genuinely shift power in how funding programmes are designed and decisions are made. Bringing ‘new money’ we aim to create a pooled fund of £15million contributed to by independent funders, lottery, philanthropists, anchor institutions and private sector.
How to get involved
We'd love to talk to funders who are interested in any of the following:
- contributing to the pooled fund (target £15 million by early 2024)
- contributing to the development of the fund
- sharing learning about developing pooled funds, to fund unrestricted and trust-based work
- sharing learning about funding for systems change / upstream work and/or long-term place-based work led by communities
- coming along to our funders community of practice and/or our other learning groups to share your experiences and learning around funding futures in long-term systemic, upstream, participatory ways
- joining our funders community of practice (meets every 2 months online, so is accessible to non-Scotland based people)
- sharing contacts and/or making introductions
- convening conversations between funders about barriers to and possibilities around long-term funding for communities to lead big, transformational change
- sharing learning about fund design which shifts power and centres collective intelligence across lived and learnt experience to make the best possible decisions.
Contact Leah Black if you would like to get involved.
Who's involved
Who was involved
Who was involved
Robertson Trust, Corra Foundation, William Grant Foundation, Turn2us Edinburgh Trust, City of Edinburgh Council, Scottish Government (Regeneration / Social Justice), Foundation Scotland, University of Edinburgh / Creative Informatics, The National Lottery Community Fund (Scotland), Capital City Partnership. These organisations are all either financially supporting the development phase and/or part of our funders' community of practice.
We have a group of 12 local organisations in our learning group and 8 individuals from the End Poverty Edinburgh members' group - all working together on fund development and design - as well as a group of people representing specialisms such a climate, just transition, poverty, anti-racism, outcomes and learning, and other areas.
Learning and Resources
Learning report on the development phase of the fund (May 2024)
