Our strategic grants are invitation-only opportunities where we identify an organisation that we would like to work with to help us achieve our overall strategy goals. These grants are usually focused on trying to achieve lasting system change or they provide an opportunity to capitalise on a current situation or event.
 

Our work with Kinship, an organisation that supports Kinship Carers, is a good example. We initially funded Kinship in 2021 when our grant giving focus was on Young Carers. Our first grant contributed to a pilot project to develop a network of Kinship Campaigners in the North-East. These campaigners came together to influence a step change in kinship care awareness and support at a local and national level. This project was so successful that a grant was awarded to support the pilot project’s national roll out.

Image credit: Kinship

Our current strategic focus is on young women and girls at risk of or in contact with the criminal justice system. We are working with Kinship again to look at the connection between children in kinship care and maternal imprisonment. This area requires further research that can then be used to prioritise and pilot projects aimed at securing better support for these families. This in turn will help reduce the risk of Kinship placements breaking down and children entering statutory care, where imprisonment rates are higher.

Kinship’s case study about their ‘Can’t Pay With Love’ campaign shows how Kinship Carers actively campaign for change.

Details of all our strategic grants can be found here.

Image credit: Kinship

Another strategic grant was awarded to Power Play Productions CIC to support their award-winning featuredocumentary, Holloway, that follows six women as they return to the abandoned Holloway Prison. The film was made using a unique process of a trauma-informed co-creation with six contributors.

Credit: Ola Fisayo – Campaigning in Parliament

Each woman describes what led them to prison, building a portrait of failing systems and trauma, while revealing the immense human capacity for recovery. This transformational documentary is using the women’s lived experience to campaign and call for changes to the way women are treated within the criminal justice system.

Credit: Power Play Productions CIC – Holloway screening and Q&A

Strategic grants have been made to: