Great to learn that our partners at Katakata have been recognised for their wonderful work via a Big Issue Change Maker Award and have also recently been featured on Channel 4 news, highlighting their incredible inclusive hiring practices. https://www.channel4.com/news/number-of-disabled-people-who-cant-find-a-job-is-increasing​

Figures released recently suggest the proportion of disabled people who want a job but cannot get one is increasing.

Firstly we offer our condolences to the three beautiful talented young girls who were horrifically and senselessly murdered.

We were saddened by the recent racist violence that took place in towns and cities across the UK following these tragic deaths. We wish to share our support and solidarity with those affected by the acts of violence both offline and online. Walcot Foundation condemns these and any efforts to sow discord, division and hate in and amongst communities. Such actions stand against everything we believe in.

As one of the funders dedicated to servicing and supporting diverse communities across the London Borough of Lambeth, we stand with all of our communities to work together to reduce and remove social, economic, structural and institutional barriers preventing young people from thriving.

We are communicating with all the organisations and individuals we support to ensure we are doing what we can to support them during these fractious times.

If you would like to, you can donate funds to support important work taking place across Lambeth, focused on young people and their hopeful endeavours to play their part as members of diverse inclusive cohesive communities. 

Following the introduction of the Mayor of London universal primary free school meals (UFSM) policy this academic year, Impact on Urban Health (IOUH) and the Walcot Foundation have entered into partnership to offer up to £3000 of grant funding to Lambeth primary schools needing to upgrade their kitchen equipment and/or facilities in order to deliver on this policy.
 
To apply Lambeth primary schools will need to complete a short application form (taking no more than 10 minutes), applications will then be assessed via a local decision-making panel.

A frequently asked questions document can be found here and the application form can be completed via the below link.
 
Lambeth Schools UFSM Roll Out Fund application
 
The deadline for applications to be submitted is Friday 1st March 2024. 

We are really pleased that Walcot Foundation received an A rating in the 2023 results for the Foundation Practice Rating initiative.

Foundation Practice Rating aims to improve practice across the grant-making sector on the key themes of acocuntability, transparency and diversity.  They have created a four level rating system (A, B, C, D) where Foundations are scored against information they provide about themselves on their public information (e.g. website, Charity Commission).  This research was carried out by Giving Evidence and over 100 Foundations were reviewed from ACF’s top 300 list using this rating system.   This is the second year of the initiative.

This year, seven Foundations achieved an A rating, which is an improvement on last year when the FPR announced its first ever set of results and awarded three A ratings. The Foundations that received an A rating vary in size and structure (Walcot Foundation, Oxfordshire Community Foundation, John Ellerman Foundation, Blagrave Trust, Wellcome Trust, Esmée Fairbairn Foundation and Paul Hamlyn Foundation).

The Walcot Foundation Governor Priorities help guide the type of projects that we fund within our focus on Lambeth low-income residents. We typically review these priorities every three years.

If you would like to contribute to our current review you can do so by completing our strategy survey.  This should take no longer than 10 minutes.  

Please keep in mind that our charitable objects require that ALL our funding must be focused on Lambeth beneficiaries and 85% needs to be spent on projects which relate to education, training and employment for under-30s.

The survey will run until 20 February and the new Governor Priorities will be published on our website by July 2023.  As well as this survey and our tri-annual 'Listening to Grantees' exercise, we are running further focus groups, stakeholder interviews and undertaking desk research to inform the new strategy.  

The ongoing cost of living crisis is causing significant hardship to many Lambeth residents and local organisations are facing the twin struggle of their own rising costs coupled with increased demand for services.

In response to this, Governors of the Walcot Foundation have added an additional £300K to our annual grants budget in order to provide some assistance. 

This includes:

1. Support for Lambeth residents in crisis: £50K grant to Norwood and Brixton Foodbank to enable the four Lambeth Trussell Trust foodbanks to provide supermarket vouchers and energy top-up payments to foodbank guests.
2. Increased support to individual grantees: Current Walcot university student grants increased from £1,500 per year to £1,800 per year and all new applicants can apply for increased maximum of £1,800 (additional total cost - £60K)
3. Support to local organisations: Cost of living crisis top-up grants to local organisations with currently funded projects (£190K).  This is to help organisations (in a small way) with the increased costs over the winter.  These grants are unrestricted and do not need to be reported on.  The size of the grant is linked to the turnover of the organisation (under £50K turnover - £1.5K grant; £50K-£500K turnover - £3K grant; £500K-£1m turnover - 5K grant).

West Norwood based firm Winn & Coales (Denso) Ltd is continuing to generously support local community projects with donations totaling £45,000. 

It has made a £20,000 donation to Rathbone Youth Centre's Inspiring Learning Project.  This is the second year of a three year commitment.  As Charline King, Head of Children and Young People' Services says, "We would like to thank Winn and Coales for their long-term support.  This three year funding from Winn & Coales has been crucial in enabling us to be able to offer long-term mentoring and education support.  The three-year funding enables us to build and strengthen our relationships with the young people and their families, to be fully embedded with our community and partner schools and to provide continuous support over time to young people to make progress with their learning."

Also, in response to the cost of living crisis, Winn & Coales has made a £25,000 donation to Norwood and Brixton Foodbank.  As energy bills and food prices rise, more and more local residents are being pulled into crisis.  The Foodbank is facing significant growing need in what is likely to be a very busy winter.  This donation will enable the Foodbank to lease an electric van and hire a driver for a year so as to expand the number of home deliveries they can make to clients that find it difficult to make it to the centres.  This will be particularly beneficial to elderly and disabled clients.