Allocations for the first round of the Levelling Up Fund and details of the UK Shared Prosperity Fund were among the announcements included in today’s Budget statement.
Rishi Sunak, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, unveiled his Autumn Budget in the House of Commons today.
Sunak has been under pressure to help people with the cost of living as he announced plans that he hopes will transition the economy beyond the pandemic.
Here are some of the main points of his statement that affect charities:
Under the umbrella of levelling up, the chancellor announced more than £2.6bn for the UK Shared Prosperity Fund over the Spending Review period, which he said would focus on helping people into jobs and “getting on in life” across the UK.
£560m will be given in funding for youth services in England over the next three years, enough to fund 300 youth clubs.
The first round of the UK-wide Levelling Up Fund has been allocated with £1.7bn of local investment in local areas, which include the redevelopment of Inverness Castle in Scotland.
21 projects will benefit from the £150m Community Ownership Fund, which will help communities around the UK to protect and manage their assets, such as pubs or Post Offices.
£850m will be given to protect museums, galleries, libraries and local culture in England.
The Chancellor confirmed that the UK Shared Prosperity Fund will at a minimum match the size of EU funds in all nations each year. He also announced £11bn in Overseas Development Assistance, and an additional £458m for asylum and refugee support that would be delivered by 2024-25.
The Recovery Loan Scheme was extended until the end of June next year, although there was no mention of the Community Renewal Fund.
Business rates will be reduced by 50 per cent, said Sunak, alongside further tax reliefs for cultural venues, museums and galleries.
Other announcements likely to have an impact on charities and their service users include billions in spending on health and social care, cutting the Universal Credit taper rate by eight per cent and an increase in the National Living Wage to £9.50 an hour from the start of April next year.
Samantha Mercadante, policy manager at the National Council for Voluntary Organisations, said on Twitter that the organisation welcomed the commitments made in the budget.
“NCVO welcomes new spending commitments on sport, culture, and public services and we are pleased to see that the Chancellor has listened to charities by acknowledging the need to bolster local government funding and make changes to Universal Credit,” Mercadante said.
“However, today’s announcements will not be enough to support charities and communities to recover from the pandemic and build a stronger society.
“In the forthcoming levelling up white paper, we want to see investment in social infrastructure, the creation of a Community Wealth Fund, and reform of the existing funds designed to support communities to level up.”
Full coverage of the sector’s reaction to the Autumn Budget to follow.
A new initiative has been launched to help charities close the digital divide.
The ‘Deloitte Digital Connect’ will be delivered in collaboration with CAST, a charity helping organisations use digital for social good. The programme will bring together up to 50 charities, including Deloitte’s ‘5 Million Futures’ existing charity partners, and connect them with expertise, advice, and a network to support their digital development.
Deloitte UK senior partner and chief executive, Richard Houston, said: “New technologies are rapidly changing how charities need to operate and there’s a growing digital skills gap that threatens their future. The pandemic has inflicted huge disruption to fundraising and volunteering and through our 5 Million Futures strategy we want to share our knowledge and resources to ensure that no charity is left behind.”
Deloitte’s ‘5 Million Futures’ team and CAST will be gathering information from all the charities to assess their digital needs and identify the most useful interventions to assist them.
The charities will also have access to a variety of mentors, workshops and one-to-one support from teams across Deloitte from tech and digital to law in addition to Deloitte’s offering of pro bono business support.
CAST director and co-founder, Dan Sutch, said: “The pandemic has shown how critical it is that charities have digital capabilities and capacity for service delivery, fundraising and how they operate. Over two-thirds of organisations see digital as a priority yet less than half, 42%, of charities have someone leading on digital as part of their role. Together with Deloitte, we are here to connect charities with expertise, advice and knowledge sharing – and to support charities to grow their influence and impact.”
Using case studies and amplifying the voices of people with lived experience is a vital tool in the charity communications armoury – but it’s important to get it right, for the sake of everyone concerned.
I was delighted to chair the latest PRCA Charities & Not-For Profit Group, which tackled this subject with the help of three expert guests.
Our first guest, Mark Webb, head of comms at the charity Shift.ms, has a unique perspective on the topic having lived with Multiple Sclerosis for more than a quarter of a century and himself been a case study in campaigns including one for the We Are Undefeatable campaign earlier this year. You can hear more about his personal and professional story in a recently-launched PRCA podcast.
Many of us may be listening to podcasts and many corporates may be using podcasts as an innovative medium to reach employees and other stakeholders. Perhaps, you have considered creating your own but are not quite sure how to get started. So, I thought it may be worth demystifying the basics and sharing some software you could use to create your own podcasts.
I recently attended a two-week podcasting course with Sonder Radio and learnt to create my very first podcast. So, I am sharing what I learnt with you here:
– Genre: A podcast can be of any genre (Interview, conversation, storytelling, theatrical, educational, monologue, conversational etc.) Choose what appeals to you and feel free to experiment till you find what your style is. I chose an interview-style podcast
– Concept: Next, brainstorm with a friend or on your own to narrow down the concept of your podcast. What would you like it to do? And who is your target audience? Once you have the podcast concept, you can start planning to create it.
– Guest(s): Depending on the concept of your podcast, you may or may not need to identify a guest. Schedule a preliminary informal chat with your guest if possible. Use this meeting to bounce off ideas and the questions you are planning to ask, check details of their story and finalise the final list of questions.
– Recording: Plan to meet in person or online to record the interview or conversation. You could use Zoom, your phone recorder or various apps based on what is your preference. I primarily used Zoom (https://zoom.us/) to record as I met my guest virtually. Podcasts can be of any duration but to make it easy to edit, try to keep your recording tight.
– Intro: An intro is a short introduction of your podcast concept and the specific episode, it is usually recorded in the podcaster’s voice.
– Outro: A short conclusion for your podcast – thanking your listeners, your guest, perhaps announcing your next episode. Again, this is usually recorded in the podcaster’s voice.
– Soundscapes: These are the background sounds that convey the mood and ambience of a podcast. You could choose forest or ocean sounds for a mindfulness podcast, or an office or pub sounds for one set in a city. Check out Epidemic Sounds (https://www.epidemicsound.com/) or BBC Sound Effects (https://sound-effects.bbcrewind.co.uk/) to choose from a variety of sounds.
– Bedmusic: This is the background music on your podcast. It can be used as a signature music in your intro and outro or you may choose to use it right through. A good site to create original music from combining existing instrument sounds is Soundtrap. (https://www.soundtrap.com/)
– Editing: I learnt to edit my podcast and combine the different elements (Intro, Outro, Interview, Bedmusic and Soundscape) together on a software called Reaper https://www.reaper.fm/). You may edit the same podcast into a shorter version for promotion or to play it on radio.
– Publishing: There are many podcast hubs. Software like Anchor (https://anchor.fm/) allow you to easily host & distribute your podcast to Spotify, Apple, Google and other popular sites.
– Promoting: Promote your podcasts to friends and family, on your social media, on your website etc. If you have an opportunity, radio is a great medium to publicise your podcast and there are many community radio stations looking for interesting content. You can create a promotion image on Canva (https://www.canva.com/)
Hope you found these tips useful if you are starting to create your own podcasts. As for me, I am hoping to record my second episode soon. I was thrilled to have the 4-minute edit of my pilot podcast episode play on Sonder Radio last week and am working on a 20 minute edit currently.
Singing is great for keeping the brain stimulated, relieves stress, anxiety, reduces isolation and improves wellbeing leaving you feeling uplifted! Do you have a group you support who could benefit from connecting with likeminded people?
The BIG Sing SOUL wants everyone in the community to have a chance to sing together, from stay at home mums, those who are retired, vulnerable groups with learning needs or anyone who just cannot afford or get to an evening choir.
No audition-no charge-booking essential
Lots of singing-building friendships-cake-laughter!
Beckett Frith asks what happens when communications staff face a backlash because of what they share online – and what employers can do about it.
It was a Wednesday afternoon in June when Mind’s social media team tweeted a simple statement. “We’re loving that #TransMenAreMen is trending,” it read. “The fact some people disagree with this is a common reason trans men are more likely to experience mental health problems than the average. A reminder to accept that people know themselves better than you do, and to be kind, always.” They included a little blue heart at the end of their supportive message.
But instantly, the comments started pouring in. Many, of course, were grateful, thanking Mind for sharing a positive sentiment at a time when the LBGTQI+ community is under increasing attack. But some comments were less welcome.
“Someone’s getting fired tomorrow.”
“The social media team have screwed up here.”
“You’ve just lost a supporter.”
In total, the tweet received over 600 comments, a mix of supportive and critical – but far more engagement than Mind’s usual tweets receive.
This kind of comment can be really hard for them to read and respond to in a professional way.
“Even though I was confident we’d done the right thing in standing up for a marginalised group, reading messages like that was still hard,” says Samantha Hopps, Mind’s Digital Content Manager. And it’s not just trans issues that Mind staff have experienced backlash over – the charity is aiming to become an anti-racist organisation, and as a result rasicm is frequently a topic on their social media channels.
“People often disagree that racism exists, or say unhelpful things like ‘everyone has poor mental health, not just Black people’ when what we’re saying is that Black people are disproportionately affected by mental health problems, or are more likely to have force used against them in a mental health setting,” Samantha explains. “We have Black team members moderating our social channels, and this kind of comment can be really hard for them to read and respond to in a professional way – because obviously it’s personal.”
Mind’s social team already deals with difficult messages because of the nature of their social channels – people frequently reach out and mention their suicidal feelings or talk about their poor experiences of the mental health system. “Dealing with abusive messages on top of that can be really tough – especially if you’re having a bad day yourself,” says Samantha.
Good mental health and wellbeing of teachers is important for them as individuals, for the profession and for the students they teach. 1 It is therefore concerning when the United Kingdom’s Health and Safety Executive (2018),2 reported that teachers, compared with other professions, have some of the highest rates of work-related stress, depression and anxiety in Britain.3 Moreover, the impact of stress for teachers as individuals and for the profession more widely is less understood.
To better inform this understanding, Education Support, commissioned CooperGibson Research to explore the evidence base for the impact that stress, burnout, depression and anxiety has on the mental health and wellbeing of the teaching profession. The main aim of this review was to explore the evidence base on the impact of stress, depression and anxiety on the mental health and wellbeing of the teaching profession.
Specifically, it considered:
Stress and burnout4 : evidence of the impact for teachers’ mental health and wellbeing at the individual level (Research question 1)
Anxiety and/or depression: evidence of the impact for teachers’ mental health and wellbeing at the individual level (Research question 2)
Stress, burnout4, anxiety and/or depression: evidence of the impact for teachers’ ability to carry out their role at school (Research question 3)
Stress, burnout4, anxiety and/or depression: evidence of the impact for teachers’ experience of stress, anxiety and/or depression on learner outcomes (Research question 4).
It is recognised that anxiety and depression are diagnosable disorders, and it is also recognised that a relationship exists between stress, burnout, anxiety and depression. The review takes this into account, while presenting an overview of the different ways in which research studies have investigated the impact of stress, burnout, anxiety and depression. The review also presents the implications of the findings for our understanding of the field and future research.
Over the past ten years the charity sector has moved towards digitalisation to better engage with and improve the experience of their key stakeholders, beneficiaries and donors with digital acceleration moving at rapid speed during the pandemic.
However, the industry still has a long way to go, and challenges such as tech skills gaps in the workforce, budgets and data security mean that the industry still has a lot to learn about maximising the digital experience.
Third Sector has partnered with Salesforce.org to bring you the, Embracing Digital First experiences in the Charity Sector breakfast briefing, taking place on 11 November 2021, online from 9:30am – 12:00pm.
Content creation is time-consuming. From initial idea creation to crafting the post and graphics, there’s a lot involved. Small comms teams and charities have the extra challenge of doing all this on a tiny budget with minimal resources.
Just Like Us’ independent research has found that LGBT+ young people are twice as likely as their non-LGBT+ peers to be bullied and to worry about their mental health on a daily basis. These findings have been the driving force behind our work in comms. Our comms team – myself (social media officer) and my manager, Amy (director of comms and media) – turns one later this year. Even now, with a two-person team dedicated to comms and media, working within a relatively small charity with a small budget has its limitations, especially when trying to create impactful content in an area with so much public attention.
The Violence and Vulnerability Unit (VVU) are delighted to announce that the new Violence & Vulnerability Community Safety (VVCS) Grant 2021-2023 is now open for applications.
As a partnership, the strategic goal of the V&V Partnership is to reduce serious violence, the harm it causes, and to safeguard those at risk (relating to county lines, gangs and knife crime). The partnership recognise that local organisations and groups are at the forefront of some amazing work that takes place to address these issues and the new grant wants to further support this work.
Roger Hirst, Police, Fire and Crime Commissioner for Essex, said: “The purpose of the Violence and Vulnerability Partnership is to reduce serious violence, the harm it causes and safeguard those at risk. In the heart of our Essex communities’, small groups and charities are working tirelessly to support young people to acquire life skills and the friendships needed to grow into happy, confident young people who reject negative influences. The Violence and Vulnerability Community Safety Grant wants to support this work and I’m delighted that we can commit to funding more of these local projects which help young people and their families. I’d encourage organisations to look at the grant programme and see if they are eligible to apply.”
The 2021-2023 VVCS grant round is for local *not for profit voluntary or community clubs or organisations based in (and therefore delivering in) Southend, Essex and Thurrock only. With the grant looking to fund projects that meet the stated aims and that can run during January 2022 to 31 March 2023.
Groups can apply for up to £20,000 to deliver support and interventions for children, young people, young adults and families (families must include children and young people, young person is defined as up to the age of 25) that have a positive impact on issues relating to crime and anti-social behaviour, violence and vulnerability. This may include early intervention work, gang & ‘county lines’, and child criminal exploitation projects.
The Partnership is particularly interested in projects that can evidence they are meeting needs as highlighted by young people and local residents in the ECVYS run Listening Project 2020-2021.
You can read the full report here Some examples of need highlighted in the report are:
Increased mental health support for young people at risk of serious violence
Indoor/ outdoor safe spaces with affordable & inclusive activities for young people to socialise
Opportunities for young people to learn life skills, participate in community based or volunteering projects and undertake work experience
Work with young people and their families to raise awareness of youth violence
Projects that promote greater communication and positive engagement between the police, youth groups and schools
Targeted youth work aimed at those young people most at risk of exploitation
Support for victims of youth violence
All applications must demonstrate how their project enables children & young people to:
Make positive choices that keep them safe
Raise self-esteem and confidence
Build resilience
Improve emotional and physical health and mental wellbeing
Due diligence checks and panel decisions will happen after the closing date.
Applicants made aware of grant decisions: End of November 2021
Funds to be with groups Start of January 2022
This fund has the potential for groups to make a real and positive difference in the lives of children & young people in Essex at risk of serious violence and the partnership is excited to be able to work with not for profit groups in local communities to see the positive impact that this will have on our young people.
*PLEASE NOTE THAT: Organisations MUST have a recognised constitution and be a- not for profit voluntary or community club or organisation, a registered Charity, A not for profit company or community interest company or other social enterprise. company limited by guarantee, charitable incorporated organisation or Registered society.