Co-designing the Grassroots Fund for London’s VAWG sector
The Mayor's Office for Policing and Crime (MOPAC), a functional body of the Greater London Authority responsible for oversight of the Metropolitan Police.
London Community Foundation, the charity for London's grassroots, supporting community-based organisations focused on helping disadvantaged London
Team:
Fancy Sinantha
Tyler Fox
We are currently partnering with the London Community Foundation and The Mayor's Office for Policing and Crime (MOPAC) to co-design and deliver its Grassroots Fund for London’s Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG) sector, together with the grassroots organisations that might be future grantees of this fund. 60% of funding will be prioritised for grassroots, specialist organisations led by and for minoritized women, whose priority is ending VAWG.
This fund was established following consultation by MOPAC which found that VAWG-specialist grassroots providers are increasingly dealing with greater and more complex needs. These smaller organisations are seeing funding reduced or focused on short-term outcomes, which isn’t sustainable. This consultation also found that organisations led by and for minoritized communities are disproportionately affected by funding challenges. TSIP is working in partnership with the London Community Foundation to co-design and deliver this fund over three years.
In 2020, we focused on fund co-design, which included designing and running five collaborative sessions with over 70 organisations in the sector over a 6-week period. The insights uncovered in these sessions were used to design the Fund’s Prospectus, its capacity building programme and the impact evaluation process for successful grantees once the fund is launched and operational. Critically, these co-design sessions fed into key aspects of the grant-making process, including application type, accessibility considerations, additional eligibility criteria, the selection process, and monitoring, reporting and other impact assessment requirements.
The successful co-design of this fund led to the Grassroots fund launch earlier this year. In the coming months and years, we will work alongside the grantees to build their capacity, support their impact measurement efforts and evaluate the impact of the Fund on London’s VAWG sector overall. You can follow this ongoing activity on our blog.