James and the team were proud to have been able to support the collective funder response to the pandemic, by first driving the ‘We Stand with the Sector’ statement, to promote trusting and flexible funding approaches to the crisis, and then coordinating and shaping the London Community Response, a ground-breaking funder collaboration where 67 funders came together to support London's civil society through over £57.5m of grants to over 3,500 groups across our city.
Responding to the news, James said:
“Every day I have the privilege of working with funders, community groups and colleagues who are passionate about making our city fairer, greener and stronger, it’s wonderful to be recognised for doing a job that I love.
During the pandemic, we’ve seen the power of civil society and London’s funders working together, from the increased flexibility from the 400+ funders who pledged to stand with the sector, to the speed with which grants went out through the London Community Response to groups responding to need in the most uncertain and challenging of times. This recognition is for all the committed, collaborative and courageous funders who worked with us to make this happen”.
Members and friends on the list
A huge well done to everyone recognised today, who has worked tirelessly to support our communities over many years, including some of our members and friends:
Dame
- Susan Carroll The Lady Sainsbury of Turville CBE
OBE
- Abdul Hai Lately Cabinet Member for Young People, Equalities and Cohesion, London Borough of Camden. For services to Young People and to the community in Camden and London (London, Greater London)
- Charlotte Elizabeth Young Chair and Trustee, School for Social Entrepreneurs. For services to Social Enterprise
MBE
- Rozina Ahmed Principal Policy Officer, Mayor of London's Office. For services to Equality, Diversity and Inclusion in Education, Culture and Sport
- David Adam Eastwood Rough Sleeping Lead, Greater London Authority. For services to Homeless People
- Sebastian David Elsworth Chief Executive Officer, Access - The Foundation for Social Investment. For services to Social Investment
- Ameet Jogia Councillor, London Borough of Harrow and Co-chair, Conservative Friends of India. For Political and Public Service
- Linda Christine Kirby Councillor, London Borough of Merton. For services to the community in South London
Supporting London’s communities in the long-term
Our work through the pandemic was driven by our learning from funder collaborations responding to the Grenfell Tower fire, the Manchester Arena bombing and the Borough Market attack in 2017, captured in “The Possible Not The Perfect” learning report we commissioned from IVAR. We’ve been able to build on this learning through covid-19, with four learning reports on collaborating for the future, and our Festival of Learning, which brought together nearly 1,000 participants to look at learning from the pandemic response and what this could mean for the future.
All this learning has shown us that it's clear that collaboration at pace and scale is possible. The challenges London faces – from systemic inequalities to the climate crisis – require the same innovative and bold action displayed by funders during the pandemic. We are working with members to develop proposals for funder collaboration beyond the pandemic, centred in equity and justice with long-term investment in our communities. Read more about that here
