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What are some of the key categories/areas you fund?
Commonweal Housing is an action learning charity focusing on investigating housing solutions to social injustices. To do this, we partner with frontline service providers (usually expert charities) to deliver multi-year housing schemes for vulnerable groups. We provide the housing stock and commission independent evaluations to capture project learnings.
We also fund feasibility studies to explore whether ideas can become bricks and mortar pilots, and fund research into under-explored housing and social issues (typically brought to us by partners). Our current focus areas are at-risk youth and criminal justice, with our research arm spanning a wider remit.
What’s something exciting/innovative that you’re currently working on?
In our project pipeline, we have been collaborating with an expert women's charity to explore a London-based housing pilot for young women engaged in the criminal justice system. Specifically, those at risk of being recalled to prison due to housing insecurity, recognising the strong link between homelessness and involvement with the criminal justice system. By providing safe, supported housing alongside trauma-informed care, the project aims to improve resettlement outcomes and reduce the risk of recall and reoffending, breaking a familiar cycle.
We’ve also just closed this year’s Call for New Ideas funding, offering organisations grants to develop innovative housing models to improve outcomes for at-risk young people. We aim to partner with up to four organisations to test their creative housing solutions for young people facing hardship, with the intention to deliver these models as future housing pilots.
What’s one piece of learning/insight that you’d like to share with other London Funders’ members?
We want to highlight the growing need for multi-year revenue funding to sustain services long-term, particularly for housing and support interventions. Such funding is very often needed to unlock the crucial bricks and mortar element of a housing project.
As part of our offer to delivery partners, we work with social investors to provide capital funding to acquire properties for new projects to commence. The day-to-day operations rely on partners securing sustainable grants and funding sources. However, increasingly, high operational costs (especially for projects supporting high-needs groups), combined with challenges in securing sustainable funding, can prevent otherwise promising schemes from getting off the ground.
Looking ahead, share one thing that is on your radar. What should we prioritise as a network of funders?
Building on the advantages of multi-year funding, we would stress its broader role in enabling meaningful systems change. Longer-term funding cycles allow both funders and delivery partners to move beyond short-term crisis responses and invest in sustainable solutions.
Given the socio-economic challenges currently facing vulnerable communities, sustained investment is crucial for addressing the root causes of structural issues such as housing need, poverty, and inequality.
Of course, longer funding cycles raise concerns about risk, as meaningful change from interventions such as housing can take time to emerge. However, multi-year funding encourages innovation by creating space to move beyond tried-and-tested models (a key part of Commonweal’s mission). It gives new approaches the time to develop and generate learnings, ultimately leading to better outcomes for communities - the shared goal of delivery partners and us as funders.
What do you value most about being a part of London Funders?
As members, we value the space to engage in open, honest conversations with fellow funders, exchange knowledge and learn from one another. We would like to recognise London Funders' commitment to facilitating these engaging and resourceful events that foster collaboration and collective learning across the funding sector.
What’s an issue or area you’d like to discuss with other members?
We would like to explore the value of coming together to develop shared policy positions on common issues to amplify our collective voice. As a network of small and large funders, greater alignment could strengthen our ability to influence policy and drive change. Our areas of interest include; post-custody housing, young people and housing insecurity (including care-experienced children), supported housing reforms, housing benefit reform, the Private Rented Sector, and unregistered children’s homes. We are also always interested in the intersection between the state and the private housing market.
We are also keen to engage in conversations with fellow funders about the role of revenue funding in unlocking housing interventions to identify shared interests and opportunities for collaboration.
Connect with us about:
- Funding innovation and "trying and testing" new ideas
- Capital funding for projects that look to acquire properties to deliver impact
- Longer-term funding approaches
- Risk appetite
- The relationship between power-sharing and risk
You can connect with us by emailing [email protected].
The Member Spotlight is taken from our monthly member-exclusive newsletter, the Member Memo. The newsletter contains targeted information about upcoming events and updates from across the membership, with opportunities to connect and collaborate with other members. If you are a London Funders' member and would like to sign up, please email [email protected].