The Leathersellers’ Foundation enables individuals and communities by working with charities; fosters opportunity through education; and supports the leather industry.
Stacey Lamb is Head of Charity Grants and has been part of the Leathersellers’ team since 2022.
What are some of the key categories/areas you fund?
The Leathersellers’ Foundation provides over £4m in grant funding each year across three areas: charity, education and leather. There are four of us in the Foundation’s Grants Team and are supported by the members and wider team of the Leathersellers’ Company, a 600-year-old organisation in the City of London.
I lead on the Foundation’s charity portfolio which concentrates on helping to prevent and tackle the harm of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs), by providing multi-year unrestricted funding to charities across the UK. We also deliver a responsive fund, which has most recently supported through the gate support for young men leaving prison, and are proud to be partnering with the People’s Health Trust on the collaborative Men’s Health Fund.
The Foundation’s Education Giving is driven by a commitment to social mobility, supporting a range of activity across all age groups. We support the Leathersellers’ Federation of Schools in Lewisham with funding to provide a universal breakfast club, targeted interventions at key transition stages alongside unrestricted funding for enrichment, as well as support at every level of governance. Colfe’s School is another key partner, where members are involved in governance, and our funds provide Sixth-Form scholarships.
Last year, we provided over £400,000 in direct grants to care-experienced undergraduate students in collaboration with the Jack Petchey Foundation and Genia Marzec Trust Fund, and are in the third year of an early years’ grants programme working with charities and primary schools in Lewisham, delivered in partnership with the Merchant Taylors’ Foundation.
Our Leather giving is often a point of curiosity when talking to fellow London Funders’ members, as it’s not something you typically see under a foundation’s, “Areas That We Fund”. Of course, the key is in our name and history, which you can read more about here. Today, our grant funding in this area works to provide opportunity for individuals to develop skills and knowledge in the production, preservation and use of Leather.
What’s something exciting/innovative that you’re currently working on?
The ACEs grants programme is in its fifth year, and the Foundation has recently renewed its commitment and focus on ACEs for a further five years.
As part of the London Funders’ Data and Evaluation Group, we have been exploring different ways to share and frame what we’ve learned around ACEs so far, to show interconnectivity and relevance to funders focused on specific sectors or working to address systemic issues.
On 25th November, we are partnering with the London ACEs Hub (LAH) to deliver the event, Racism through the Lens of ACEs, at Leathersellers’ Hall. The afternoon event will explore racism as a cumulative adverse childhood experience and consider racial justice as a vehicle of hope. Experts in this area, LAH, are bringing together advocates, practitioners, researchers and community members to connect, reflect and identify next steps through a series of panels and discussions.
The London event is part of a series of ACEs events we’re hosting with partners to highlight and amplify the impact and prevalence of ACEs, taking part in Glasgow, London, York and online. As a funder, there’s rightly pressure on us to use the data and learning that we hold to improve not only our practice, but to connect and challenge ourselves and others to reflect and help move discussion and action forward – so I’m very excited for the event series to get started.
What’s one piece of learning/insight that you’d like to share with other London Funders’ members?
Our shift to conversational reporting. After a one-year pilot, we moved to conversational reporting for our main charity grants programme and now use this approach as the annual reporting and learning method for 87 charity partners (two of us work on this).
The pilot year was trial and error but almost immediately we gained a level of transparency and frankness on risk and what was keeping leadership teams up at night that was far beyond what we’d previously gathered from written reports. On seeing the value in this approach, we spent time aligning a conversation record with the programme’s evaluation framework. This was a labour of love but now it’s in place, the charity can steer the one-hour, remote conversation, and share what they think we should know but might not think to ask. This removes the burden on the charity of a written report, and ensures that we get the detail we need across specific programme outcomes and have the opportunity to follow up there and then.
This level of insight has improved our grant management, due diligence and has made us a more responsive and trusted partner.
What do you value most about being a part of London Funders?
As funders, we have a responsibility to design and deliver grants and support that add value rather than burden. Having a community to sense check our thinking and approach is essential.
If there’s an idea or issue we’re wrestling with at the Foundation, I can almost guarantee that one of London Funders’ members will have tried it, made it work or based on their experience, tell me to run the other way! Now the Foundation is developing its next charity giving strategy, I’ve been very grateful to tap into the expertise of London Funder members who have shared their experience, provided a sounding board and haven’t been shy in providing challenge…and encouragement!
Looking ahead, share one thing that is on your radar. What should we prioritise as a network of funders?
Trauma-informed grantmaking. Like many London Funder members our grants criteria requires charities to be taking a “trauma-informed approach.” Although we’re not frontline, I think as funders we should aim to hold ourselves accountable to the same high standards that we require of those applying to us.
As part of the Trauma-Informed Grantmaking Community of Practice, I’ve been reviewing and applying the six principles of trauma-informed practice to the design and delivery of our grants programmes and communications. I’ll admit that this has been tricky at times, but the Community of Practice has really helped, and I strongly recommend it to other funders that want to learn more.
What’s an issue or area you’d like to discuss with other members?
Our main charity grants programme is currently an annual open round. As we look at what comes next for the ACEs programme, I’d be very grateful for insight into cohort funding and to hear more about experiences with learning partners and critical friends.
And finally, if anyone has found a way to provide meaningful, tailored application feedback at scale, with a small team, and little available time – well, I’d be thrilled to handle that training sign-up sheet!
Connect with us about:
Adverse childhood experiences, early years funding, support for care-experienced children and young people, direct to individuals grants, apprentice and skills-based training, funding partnerships, conversational reporting.
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].