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Member Spotlight: Sovereign Network Group

Being part of the London Funders movement means building strong trusted connections based on shared values and ambitions. The Member Spotlight series is an opportunity for members to share about their work, values and expertise, and provides fellow funders an opportunity to connect with them.Joining the London Funders fold in 2023, Sovereign Network Group (SNG) is a housing association that funds across the UK. In their own words, they shared with the membership some updates about their current priorities and vision to create a fairer London.

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Practising participation

At the start of the year, we set our ambitions to bring together learning from those doing participatory work to help us understand how this way of funding could see resources flow more equitably to communities and build a fairer London.

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Q&A with Local Trust: long-term participatory funding to drive local change

How do you embed participation in a long-term funding programme? Continuing our learning focus on participation, we spoke with Megan Falck, programme manager at Local Trust, about lessons from the Big Local programme and what they’ve learnt from handing over decision-making and power to local communities across the country

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Q&A with Camden Giving: Legacy, local decision-making and solidarity

What’s it like to be involved in participatory grant making? As part of our current focus on participation, we joined Sammy Mason, a Camden resident and Natasha Friend, Director of Camden Giving, to hear their reflections about resident-led panels and the wider impacts of being involved in local decision making.

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New ways of working

London Funders is pleased to share that following a six month trial, we’ve made the changes introduced in our ‘new ways of working’ trial permanent. Back in October 2023, we introduced a number of options for more flexible ways of working - you can read more here about the rationale and ambitions for this, as well as how we learnt along the way in our three month update. The trial concluded at the end of March, and Head of Programme Delivery, Grace Perry, is back to update you on our journey and learning so far.

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Q&A with Sported: making funding more equitable through participation and collaboration

As part of our ongoing learning focus on participation, we spoke with Onyinye Nkemdirim, London Regional Manager for Sported, the UK’s largest network of community sports clubs and groups. Sported recently ran a Participatory Grant Model pilot which focused on making funding more accessible to Black-led and Black-centred community organisations. We spoke with Onyinye about rebuilding trust and how participation and funder collaboration might help funding flow more equitably to communities.

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Q&A with London Borough of Newham: Lessons from delivering participatory budgeting

As part of our learning focus on participation, we spoke with Sadia Ur-Rehman, Resident Engagement and Participation Manager at the London Borough of Newham about what they've learnt from ‘People Powered Places’, their flagship programme for participatory budgeting and engagement of local residents.

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Practising participation: Q&A with Islington Giving on learning, adapting and finding the right balance

In January, we shared why our learning programme will have a strong focus on participation in the months ahead. We’re currently bringing together learning from those doing participatory work to help us understand the breadth of approaches being taken, what it takes to do it well and how it might enable us and our members to be responsive to the needs of London’s communities.We spoke with Lisa Robinson and Anne Shewring from Islington Giving – a place based funder in Islington – about what they’ve learnt from involving residents in grant making decisions.

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New ways of working: what we’ve learnt so far

January marks the halfway point in our ‘new ways of working’ trial. We started the trial back in October 2023, when a number of options for more flexible ways of working were introduced– you can read more about the rationale and ambitions for this here. Three months in, and our Head of Programme Delivery, Grace Perry, is back to update you on our journey and learning so far.

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Participation: problems, positivity, and provocation

Can we build a fairer city by being more participative in the way we fund?

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Why participation is high on our agenda for 2024

Our Learning and Communication Manager, Malene Bratlie shares why our learning programme will have a strong focus on participation in the months ahead.

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Our highlights from 2023: building a movement, learning together and collaborating for change

A little over a year ago, we launched our new strategy for 2022-2030, focusing on our purpose of bringing funders together to build a better London by taking action on what matters to our city and our communities. As 2023 draws to an end, the London Funders team reflect on some of the highlights from the first year of putting our strategic ambitions into practice.

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