News

The Fore is proud to announce the completion of its Summer 2019 Funding Round and the addition of 6 grantees to its portfolio.

The Fore accepted 300 applications in this funding round. Its trained strategic applicant consultants, each of whom has a minimum of 15 years’ professional experience, then carried out extensive due diligence on these applications over a 12-week period, ultimately selecting only a small fraction to present to The Fore’s funding panels, composed of representatives of the Fore’s business partners and other supporters.

The organisations ultimately selected for funding are among the very best small charities and social enterprises in the UK. They include:

Crosslight Advice

Crosslight Advice provides comprehensive debt advice to people in financial distress. Its clients often have very low incomes, long-term physical or mental health issues, or complex social and family problems. Unlike other debt advisory services, Crosslight Advice gives all of its support face-to-face. Its model incorporates mentoring and emotional support with financial education, in order to help people to escape difficult and dangerous situations. Crosslight Advice will use The Fore’s funding to pilot a new ‘Open Advice’ work stream – a faster intervention that will make it possible for the organisation to help more people. The service will also serve as a form of triage, to identify those in need of more intensive follow-on support. This new model will significantly increase Crosslight Advice’s capacity and efficiency, enabling them to meet demand and support an additional 400 people within two years.

Euan’s Guide

Euan’s Guide is an online resource that helps people with disabilities find out how accessible various sites and activities are. It was founded by Euan MacDonald MBE, and his sister Kiki, after Euan was diagnosed with Motor Neurone Disease and realised how difficult it is to know which locations are accessible for power-chair users. The site has become a vibrant online community, with thousands of reviews shared by its users every year. Euan’s Guide will use The Fore’s funding to unlock a network effect, rapidly increasing its scale and impact, by recruiting new business support and developing a reviewer engagement project to increase reviews and reviewers.

Head2Head Theatre

Head2Head Theatre (H2H) provides multi-sensory theatre experiences to children with a wide range of disabilities who are often excluded from cultural activities. Performances are based on puppetry, rhyme, repetition, music and other interactive, sensory experiences, and are subsidised (at £5 per show) to make them accessible for all. Last year, H2H reached 3,000 children in more than 100 shows. H2H will use The Fore’s funding to diversify its income streams, and expand its core staff team, in order to significantly enhance the organisation’s long-term sustainability.

Hope For The Young

Hope For The Young (HFTY) helps young refugees and asylum-seekers overcome barriers to education, by providing wellbeing support, volunteer-led mentoring and financial assistance. In 2018 alone, 2,872 unaccompanied children applied for asylum in the UK. 50% were refused refugee status, and subsequently faced international student fees of up to £28,000 per year. Language barriers, an inability to navigate bureaucracies and severe trauma also prevent young refugees and asylum seekers accessing education. Without an education, there is little hope of a better life for these young people. So far, HFTY has supported 95 children with the costs of education and delivered over 2,000 hours of mentoring. HFTY will use The Fore’s funding to meet the significant demand for its services by restructuring the organisation and growing its staff team – opening a mentoring hub in North London and growing the organisation’s capacity considerably. This will double the number of young people HFTY can support at any one time.

Young Urban Arts Foundation

The Young Urban Arts Foundation (YUAF) uses music to engage some of London’s hardest-to-reach and most at-risk young people. Its Outreach Media Bus and ‘Skip to the Beat’ programme provide a safe space for young people to learn DJing, music production and song-writing, all while accessing services that provide support with mental health, gang culture and drug and knife crime. YUAF’s intervention was co-designed by health practitioners and arts practitioners, and can signpost young people to a variety of other specialist services they otherwise would not access. YUAF will use The Fore’s funding to roll-out its ‘Amplify’ programme – a digital platform that will host youth content (as well as YUAF support materials), while also generating income for the organisation through corporate sponsorship. This programme will revolutionise YUAF’s financial sustainability, forecast to bring in over £80,000 in unrestricted funding within two years.

The Turnaround Project

In the UK, 60% of those who leave prison end up re-offending. Employment can reduce this risk by 30-50%, however, only 27% of those leaving prison have a job to go to. Turnaround Project supports prisoners in Belfast into employment through training and transitional employment opportunities. It combines also provides tailored ‘turnaround plans’, based on weekly mentoring. Turnaround currently offers offenders employment in two social enterprises (co-designed by graduates and offenders) – Big Loop Bikes, a bike repair shop, and Outwork, a grounds maintenance service. Turnaround Project will use The Fore’s funding to begin transforming Shannon House (an unused prison service asset) into a Transitional and Restorative Justice Centre, which will unlock full financial sustainability and large scale social impact for the organisation. Funding will also enable two of its projects, the Outwork and Big Loop Bikes, to become financially sustainable by scaling up their activities.

We would like to congratulate all the successful organisations, and thank our strategic applicant consultants for their hard work which made this Funding Round possible.

For more information, email [email protected].

About The Fore

The Fore is the UK’s ambitious new funder of dynamic small charities and social enterprises.  The Fore matches the skills and resources of the business community with the most talented social entrepreneurs across the UK, connecting businesses and their staff with exciting frontline opportunities to improve society. The Fore offers grants of up to £30,000 over up to three years to UK-registered charities, Community Investment Companies, Charitable Incorporated Organisations and Community Benefit Societies.  It does not have set sector, geographic or project funding criteria, instead inviting applicants to specify how the funding can best be used to increase the organisation’s effectiveness, impact and sustainability.