Esmee Fairbairn Foundation Strategic Aims and Funding Approach

Overview

In October 2020, they launched a new strategy to improve our natural world, strengthen the bonds in UK communities and secure a fairer future.

Their Strategic Aims

Our Natural World

They want  to  ensure that our natural world is restored and protected and that people benefit from that recovery. 

A Fairer Future

A fairer future will require changes to systems and structures, while building the power and capacity of people and organisations. They want to provide the support and space to enable others they work alongside to create lasting change, and to challenge systems that stand in the way.

Creative, Confident Communities

They want to strengthen the bonds in communities, helping local people to build vibrant, confident places where they can fulfil their creative, human, and economic potential.

Places where the local economy works better for the people who live there, where there is equality of access to arts and culture, and where communities are at the heart of change.

See their overall strategic framework. 

Approach to funding

They offer both grant funding and social investment towards supporting projects aligned to their impact goals under these aims.

They make unrestricted, core, project, and delegated grants for charitable work in the UK.

Grant funding approach

Their grants support organisation's core or project costs, including staff salaries and overheads. They also provide unrestricted funding for charities. They do not fund building or equipment costs, or individuals.

The minimum amount they offer is £30,000 and they have no maximum amount. 

They also do not have minimum or maximum terms for grants – however, the majority of their grants are for three to five years.

They are aiming to make more longer-term grants to organisations that will have a lasting and significant contribution to their impact goals, and fewer short-term or small-scale grants.

• Around two thirds of their active grants are for core costs, or are unrestricted.
• Most of our grants are for three years to five years.

Decisions are made depending on the size of the funding request:

• Grants up to £90k - Executive Team
• Grants up to £250k & social investment up to £500k - Executive/Trustee committee, which meets every 6 weeks
• Grants over £250k and Social Investment over £500k - Trustee Board, which meets 6 times a year

They aim to give you a decision within three months of receiving your proposal. However, there may be a few occasions where larger requests take longer due to the timing of their Board meetings. Decisions are usually faster for smaller grants (£90,000 or less).

Success rates for applications in 2023 (excluding those for follow-on grants and those we have proactively invited)

• 7% of eligible expressions of interest were invited to submit a proposal
• 93% of proposals submitted went on to be awarded a grant

Social investments

Their social investments start with the social or environmental need and tailor the investment to it and offering flexibility. Co-design and learning are integral to their process. As well as making direct investments into organisations seeking to create impact towards their aims, they also invest into impact funds, which are managed by other social investors.

To be eligible for social investment, you must:

• Deliver or plan to deliver measurable outcomes that align closely to the priorities under their our aims.
• Be a charity or social enterprise or have a structure that includes a Mission Lock or be willing to add one.
• Demonstrate a suitable repayment or exit plan for the investment you are seeking.
• Be operating in the UK.

They are particularly interested in supporting

• Organisations led by, and for, people with lived experience of the issues they are working on.
• Ideas with the potential to influence wider positive change, help attract mainstream finance into impact or disrupt broken markets. See their Investment priorities for examples.
• Ideas, structures and interventions that meaningfully involve their communities.
• Impact that intersects across one or more of our Aims.
• Partnerships and collaborations.

Decisions are made depending on the size of the funding request:

• Social investment up to £500k - Executive/Trustee committee, which meets every 6 weeks. In some cases, our Executive/Trustee Committee will ask the Board to review a proposal of under £500k if they identify a particular risk or complexity.
• Social investment over £500k - Trustee Board, which meets 6 times a year

The amount of time this process takes varies according to many factors, but three months is a reasonable minimum expectation.

Visit here for further information.

What are they looking for:

Across all their aims, applicants will need to show that:

• Their organisation is leading the way itself, or as part of a collaborative movement or partnership.
• Their work is driving change for the future by doing something new, or by using tried and tested models to push things forward.
• Their work aims to make a lasting difference, reaching beyond those directly engaged to influence the policy, practice, or behaviour of others.

They are looking to support:

• Unusual collaborations and ambitious partnerships. These could be regional or national, and involve charity, public sector or corporate partners.
• Work which makes connections across their aims: 
  • Our Natural World, 
  • A Fairer Future and 
  • Creative, Confident Communities.
• Work that is driven by communities or the people most affected by an issue.
• Work which uses a preventative approach.
• Work that has practical plans to achieve and sustain change over the long-term.

Flexibility in their support

To better support organisations, they have adapted their approach and increased their flexibility. They now provide unrestricted, core and project grants for charitable work in the UK.