Five local VCSE organisations are on a development journey. What progress can they make if they have flexible funding and tailored development support? That’s what we’ve been finding out through our pilot project, Thinking Differently.

“Reassuring, I think is probably the word that actually, yeah, your dreams aren't crazy. You can do it. But let's put a plan together.” [A quote from one of the participating organisations, included in the Interim Evaluation Report]

As a quick refresher, we partnered with the Mental Health Alliance to support five organisations to work towards a more sustainable future. In this way, it’s different from short term, project focused funding that often makes it difficult for smaller VCSE organisations to continue to provide important community-based services, let alone grow.  

So what does this look like? Grant funding as well as tailored support focuses on areas such as evidencing outcomes, long term plans and the alignment of the organisations to the evolving local community mental health offer.

And it’s working! Here are some updates from our latest Peer Meeting, along with some early findings from the Centre for Health Promotion Research at Leeds Beckett University…

What progress did we hear about?

On a drizzly Thursday in December, we made our way over to Tileyard North to meet with the organisations taking part: Evergreen Active, 5 Towns Christian Fellowship, Wakefield District Society for Deaf People, Turning Minds Around, and West Yorkshire ADHD Support Group. We were also joined by Antony Nelson, who is leading on this piece of work; Louise from Leeds Beckett University; and Kath and Julie from Prosper Wakefield District.

In over a year, each organisation has made progress towards the goals they set and it was fantastic to hear about their plans to continue this work. Their progress included:

• Community consultation, leading to adaption of work
• Identifying outreach need
• Increasing demographic reach
• Continued work on finance and governance
• Working with Nova for support with trustee recruitment
• Securing local office space
• Admin officer employed to support financial tracking
• Reviewing income streams to identify new market
• Accessing relevant training for development
• Mapping trustees' skills

Funding is being used by the organisations in a range of ways, for example, to cover salaries for new members of staff, expanding service coverage across different geographical areas, as well as to buy in expertise. Some organisations increased hours for existing staff and others used the money to deliver activities.

Antony shared his 5 key takeaways from this Peer Meeting

1. The benefits of bringing VCSE leaders together, such as joint learning and signposting to sources of support

"I just engineered conversations between different because people sitting there going ohh, we're doing the same problem." [A quote from a stakeholder, included in the Interim Evaluation Report]

2. As with previous peer meetings, interesting similarities between development plans highlighting: the importance of governance and managing risk to sustainability through the diversification of income

3. Beneficiary voice and the power of narrative in evidencing impact

"What we do in the VCSE sector isn’t all about the stats…we make a real difference to real people’s lives" [Paula from Evergreen Active, speaking about their presentation where we heard from Trevor, who started Evergreen Active's Work It Out fitness course back in January, and now trains twice a week at Fighting Fit]

4. The support of Prosper and the opportunities of connecting to other areas of support

Julie, Prosper's Philanthropy & Partnerships Manager, spoke to the organisations about their current and future plans for supporting the local VCSE sector and signposted to a range of resources, particularly relating to funding and volunteering. A big thank you to the Prosper team for attending and sponsoring the event!

5. Recognising the 'journey' everyone's been on and the benefits of development planning!

We filmed some short updates from the organisations, coming to you soon...

What are the early findings about the project?

Here's a summary of the interim report by Leeds Beckett University:

• The impact of each funded project: projects have been able to increase the reach of their work, explore community need through consultation, and adapt their provision accordingly and create new approaches to support through network learning.
• The outcomes associated with tailored support: the five organisations have developed according to their individual needs, meeting self-determined goals during the first year of delivery. Regular peer network meetings, and progress reporting illustrates successful outcomes for each organisation.
• Partnership learning and organisational development: the model of funding and support has provided funded projects with the flexibility to focus on their development needs at an organisational level in terms of financial monitoring, the exploration of future income streams and funding arrangements, as well as governance. The peer network meetings have enabled shared learning, and networking for developmental benefit. The qualitative data gathered from stakeholders, and funded organisations illustrates a positive and developmental experience for all funded projects thus far.

We're so proud of the project, and the organisations taking part, and can't wait to see their progress this year!

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

This funding is distributed through Wakefield District’s Third Sector Framework, a fair, open and transparent way of distributing funding to VCSE organisations across Wakefield District.