115 grants, £550,000 and more than 36,000 people: today we’ve launched our first impact report to share the difference being made by our Assura Community Fund across the country.
The report – which looks at what was achieved by the first grants made by the fund, running from 2020-21 – shares first-hand accounts of people who took part in or benefited from the work of the successful projects.
This round of grants was made at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic as the UK prepared to enter another lockdown. It was already clear that the meaning of mental health, isolation, and levels of disadvantage in our society were being forever changed as the impacts of the pandemic tunnelled deeper and deeper. We wanted our fund to focus on helping projects which were looking ahead: working to head off or mitigate the longer-term health issues that the pandemic was creating and exacerbating.
Janet* took part in the Ecotherapy at Foundry Wood project to help socially disadvantaged people struggling with mental health and social isolation, and those in addiction recovery, to improve their wellbeing through outdoor and nature-based activity sessions. She said: “It is honestly not an exaggeration to say the sessions have changed my life so much for the better.”
Elsewhere in the country, youth workers supporting victims of serious youth violence at Homerton Hospital in Redthread’s project used our funding to help evolve their approach. Young people said:
“If you hadn’t been here, I don’t know who I would have told what was going on. I could only see death or something really bad. This has saved me.”
“Honestly I’ll never forget this. Your support has meant so much to me, at a time where even my own family weren’t supporting me.”
In the report, our CEO, Jonathan Murphy, told us: “What these organisations have delivered is testament to what the voluntary and community sector can achieve every day: in the hands of organisations which really understand their communities, even relatively modest amounts of funding can be transformative. With every grant round our fund makes, we’re helping to build the evidence base on the needs of local health and the role of the voluntary sector in supporting primary care. We want the Assura Community Fund to play an important part in that relationship and have exciting plans for its future. I must thank the Assura team members who’ve given their time to be part of our grants panel, and to the team at Cheshire Community Foundation who have been the engine room of our grant programme delivery.”
Having helped to get the fund off the ground, I’m so proud to see its first qualitative analysis of impact published. Our ambition now is to further deepen our approach to analysing the fund’s activities, so that we can develop the Assura’s Community Fund’s own theory of change and evaluate its social return on investment so that we can continue on our mission as we BUILD for health – and deliver lasting impact with communities.
Claire Rick, Head of Public Affairs