FEEDBACK FROM THE FRONTLINE

Three organisations share their viewpoints on the cost of living crisis and where we can make the most tangible difference.

Just over one million people in Scotland – around one in fve – live in poverty. A similar proportion experience trauma, including adverse childhood experiences and multiple complex types of disadvantage. That’s the population we’re here to serve at The Robertson Trust, through our funding, support, infuencing and knowledge sharing.

Right now, what we're seeing is a deepening of disadvantage. Many individuals and families that were keeping their heads above water fnancially are being drawn into poverty. Many of those in poverty are being pulled towards destitution.

In response, we’re seeing grassroots and community organisations broadening their function, out of pure necessity. For example, one organisation we fund has been running a food bank for some time. It’s now providing school uniforms, winter coats, and help with fuel payments and other basic needs. We’re seeing warm hubs spring up, offering somewhere for children to do their homework, and maybe get their only hot meals of the week.

We’re in real danger of entrenching these services – when they should only ever be crisis responses. They should be a springboard into better income security and integrating positive mental health into our communities, rather than becoming a fourth emergency service that’s picking up the pieces of public policy and market failure.

What gives me hope is the clear intention of many of the charities we work with to move upstream and fnd ways to ensure families don't tip into crisis,

Jim McCormick, The Robertson Trust

for example, with income maximisation and debt reduction work. Some of the best community responses are the ones offering ‘under one roof’ or ‘no wrong door’ services so people aren’t moved from pillar to post to address multiple interconnected needs. That's the kind of opportunity we need to see emerge from this crisis.

One quick thing we did to address the cost of living crisis, in common with and in consultation with other trusts and foundations in Scotland, was provide a grant uplift. This was unrestricted and went automatically to all our grant holders with live awards. The total uplift for 2022-23 was around £1.6m.

The response has been sobering and motivating. Some charities told us that without the uplift they couldn’t have paid their energy bills over winter. On the positive side, other responses included a charity that was able to bring forward the launch of a new volunteer programme.

We know that this risks being a drop in the ocean – and it’s just one of many things we need to do. But feedback is telling us that, because it's timely, even this modest uplift is making a difference, especially for small- and medium-sized charities.

We’re trying to move decisively towards multi-annual and unrestricted awards. In some cases, we’re fnding charities still applying to us for project restricted funding. This is sometimes due to pressure to add our award to a restricted pot from many other funders. We need to see a shift in the funding ecosystem before our contribution is as powerful as it could be.

We’ve recently completed our frst thematic programme call on Financial therobertsontrust.org.uk

Security. We asked organisations to tell us about the big, longer term changes they want to achieve to advance fnancial security for households in poverty or at risk of poverty. We’re aiming for a cohort of partners with a commitment to a systemic shift. That might be reframing how fnancial security is understood by decision makers, the public or the media. It might be an alternative approach to the way debt advice or social security is provided. Overall, it's an invite to go above and beyond and to address the root causes of fnancial insecurity, most of which were there before this cost of living crisis and the pandemic.

The programme is also giving us a new feedback loop, providing insights so we can learn how to make systemic changes and improve the lives of families in those circumstances.

A panel of six people from outside the Trust, all with relevant lived experience, joined us as co-assessors for the Financial Security programme awards. We are just in the foothills of our work in participatory grant-making and have a long way to go to live up to our ambitions in this area.

I would describe The Robertson Trust as independent, but not neutral. We are not relying on government patronage or media consent. That puts us in a privileged position, and we have a responsibility to use our voice wisely. We’re listening to grant-holders, commissioning new research, developing and testing solutions so we can be sure of our ground. Then we will advocate for change. We cannot be neutral in the public sphere about what it takes to solve poverty and trauma.

The Money Advice Trust helps people across the UK to tackle their debts and manage their money with confdence. We have two advice services – National Debtline for individuals and households in fnancial diffculty and Business Debtline for small business owners and people who are self-employed. We also offer training and support to other UK charities who provide free debt advice. As well as providing technical detail on key topics, such as consumer credit legislation and insolvency law, we train advisers in crucial softer skills, which includes helping people who are bereaved. We train companies too, such as banks and energy suppliers, to better support their vulnerable customers. The third area of our work is policy research and sharing our insight. Essentially, this is about improving policy and practice for people in fnancial diffculty.

We work closely with a range of partners, including some grant-giving organisations. One example is our work with Barrow Cadbury Trust on Fair By Design, which includes a programme of research and events exploring inclusive design in essential services. Fair by Design’s vision is of a UK where people on low incomes and in poverty do not pay extra for services such as energy, credit and insurance. It aims to achieve this by infuencing regulators, policymakers, and businesses. The Money Advice Trust networks play an important role in supporting this work. For example, we were able to organise a roundtable with the Financial Conduct Authority and other regulators to discuss how inclusive design can be used to reduce the ‘poverty premium’.

As many as 45% of the people who call our National Debtline have a defcit budget – they've not got enough coming in to cover essential costs. As well as demand for our services remaining high, we’re increasingly seeing more complex cases. Three or four years ago, in the majority of situations, we could look at improving someone’s income or reducing expenditure. We’d ask: “Could you change to a cheaper energy supplier? Do you need that gym subscription?” But now, for so many callers, it’s more and more diffcult to fnd opportunities to reduce outgoings as budgets have no ‘stretch’ left. People don’t know when they're going to be in a position to pay back debt, which makes it very diffcult to move things forward.

You can’t underestimate the mental health benefts of having someone to talk to. But sadly for some of the people we help now with the cost of living crisis, our advice is more of a sticking plaster than a long-term solution. How do you sort out someone’s defcit budget when their income is unable to keep up longer term with the rising costs of their basic needs? You can’t. For these cases, there are more fundamental public policy questions for government to tackle, which we and plenty of other organisations are raising. But we know it will take a long time, and a lot of energy, to secure the kind of change we need.

If the people you support are experiencing the cost of living crisis, you can be sure that some of your colleagues are too. We all need to be thinking creatively about how we can look after our staff and enhance wellbeing. moneyadvicetrust.org

The Money Advice Trust is expanding after our recent success in winning major debt advice contracts from the Money and Pensions Service – an arms-length body of the Department for Work and Pensions. We're trying to ensure we can meet demand. We're also investing in technology, looking carefully at how we can use it to improve client journeys and the experience we provide to the people we help.

We have very supportive funders from a range of different organisations and have built many strong partnerships. Sometimes, our funders are partly driven by what you might call ‘enlightened self-interest’. Take the big banks, for example. We can help them support their customers in fnancial diffculty, which means their businesses run more smoothly. So, it makes sense to be investing in us. It makes sense for us to understand the situation from their perspective too.

One of the things that was brought home to me when I chaired last year’s ACF conference was that many trusts and foundations have the luxury of being able to take risks. With a large endowment you can take a long-term view and commit to supporting organisations and causes you believe in. That’s a precious thing, and something that is making such a difference across an incredible range of public policy areas.

All of us in the charity sector are facing a diffcult reality at the moment. But I am hopeful. Like we so often see in emergency situations, organisations are rolling up their sleeves, working together and forging new ways of doing things.

All of our not-for-profit clients — from small local charities to multinational foundations — have unique requirements, but they share a core set of objectives: to minimise risk, invest ethically and responsibly, and ensure oversight and governance.

Our boutique Not-for-Profit team accommodates the full spectrum of services, from standalone strategic investment advice to fully supported implementation and execution.

We develop robust frameworks to support our clients’ in-house teams, sourcing highly rated third-party managers from around the globe and identifying and accessing specialist asset classes. Most importantly, we provide ongoing monitoring and oversight.

Explore what we can do for you. Take control.

Our foundation’s founder Paul Hamlyn came to the UK as a migrant in 1933, leaving Germany to escape the Nazis. Because of his experiences, he had a particular interest in social justice and challenging prejudice. He was passionate about opening up the arts and education to everyone but particularly to young people.

Today, everything we do is underpinned by a commitment to social justice. Our main funding priorities are migration and integration; education and learning through the arts; widening access and participation in the arts; and investing in young people. And we have a nurturing ideas and people programme, which funds changemakers to develop ideas to achieve social change. We have been working in India since 1992 – the only place we fund outside of the UK –working with local organisations and communities where we can add most value.

Across all of our work we want to support organisations embedded in their communities and led by people who refect those communities. Those who know best are the ones most proximate to the issue, with lived experience of the challenges. We aim to address the power imbalances and structural inequalities that exist in funding. We look at an organisation’s principles and the way they work with their communities. If their values are aligned with ours, we have confdence that the work they do will be impactful. Of course we do our due diligence, but we try to take a trust-based approach. It means we can support those special organisations that have perhaps been around for years but haven’t had access to funding before.

For young people particularly, the social issues they’ve always faced are being exacerbated by the cost of living crisis. The organisations supporting them are facing increased demand at the same time as a massive increase in costs. It means the value of our funding has changed – with more being absorbed by operations, there’s less to support communities. It’s why it’s more important than ever to offer fexible core funding.

Organisations need security as well as some breathing space.

We contacted all our grant-holders in the autumn of 2022 to check how they were, and to reassure them that we didn't expect them to necessarily deliver what they’d originally planned. If they had challenges, we wanted to know so we could try to support them to fnd a solution. We also offered a 10% uplift to outstanding grant payments for the majority of our funded organisations. For some, even a small uplift had a signifcant impact. Interestingly, one or two returned the money so we could divert it to others in need. It just shows the generous nature people have even in challenging times.

The relationship we want to have with organisations is not a transactional one. We're here to learn with them and help make connections. For example, we organise a residential every year for around 150 organisations working in the migration space. They share insight and discuss challenges. The event creates a sense of solidarity, feld building and potential for systemic change. It’s really powerful.

An important role for us is demonstrating to others what social change and equity can look like. We gather learning and insight from our work, which we share on social media, our website and through convening partner organisations and other funders. We try to understand when it’s our time to speak on social issues and when the work speaks for itself. More and more, we want to amplify the voices of the organisations we work with.

Sometimes we need to divert our resources and let others lead. One example is our support for Baobab Foundation, which supports the work of Black and global majority communities. An amazing number of organisations are coming to Baobab Foundation for funding. It demonstrates that when people see themselves represented it can be the start of a change within our systems towards equity and racial justice.

Support for Baobab Foundation is part of our commitment to becoming an antiracist organisation. That’s our priority for the future. We’re looking at the applicant journey and our communications to see where they might be exclusionary or create barriers. We’re refecting on our internal culture and how some of our cultural norms are potentially perpetuating inequity in our funding.

As we’re part of the Funders for Race Equality Alliance, we carry out a yearly race equality audit to understand the makeup of the organisations we’re supporting, and whether they’re refective of the communities they operate in. And it’s not just about diversity. Being a diverse organisation doesn't necessarily mean that your approach is inclusive.

When you’re focused on social justice and systemic change you have to be comfortable with complexity – and embrace it. The intersections between identity, social issues and unique contexts can make it diffcult to know how best to use your resources. We need to be humble enough to accept that we don’t have all the answers, but curious enough to keep asking the questions. phf.org.uk