Project groups are always a great chance for informal exchange of news and ideas. Minutes of each meeting are available on our website. Highlights of recent meetings:

 

 

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Refugee and Asylum Seekers

The latest meeting of this project group took place on 7 March 2008 with updates from
Richard Stanton and Amna Mahmoud of the GLA on the extensive consultation on the Mayor’s strategy for refugee integration. The final strategy should be published by July (delayed since no progress on major policy development can take place during the period of “purdah” around the Mayoral election). Group members were particularly interested to hear about the 25 outreach events all over London for refugee organisations: these had ensured a very high level of responses to the consultation and they congratulated the GLA on a model consultation process.
Diana Cliff, NHS Employers, and Beryl Randall of the Employability Forum shared information on supporting refugee professionals into employment. NHS Employers is in the process of setting up a London ‘development hub’ for refugee health professionals and Employability Forum has already established a hub for refugee teachers. The meeting provided an opportunity to learn more about these developments and ensure there is a co-ordinated approach and explore issues relating to employment of refugees.

Notes of both of these discussions will be shared soon. The next meeting will take place 17 June from 2.30 - 4.30 pm at London Funders. If you would like to join this group please contact Belinda.

STOP PRESS

Members of the London Funders Network are invited to attend an Employability Forum event - Making a Difference; Refugee Successes in the World of Work on 30 April 2008 at Allan & Overy, Bishopsgate, London.

The event is supported by PriceWaterhouseCoopers and will launch a publication of the same name highlighting the contribution of refugees to our economy using refugees' own stories of success to illustrate what people can achieve with a little support

Examples of success within the publication include: the Finance Director at the The Training and Development Agency, an inspirational Geography teacher from Kenya, and a Bosnian entrepreneur now running consultancy for the Home Office. The event is being run jointly with Twist, Refugees into Jobs, the Refugee Council, TimeBank and the Trellis project in Birmingham and will feature many other examples of success from projects.

For more information about this event: please contact Yaminee Pande at y.pande@employabilityforum.co.uk

Quality Standards

Joint meeting of Good Practice in Grantmaking and Voluntary Sector Infrastructure Development Project Groups

We are delighted that two of our project groups will be joining forces this month for a meeting on the variety of quality standards being used by the voluntary and community sector.

Members and associates of London Funders are invited to attend this free event which will feature presentations from Sam Matthews, Director of Services, Charities Evaluation Services and Andrea Allez, Performance Improvement Manager at NAVCA (National Association for Voluntary and Community Action)

The meeting will take place from 2-5 pm on Tuesday, 18 March at Buzzacott, 12 New Fetter Lane. You do not need to be an existing member of either group to attend, but places are strictly limited to members and associates of London Funders and will be allocated on a first come, first served basis: they are filing up fast!
Advance registration essential.

Olympics and Paralympics

This group brings funders together to work across a number of key London issues whilst identifying ways for joint working, joint scoping and collaboration. At the last meeting in November 2007 the group enjoyed a presentation reviewing the work of London Citizens an organisation campaigning around key training, employment, housing and community issues for local people in the Olympic area. This was followed a briefing from Peter Lewis of the Greater London Authority on structure and management of Olympic planning and operations.

As it is quite some time since this meeting we invite members to feed into the agenda of our April meeting to highlight issues they would like us to cover. Please email suggestions to Belinda by Friday 21st March

The next meeting will take place from 10 am – 12 noon on Friday, 4 April at London Funders - agenda to be confirmed. If you would like to register for this meeting or join this group or please contact Belinda.

Research and evaluation

Recent topics have included looking at City Bridge Trust’s new publication “The Knowledge” which synthesises experience from specific grantmaking programmes, the Diana Memorial Fund’s approach to ensuring effectiveness in achieving impact from its grantmaking, especially in the light of its policy to spend down its capital; and the recent overview of outcomes and learning from the whole 12 years of Lottery grantmaking. Jean Ellis of Charities Evaluation Services reported on her progress in reviewing monitoring and evaluation practice among funders: the intention is to invite Jean back when her work is complete so she can offer a full briefing on her findings to the London Funders membership.

The next meeting  will take place from 10 am – 12 noon on Tuesday, 8 April when the main agenda item will the new be to find out about the UK Research Centre on Charitable Giving and Philanthropy. This is based on a funding partnership by the Economic and Social Research Council, the Office of the Third Sector, the Carnegie UK Trust and the Scottish Government, which will jointly invest £2.2 million in the Centre over the next five years. It is structured on a co-ordinating hub with three spokes of specialised research programmes, exploring individual and business giving, charitable giving and social redistribution, and institutionalised giving structures. The Centre’s Hub based at Cass Business School, led by Professor Jenny Harrow, who will act as a Co-Director with Visiting Professor Cathy Pharoah: these two will be our speakers on 8 April.

Future project group dates (all at London Funders unless otherwise stated):

7 March, 10 am - 12 noon	-	Refugee and Asylum Seekers
18 March, 2 pm – 5 pm	-	Joint Infrastructure /Good practice in grantmaking (Buzzacott)
4 April, 10 am – 12 noon	-	Olympics/ Paralympics
8 April, 10 am - 12 noon	-	Research and Evaluation