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We are the Co-op’s charity

Scroll down to find out what we achieved and learned with our partners in 2021

Flexible funding

2021 was a year of real change as we left behind some of the pre-pandemic ways of working and found a ‘new normal’ as a better, more co-operative and more responsive funder.

Our IVAR commitments were our foundation as we promised to be the best funder we could be. This is helping us to shape lives in our co-operative image, and influence others, too.

Acting fast to help refugees

We led Co-op’s response to the Afghan refugee crisis by awarding our largest single grant to date to Refugee Action. Our unrestricted funding helped to provide emergency support and make a long-term difference.

Helping spaces bounce back after Covid

Young people are making life better for their peers thanks to our funding for the Element Society. An additional unrestricted grant at the start of 2021 helped the team bounce back financially from Covid.

Flexible funding matters

We pledged a series of commitments in July 2021 to help us become a better funder. Louise Snelders, our Head of Funding and Partnerships, explains why this is the start of something exciting.

In 2021, we worked with partners and other funders to:

Award

£0

of unrestricted funding to Refugee Action – our largest single grant to date.

Make

flexible funding commitments to help us become a better and more co-operative funder

Award

£0

to help Space to Connect partners do what mattered most.

Award

£0

in flexible funding to help community spaces bounce back from Covid.

Youth mental wellbeing

Research consistently shows young people are bearing the brunt of the Covid pandemic.

Chronic youth loneliness is on the rise while Co-op’s ‘Shadow on a young generation’ report found children as young as 10 feel permanently disadvantaged by the pandemic.

We sought to help through campaigns that boosted youth mental wellbeing and funding that put young people in control.

A stellar Lonely Not Alone campaign

Young people created something out of this world for year three of our Lonely Not Alone campaign as they developed a new digital universe that shared honest and authentic stories of loneliness.

Making sure no young person grieves alone

Our #iwill Fund is helping bereaved young people support others though grief so they can grow in confidence and improve mental wellbeing. We’re proud our funding is helping a small charity grow and make a difference on a national scale.

Learning from our partners

We learned lots about how young people tackle youth loneliness and improve mental wellbeing as part of our Building Connections Fund evaluation. Funding and Partnerships Manager, Deanne Dixon, blogs about how we’ll use this to improve the way we fund.

Our impact so far:

young people have taken part in projects to tackle loneliness.

of Building Connections Fund partners say their work led to young people being more open to acknowledging loneliness and taking action.

young people have taken part in social action projects run by our #iwill Fund partners.

of young people have taken an action to help tackle loneliness after seeing our Lonely Not Alone campaign.

Participant numbers reflect monitoring forms submitted by partners up to 13 Jan 2022.

Making voices matter

2021 was about more than just listening. It was about raising voices and influencing change, particularly for communities who are heard the least.

This meant longer-term funding to increase trustee diversity, support for young people looking to become leaders and an exciting partnership that aims to overcome inequalities in tech.

Diversity on charity boards

We were delighted to confirm long-term funding for the Young Trustees Movement and Getting on Board in 2021. Our funding is helping to increase diversity on charity boards so they can make their work more reflective of the communities they support.

Creating young leaders

Our #iwill fund partner, Oxfordshire Youth, has been helping young mentors build confidence and leadership skills by supporting younger peers to move up schools. They also found young people showing incredible resilience throughout the Covid lockdowns.

Increasing equality through tech

Tech impacts on us all, but how can we be sure it tackles rather than amplifies inequality? The Federation programme is working on solutions thanks to our partnership with Luminate.

A new era for the Co-op Foundation

We learned a lot in 2021. And we changed a lot, too.

Nick, our new CEO, joined in January and new colleagues followed to help us build a Co-op Foundation for the future that can deliver on Co-op’s vision of ‘Co-operating for a fairer world’.

Read Nick’s first blog of 2022 to find out what the future holds for who, how and why we fund.

“The Co-op Foundation embodies the very best of our co-operative values. They’ve responded to the coronavirus pandemic to provide solidarity and caring for partners and empowered them to build fairer and more equitable communities. Congratulations to the team for all their work. I look forward to seeing the long-term impact of this output in 2022 as they continue to develop a new strategy that puts co-operation at the front and centre of grant making. This is an exciting development for Co-op and funding sector.”

Allan Leighton , Chair of Co-op

Thank You

to all our partners and match funders for everything you achieved and learned with us in 2021.

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Co-op Foundation is a working name of Co-operative Community Investment Foundation, a charity registered in England and Wales
(1093028) and Scotland (SC048102).

Registered office: 1 Angel Square, Manchester M60 0AG