Camden Giving Reports
As of the 9th April 2024, Camden Giving has awarded £6.7m in the form of 797 grants, awarded by 260 community resident panelists. These grants have been made via a variety of different funds, each with a range of criteria, aims and aspirations. This reports page captures Camden Giving’s different areas of work, including funds awarded over the years, and shines a light on the brilliant impact Camden’s grassroots organisations have been able to achieve as a result.
Year Review 2023-2024
Discover the impact of our work over the past year. Explore key insights and successes in our Year Review report.
We believe our donors and supporters can play a significant role in overcoming injustices through both their financial contributions and beyond.
5 Years of Camden Giving
The reports in this section showcase our work in collaboration with businesses, supporters, citizens and community leaders across Camden. As well as highlighting the priorities for our work coming up and how businesses and donors can support our mission of ending inequality in Camden together .
Looking Back: 2017 - 2022
The Future: 2022 & beyond
We are now celebrating 5 years of solidarity and collaboration with our community of businesses, charities, citizens and supporters since our inception in 2017. The reports below share our achievements and learnings focussed on our key manifesto pillars: Partnerships, Participatory Grant-Making and Empowering Connections.
Our Acts of Solidarity book is a celebration of the work that Camden businesses have accomplished in the past five years through collaborating with citizens and Camden Giving.
As part of our Racial Justice Strategy, supporters Zappi produced the Racial Justice in Camden to share insights on local racial injustice.
We know our approach to Participatory Grant-Making is more equitable, effective and has better outcomes than traditional grantmaking. Our report highlights the impact of PGM in practice over the last 5 years.
Our Director, Natasha Friend, has written about how businesses can continue to be a force of change in Camden and beyond.
Camden Giving acts as a connector of existing initiatives, opportunities and support with people who need it, from that we’re able to gather data on what is working and where gaps exist.
We Make Camden Kit
In partnership with Camden Citizens and Camden Council, we’re funding great ideas that will make Camden a better place through the We Make Camden Kit. 12 Camden residents are at the heart of the decision-making and they have so far made grants of up to £1,500 to 100+ projects via their fortnightly meetings, including individual resident, charities, social enterprises and school (extra curricular activities) that achieve Camden’s Core Missions.
Food Funding
The We Make Camden Year 1 panel came together in Winter 2021 to design the Food to Change Fund and awarded grants of up to £7,500 to charities and social enterprises to address food inequality in Camden in February 2022. The funds provided an opportunity for community organisations involved in tackling food inaccessibility to deliver food poverty services, plus wraparound support, to make longer term change in residents' lives. You can read the summary report here.
The We Make Camden Kit - Food Insecurity Fund 2022, provided an opportunity to test new ideas and support organisations to take the ‘next step' on from what they currently do. The fund was based on the theme of ‘wraparound support’ – this was intentionally broad and so we funded a range of interpretations of what wrap around support looks like. The We Make Camden Year 2 panel decided which organisations received funding.
The Future Changemakers Fund
The Future Changemakers Fund followed the tragic stabbing of three young men in Camden in February 2018. As young people in Camden face rising violence, poverty and cuts to the youth services that protect them, the Future Changemakers fund aimed to address this and funding was awarded solely by 16-25 year old community panelists.
Equality Fund
The Equality Fund provides flexible funding to small charities and social enterprises who are actively bringing together people from different backgrounds to create communities.
The fund supports organisations that actively bring together people from different backgrounds to create communities, and by doing this the support positive wellbeing. The panel wish to support organisations who support people to have the power to make decisions and the power to have their voices heard.
Panel+ (A Camden Giving Programme)
As a participatory funder, we prioritise shifting power to a varied range of voices, through supporting local residents to make decisions on how we invest funding, because people who are surviving local inequalities are the ones we should look to for the solutions.
Panel+ formed as a programme following interest by panel members for more support, training & knowledge of the funding sector. We were fortunate to receive an unrestricted grant from The London Community Foundation for the Panel+ programme, allowing us to continue evolving new approaches to power-shifts in grant-making. For more details on the programme and to read our recommendations for how and why to shift power in this way, read the full report below.
Euston Voices Researchers
The Good Life Euston is a participatory partnership with Camden Giving, the London Borough of Camden, Lendlease, the Institute for Global Prosperity (IGP) and Euston’s residents - Euston Voices Researchers - to develop a new wellbeing index for the Euston Area.
The Euston Voices Researchers have identified what the local priorities are for their community, and have worked on defining a set of measures to be used to shape tangible changes in their neighbourhood to track the impact of major changes that are planned for Euston over the coming 20-30 years.
Camden Covid-19 Charity Fund
The COVID-19 Charity Fund was created due to the extraordinary demands that charities, social enterprises and community groups faced because of the crisis. Round 1 of the fund focussed on immediate financial support, food bank and emergency response. Round 2 then focussed on continuing this financial support, helping to tackle digital poverty and supporting projects with proven track records of delivering services for BAME communities.
Following both rounds 1 and 2 of the COVID-19 fund we conducted a review into Participatory Giving during a pandemic. This report, written and coordinated by two volunteers, shines a light on the speed of funding we were able to provide, the importance of community panelists making funding decisions and the enhanced inequalities many people in Camden now face.
Kings Cross Fund
Camden Giving's KX Fund existed due to a partnership between King's Cross Limited Partnership (KCCLP), the London Borough of Camden and Camden Giving.The aim of the fund was to ensure that those who live, work and play in the Borough of Camden benefit from changes to the local area. The KX Fund aimed to improve social cohesion and quality and access to natural environments.
Communities Together Fund
Our Communities Together Fund was in partnership with Volunteer Centre Camden and funded by the London Borough of Camden’s ‘We make Camden’ initiative. The fund supported Camden organisations and citizens to celebrate diversity and unite our communities.
Youth Employment Programme
We worked with Euston Town, Coram’s Fields, Camden’s Youth Offending Team, 3 Camden Businesses and Camden young people to co-create a pilot Youth Employment Programme that supported 3 residents aged 16-25 into paid work placements. Camden Giving employed and paid the London Living Wage for the duration of their placements. Alongside this they accessed paid pastoral support through a dedicated youth worker at Coram’s Fields and weekly wraparound support sessions; ensuring their wellbeing was prioritised and supported alongside their work placements. To read the full report click on the link below.
Inclusive Community Fund
Our Inclusive Community Fund included a partnership with Camden Disability Action, funded by the London Borough of Camden’s Community Impacts programme. The programme put people with disabilities at the heart of the decisions, empowering them to make informed choices on which projects to fund based on their own experiences.
HS2 Camden Fund
The HS2 Camden Fund existed to support Camden communities during the construction of the high-speed railway. The fund aimed to create a sense of place in Camden by supporting projects that bring people together, improves physical and mental health and creates a stronger voluntary and community sector.
Social Action Fund
The Social Action Fund builds on the success of the 2019 Communities Together Fund, which was a partnership with Volunteer Centre Camden and funded by the London Borough of Camden’s ‘We Make Camden’ initiative. In 2019 ten Camden residents were at the heart of the decision-making and they funded 54 projects that brought together 14,000 residents through activities that celebrated the differences and diversity of groups and communities in Camden.
