Lloyds TSB Foundation for Scotland has launched a three-year strategy that includes a new focus on working with communities in underfunded “cold spots” and setting up a social enterprise to support other funders.
The grant-maker’s two main funding programmes, the Henry Duncan Awards, which support grassroots charities, and the Partnership Drugs Initiative, run in partnership with the Scottish government, will continue.
The foundation gives around £1m a year through the Henry Duncan Awards, which is open to charities with incomes of £500,000 or less.
About £1.35m is awarded through the PDI, to organisations that work with children and young people affected by substance misuse.
A "place-based initiative" will also be launched later this year that will target areas of Scotland that do not receive grants from the foundation and other grant-makers.
Mary Craig, chief executive of the foundation, said the foundation had carried out research to identify areas where historically it has not received applications from and has not awarded grants to. It also overlaid that information with funding data from other grant-makers.
“We found cold spots, areas where we have not had the chance to put money in, either because we don’t get applications or because they are not good enough,” she said.
The specific areas and amount of funding for the initiative are yet to be decided, she said, but it will have no funding criteria, applications forms or deadlines, and will, therefore, be open to individuals and small community organisations without charity status.
Craig said the foundation would also be launching a social enterprise to share its expertise and support other funders. It will involve sharing resources, skills and networks. Any income from it will be used to support it work with charities and communities.
The foundation became embroiled in a long-running legal dispute with Lloyds TSB after the bank announced plans to reduce the amount it gave to its four UK foundations after major losses it incurred in the 2008 banking crisis. The other four foundations include England and Wales, Northern Ireland and the Channel Islands, which have been renamed as the Lloyds Bank Foundations following Lloyds’ split with TSB last year.
The foundation for Scotland was unable to agree a funding settlement with the group and was told in February 2010 that it would not receive any more funding from the bank once its existing agreement runs out in 2018. But it will retain control over the shares it has owned in the bank since its creation.
The Scottish foundation will continue to receive a percentage of Lloyds’ profits, just under a fifth of 1 per cent, until 2018.
Craig said its shares are worth nearly £16m and it is hoped they will appreciate in value over the next few years.
“The last few years have been difficult ones for the foundation, but we are very firmly here for the future,” she said. “We are committed to funding Scottish charities and through our place-based work we want to get into communities so we can help them do what they want to do. We also want to have a flexible and accessible service for other grant-makers.”
