Weeknotes 68 (6th April— 9th April)

A short weeknotes for a short week! Happy Passover, Easter and long Bank Holiday weekend to you all. We’re hoping that this time provides some much needed space for tranquillity in an otherwise overwhelming time.

What we’re doing

I was due to be in California this week so had a relatively quiet diary. Though I’ve been disappointed not to be on holiday spending time with far away friends, the April sun and more video calls than I can count from my home in London have been making up for it.

For the Digital Fund team, a lot of this week was spent with wider Fund colleagues. Cassie and Phoebe hosted the first weekly ‘Virtual sharing space for grantmakers during Covid19 response’ in the UK Portfolio as a place to share how we’re feeling about difficult conversations we might be having with grantholders during this time. It was a new kind of space, beyond a meeting or catch up, but a space for collective sharing and support. If one thing has emerged from this period, its been the quick adaption to new ways of working that we’ve all had to go through. Here’s hoping that the option to offer care and be vulnerable with one another continues. We also had more practical meetings to discuss talking to grantholders, as the organisation continues to update its response.

Phoebe has been in conversations with grantholders and support partners and doing the round up for the last month’s theme on “Leadership” and now kicking off April’s theme of “Responsible Technology”. Sensing into conversations with grantholders, and wondering what would be most useful for for the cohort to reflect on, she decided to change the theme for May to the question: “What is Essential”. It’s difficult to imagine where we will be just a month from now — but we look forward to hearing from the Digital Fund grantholders on what they are needing to continue and let go of during this time.

We have also been in close conversation with the support partner team in the last weeks during the Covid-19 response — as they have responded to the change and increase in needs from charities in a networked, collaborative way. Deciding how they work together has proven as important as deciding what they will work on — and this is especially important in the context of The Catalyst where the ambition is to scale up capacity.

We also spent time with colleagues further afield, both geographically and across different teams, at the now-weekly Digital Funding Drop-in calls that I host for colleagues looking to discuss any digital related funding questions with the Digital Fund team and other colleagues. I’m pleased that we have started offering these more frequently as more and more of us receive queries about digital, data and technology in grantholders’ response to Covid-19. I started hosting these in December and would usually get 1 or 2 people attend, but in the last 2 sessions alone we’ve had 20 participants from funding teams, Knowledge & Learning, Branding and Strategic Communications. As one person said during this weeks session, “Last week I would never have expected to join this call!”

I have also began fast tracking some of the ‘good digital grantmaking’ materials I’ve been working on in light of recent circumstances. One of these is a guide on ‘Where to find different types of digital, data and tech expertise within the National Lottery Community Fund.’ The purpose of the document is to differentiate different types of expertise within the Fund and signpost relevant teams for those looking for support. It gives a short description of what different teams do (e.g. Digital Fund, Service Design; IT; Information; Brand, Digital & Partnerships), some suggested questions to illustrate what people might ask, and signposted relevant contacts. I hope that this will be useful for colleagues as they navigate increased digital/tech related queries from grantholders and look internally for guidance.

Beth and I also did bits of work supporting Cassie on developing various plans for the UK Portfolio’s response to Covid-19, which we will hopefully be able to share more about soon.

What we’re learning

We’re seeing some real momentum around digital grantmaking. The message that digital is not a theme to itself but something that runs through all the grants we make, whether about loneliness, employment or young people, seems to have become much clearer to people in the last few weeks. Much of colleagues engagement with the topic seems to be centring around digital inclusion (also referred to as the digital divide, digital equity) and the challenges that grantholders are finding in getting devices, connectivity and skills to people at this time. This pandemic is making visible inequalities and disparity that have existed for a long time. Access to and ability to make best use of the internet and digital ways of working is still woefully distributed, not only amongst individuals that charities support but amongst charities and funders. In one conversation with a colleague in the Engagement team, we discussed the value of finding ways of communicating the learning journey that we are a Fund is on in transitioning to understanding digital.

The Knowledge & Learning team have done an amazing job of developing a huge range of content on the VCS response to the Covid-19 pandemic. We’ll be learning from this and from the way they’re working — at pace, in the open and collaboratively. It’s great to see.

What we’re celebrating

• On Wednesday, the government made a long-anticipated announcement that they will provide a £750 million funding package to civil society. The National Lottery Community Fund will be the organisation who will distribute £310m to civil society organisations in England. An equivalent sum will be provided to the Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland via the usual Barnett Formula, with the devolved administrations deciding how they distribute.
• Conversations with the Digital Fund grantholders and brilliant support partners, and witnessing The Catalyst navigate all sorts of complexity as they scale up operations to meet charities’ digital needs.
• It was Cassie’s first week in post as the new Senior Head of the UK Portfolio. She’s hit the ground running and its wonderful to see/be apart of!
• Again, good colleagues. I have met so many new people and learned so much about all sorts of different work taking place across the organisation despite being at home.