It’s National Inclusion Week 28 Sept – 4 Oct, and you might have already read about how we support inclusion for our colleagues and customers. Our Social Impact Programme also helps us to underpin our commitment to this important topic in our communities.
Through our community foundation partnerships, we award grants to small voluntary organisations who are tackling barriers to social and financial inclusion.
We recently held a grants panel for our PFG Social Impact Fund for London (expertly managed for us by London Community Foundation), awarding eight grants of £10k to organisations that work with disadvantaged, vulnerable and minority communities to tackle social and financial exclusion. For this panel, the grants were for activities focused on money advice and digital skills and as you’ll see from the list below, we were able to fund some really critical support.
Sol Enenmoh is Vanquis' Head of Digital Transformation and an advocate for diversity and inclusion at PFG, joined the panel along with other colleagues from across the group. We caught up with Sol to ask him about his experience on the panel…
What made you volunteer to take part in the grants panel?
Beyond it being a decent thing to do, my lived experience of being “other” in many environments has given me the ability to empathise with some of the groups that PFG were seeking to help.
And how did you find the experience?
Challenging; as we couldn’t fund all the groups, despite them all having causes of merit. It did however encourage robust debate between the panel members, encouraging us to lift the lid on the finer detail and really get under the skin of the issues each of the applications was seeking to tackle. I think all of the panel came away from the session with a deeper understanding of the real-world challenges that our communities are facing into, especially as a result of the pandemic.
Did you learn anything?
2 things:
1. That small, local “boots on the ground” support voluntary organisations and networks have a case to make the biggest impact in their local community,
2. That the impact they make is largely down to the trust and credibility that they have painstakingly built up over time with that community
Were there any organisations or issues that really stood out or resonated with you?
I wouldn’t want to cite one over another, they were all genuinely worthy in their own right. The main takeaway for me was that it’s great PFG can positively support individuals and families directly with Financial Education and Digital Skills, via the impact that these small voluntary local organisations can make.
How do you think our grants programme helps us be more inclusive in our communities?
Our grants programme is a modern take on PFG’s enduring heritage of helping and supporting within local communities.
Why do you think this is so important?
It’s another way to stay connected, relevant and support in a meaningful way, many of the communities that we serve, many of whom have seen even more detriment during the pandemic. Given the financial regulators’ commentary re. customer vulnerabilities, it’s even more critical that a variety of methods, such as funding for financial education can be available to help and support disadvantaged people.
Organisations that were funded in this round of the Provident Social Impact Fund for London:
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Organisation |
Summary of funding |
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To deliver twice weekly online workshops delivering digital skills training and employability support young autistic people. |
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To support a linguistic and culturally appropriate debt advice service supporting ethnic minority people (predominantly Somali Women) over a year in Kensington and Chelsea. |
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To deliver three programmes comprising nine money management workshops to vulnerable clients experiencing difficulties in managing their finances. |
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To provide digital skills training, ESOL support and employment coaching to marginalised ethnic minority women in North London. |
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To provide emotional support and wellbeing to ethnic minority clients who are accessing advice and debt services and emotional support sessions for volunteers. |
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To deliver weekly 1:1 and group digital skills training with employability support to people experiencing disadvantage in Southwark and Lambeth |
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To deliver 3 x 6 week digital skills courses for 40 migrant and older women at three levels and 3 x 5 week money management courses. |
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To increase reach of the organisation’s accredited money advice to young people through creation of online resources, partnership / referral development, website webchat development and introducing a money advice triage. |