Big Society and Equality event, Monday January 30th

There was a good and feisty turnout for this event, which was part of a piece of research that the WRC and Voice4Change England have been commissioned to do by the Office for Civil Society (OCS). This research will provide advice to Government on: the challenges that inequalities present to the Big Society agenda and how to address them; and the opportunities for tackling inequalities that the Big Society agenda offers.

The event was a chance to join together as equalities focused organisations to talk about how we, as a sector, can work in partnership to influence and engage with these programmes so that they benefit the vulnerable and marginalised groups that we all support.

Sheila Battersby, Policy Manager for the Local Intelligence Team at the OCS spoke first and gave an overview of Big Society policies and programmes. This was followed by presentations about 3 particular Big Society programmes. First up was Ian Beason, Programmes Manager at the Community Development Foundation, who was talking about the Community First Fund, then it was Victoria Westhorp  from the OCS and Martha Earley who were talking about Local Integrated Services and how this is working in Kingston. Lastly was Laurence Walker from Locality who was talking about Community Organisers.

There was plenty of opportunity for questions and discussions about the programmes (and the Big Society more generally) and the implications for equalities organisations. While the aim of the event was to come up with solutions and recommendations for overcoming the barriers to engagement with the Big Society, there was undoubtedly a lot of frustration and scepticism in the room that needed to be aired first– especially when it became clear that the Community First Panels and Fund would have no equalities monitoring, and the Community Organisers scheme was perceived to be untenable financially for many voluntary organisations that are expected to host them.

While the broader context of the cuts and the anxiety this was causing for the future of the sector was the spectre haunting all of the discussions, the resourcefulness of the organisations still shone through. Ideas for follow up actions included: linking up with and supporting unions and other organisations that have a solid anti-cuts evidence base; taking the issue of the cuts and the impact on smaller/equalities organisation to Government, perhaps with a formal Enquiry; harnessing the strength of the Equality Act to hold public bodies to account; recommending that the government create a Big Society action plan (like LGBT action plan) but which focuses on promoting equality; extend the timelines for the Transforming Infrastructure Fund;  and starting a campaign to encourage philanthropy for the equalities sector.

WRC will be using the recommendations from participants to inform their report to Government, as well as discussing how we can take forward some of the sector wide issues. We’ll keep you posted on any developments!  

Putting a value on women's services

Show your worth.


This is a request often made by funders or by government to organisations working with people in need. For women's organisations, this leads to difficult questions – how can you put a number on the invaluable support you have provided a woman in terms of her mental health and wellbeing? On the confidence you have enabled her to find, on the fact she can now cope with aspects of life previously unfathomable?

Two years ago Women's Resource Centre, in conjunction with the new economics foundation (nef), set out to, essentially, quantify the unquantifiable, thanks to funding from Trust for London. Using pioneering social return on investment (SROI) techniques and working with five women’s organisations, WRC and nef spent months sifting through data, conducting interviews, crunching numbers and compiling data for analysis.

Our resulting report "Hidden Value, demonstrating the extraordinary impact of women's voluntary and community organisations", focuses on the outcomes created by women’s organisations across a wide range of service areas and highlights the need to support and sustainably fund essential women's services.

It found at the culmination of two years of work that for every pound invested in women's services, between £5 and £11 of worth is generated. This extraordinary figure highlights the broad range of benefits created by women’s organisations for service users, society, families and the state, from combating violence against women to improving health and educational prospects.

Evidence showed that women's organisations increase skills and support entry into employment, improve mental health and wellbeing and reduce risk of self harm and suicide. Crucially, the support given by women's organisations did not end with the woman who went to them in need - it was passed to their families.

Overall, it was demonstrated that by comprehensively addressing the causes and consequences of women’s problems, women's organisations both support individual women's well-being and reduce their need for state-funded services.

"The impact that these charities have goes much further than those women that they seek to help, but as much impacts on wider society because of the crucial role that women still play in raising the next generation even today," said Jenny Rouse, nef consulting analyst.

"Hopefully this SROI report will demonstrate to funders the value that organisations specifically focussed on women’s issues have for society."

Ultimately, the most important finding is that women's organisations' work saves lives. Analysis of violence against women organisation Women and Girls Network (WGN), who participated in the project, predicted that the service prevented at least one suicide a year through its work.

"They made me feel like I was worth something,” one client told the researcher about WGN. "I had 20 years of being told I was useless, worthless."

Now the important part is to build on the research. WRC has sent copies to government, funders, stakeholders, the media, and anyone who could - and should - have an interest in the remarkable work undertaken by women’s organisations. After all, we think we have more than shown its worth.

Note

The organisations involved were Ashiana Network, Women and Girls Network, Heba Women's Project, South Sudan Women's Skills Development, Rape Crisis South London

New fund to help women's sector blossom

Tuesday night saw the launch of a new UK-wide fund devoted exclusively to championing and investing in charities working with women and girls. The fund is called Rosa, and we've been following its pre-launch progress quite closely (not least because we've been sharing an office with their staff for a few months).

Rosa's mission is to tackle the problems facing women and girls in the UK today by raising funds, investing in change, promoting women's organisations and raising awareness of the challenges facing women and their organisations. We're all really excited - so much hard work has already gone in behind the scenes to get Rosa to this stage (£750,000 had already been donated before the launch) - and it's going to be such a positive force for the women's sector.

They also have a lovely new logo and some very, very pretty business cards (if you're the kind of the person who gets excited by such things, as I am, you should check them out) and even the reasoning behind the name Rosa is inspiring. It was chosen because it is a recognisable name in many languages, and it's also the first name of three outstanding historical female activists: Rosa Luxemburg, the German socialist leader; Rosa May Billingshurst, the British suffragette; and Rosa Parks, the African-American civil rights activist.

They're kicking off their fundraising efforts with a "Celebrate her" campaign, suggesting people celebrate a special woman in their life (mum, friends, daughters etc) by making a gift and sending a virtual rose. Check it out!

www.rosauk.org

£1million emergency funding for Rape Crisis - but what next?

On Tuesday evening, WRC and Rape Crisis (England & Wales) launched a new research report on the state of the Rape Crisis sector. Focusing on the appalling funding situation, the report also looks at staffing, services provided and public awareness of the sector.

The launch event was a beautiful candle-lit evening at the Directory of Social Change in London. The speakers (Tania Pouwhare from WRC, Jane Gregory from Rape Crisis (England & Wales) and a woman who had received life-saving support from Rape Crisis centres) gave hard hitting but inspiring speeches. The event closed with a touching poetry reading by my colleague, Skye.

Almost immediately, Harriet Harman announced that the government was pulling together £1million emergency funding to prevent any further closures of Rape Crisis centres this year. Now, obviously that's not enough and once again fails to address the real issue which is long-term, sustainable funding for these vital services, but it's difficult to be too curmudgeonly - I mean, it's not often you get £1million! And perhaps this really will be the first step in a concerted effort to sort out a plan to ensure that current centres don't have to close and that new centres can be opened in the very many places where there currently aren't any.

On the same day, Vivienne Hayes (WRC Chief Executive) went on the Jeni Barnett show on LBC radio to talk about this issue. Also on the programme was WRC's "gold star man of the week" (see below for last week's recipient of this prestigious award), Ben Davies of newstatesman.com. Not only has he been incredibly supportive of the campaign for better funding of Rape Crisis centres, he was also very articulate and passionate about it on the radio. He talked specifically about visiting a centre and meeting the staff and volunteers. Cheers Ben!

So a day for warm fuzzies, but definitely not the time to take our eye off the ball. As the report says:

Support for women and girls to rebuild their lives after rape must be a right, not a privilege determined by a postcode lottery.