A large charity funder that tackles social and economic exclusion has announced “more flexible funding” in its new strategy, and its first rebrand since being set up in 1628.
The Henry Smith Charity has today unveiled its Elevate Your Impact 2025-30 strategy, which involves offering “longer-term, core funding” to the organisations it funds.
The organisation has also rebranded as the Henry Smith Foundation to better reflect its role as an independent charitable foundation and to provide greater clarity about its purpose and identity.
Last year, the foundation awarded £61.9m, supporting over 970 organisations and reaching over 410,000 people, making it one of the largest grantmakers in the UK.
New funding priorities
The Elevate Your Impact Strategy sets out the foundation’s funding priorities in three core areas: getting started, building independence and safer future.
Currently, there are three new grant programmes, with the first aiming to fund services providing in-home, face-to-face support for families with young children.
The second programme intends to support advocacy services that help young people who have a learning disability or are care-experienced, LGBT+ or neurodivergent to speak up, make informed choices and secure their rights.
Meanwhile, the last one will back organisations providing specialist, person-centred services designed around the needs of people from marginalised communities who have experienced domestic abuse.
The foundation will also launch a new opportunity fund to support “bold thinking before it’s been proven”, such as new ideas and untested approaches.
More flexible, long-term core funding
The strategy says the foundation will be offering more flexible, long-term core funding “wherever possible”, focusing on “honest relationships, shared responsibility and clear expectations”.
The foundation says it is also broadening its role, “offering more than funding to help organisations grow and lead lasting change in their communities”.
This includes building deeper partnerships and offering more versatile long-term support and peer learning.
In addition, the foundation says it is working to remove barriers in its processes, make its funding more accessible, and shape its support around the realities its partners face.
“We’ll ensure people with direct experience of the issues we fund are involved in shaping our decisions,” its strategy reads.
New name ‘better reflects who we are’
A spokesperson told Civil Society that during the review period for developing its new strategy, the foundation identified “some confusion over our role, as our name implied that we were a direct service provider rather than a funder of charitable organisations.
“To address this, we undertook a brand review to develop a new name and stronger brand identity, helping stakeholders understand who we are and what we do,” they said.
“Our new name makes clear that we aren’t a fundraising charity, but are here to fund others.”
The foundation worked with brand agency OPX on its brand refresh, and while the spokesperson could not confirm how much it spent on the rebrand, they said it was “mindful of costs throughout the process”.
“While organisations of equivalent size often have large communications teams, we operate with a lean structure with one part-time communications manager and one additional freelance communications support to keep expenses low.
“By strengthening our brand identity, we aim to enhance our effectiveness, improve engagement with stakeholders and ultimately maximise our ability to deliver our strategic goals.”
