Celebrating 7 years of Young Harrow Foundation
They do this through unlocking funding, creating strategic partnerships and helping organisations to grow capacity – focusing on 70 full member organisations, and offering lighter touch support to 210 associate members.
Young Harrow Foundation Founder and CEO, Dan Burke, explains the journey over the last seven years - the highs, the learnings, and plans for the future.
In the beginning..
It began at a local youth workers forum in Harrow, where Erik Mesel, from John Lyon’s Charity (JLC) was sharing with the group a vision for a new place-based organisation model they wanted to trial:
“At the time, smaller charities who were really embedded in the community, had traditionally relied on core funding from Council budgets. When this dried up, many of these vital groups were living project to project. They had very little capacity and stability to be able to look at sustainable funding strategies” - says Dan.
JLC felt there was little support for these charities, to guide them through a rocky funding period, advocate on their behalf to funders and stakeholders, and help them to be more sustainable. JLC also wanted to get closer to and understand the social needs of children and young people locally.
Young Harrow Foundation became a registered charity in 2015, quickly followed by Young Barnet Foundation and Young Brent Foundation, becoming the first in a movement of this new place-focused way of working.
“The great thing about being supported by John Lyon’s Charity is that they have been committed to our journey of growth and discovery from the start. They continue to trust and allow us the flexibility to try new ways of doing things.”
Getting mobilised and building trust..
Dan recalls the first thing he had to do was to get out and meet the wide and diverse non-for-profit sector in Harrow. He met with over 60 organisations, to listen and understand, and grow relationships that could allow open and honest conversations.
“It took time to build up trust in the model with local organisations. They didn’t need someone else only sitting in meetings trying to influence policy - they needed a partner that would help them to see real tangible benefits and value, quickly!”
Young Harrow Foundation developed two key areas of support: firstly around funding (which was supported by City Bridge Trust) and secondly around development and training.
Getting Harrow on the map…
A fundamental part of the initial work was getting Harrow on the map with funders and strategic partners. Local charities were facing a struggle to even get funders to consider Harrow.
“I attended a funding conference for London early on and Harrow was actually cut off from the map they showed. It highlighted to me, in that moment, the work we had ahead of us to get funders to see the social needs in Harrow and the amount of provision here that needed support to develop.”
He also quickly realised that there was an opportunity for Young Harrow Foundation with stakeholders and members to multiply the impact of funding.
An early example of this was when Young Harrow Foundation, in partnership with Harrow Council Policy team, unlocked £200,000 for local organisations to deliver programmes to increase safety for children and young people. Young Harrow committed to working with its members to double their grant, through additional fundraising support.
This was the start of a funding support model that is now at the heart of most of how Young Harrow Foundation operates – leveraging relationships with partners and stakeholders and members to make more impact. This model has enabled local corporate grant givers to have a place in funding social initiatives. ES Broadcast was the first to come on board and donate £10,000. Harrow School also came on board early to support initiatives and quickly become an important grant giver and charity partner in the community, working in partnership with Young Harrow Foundation.
“This model that has evolved over the last few years, works for corporate donors because having Harrow Council Commissioning team connected gives them confidence. For Harrow Council, by grant giving through Young Harrow their investment is reaching a more diverse range of services that are deeply rooted in communities.”
Developing the offer to members…
After two years, Young Harrow Foundation extended and formalised it’s offer around partnerships, thanks to funding from Paul Hamlyn Foundation (PHF).
In the early days, partnership work had been focused on getting the non-for-profit sector in Harrow to work closer together, which looked like networking meetings and connecting groups up on pieces of work.
The new funding from Paul Hamlyn Foundation allowed YHF to really push an outward view, and develop their website to help promote the breadth of provision available, from the non-for-profit sector.
A leading part of the agenda under partnerships was putting youth voice front and centre. This led to Young Harrow Foundation’s work in doing large scale youth needs analysis every two years, now alongside Public Health. A big part of the roll out of the needs analysis, became developing a group of young people with lived experience called ‘The Change Champions’, and giving them the support and opportunities to lead social change in Harrow.
“Since 2018, we have been able to commit to push leadership, policy teams and programme design in Harrow, to not only listen and address what areas of need young people need support in, but also to bring young people into more decisions and day-to-day work.“
Covid became a turning point for the charity…
In 2020 Young Harrow Foundation, alongside the partnership of infrastructure organisations and Harrow Council, was able to galvanize a borough wide approach to the major social problems that were arising in Harrow as a result of the Covid-19 Pandemic.
“There was so much good-will from many organisations, individuals, corporates and local authority to help, particularly with the crisis of accessing food. Yet there was no system or coherent partnership model in place for all of that good-will to work together and drive impact.”
Young Harrow Foundation led on developing a unique new website called “Help Harrow” that would be a portal for local residents to request access to a delivery of food and supplies if they were in need. It would bring together local groups who had the resources and means to supply food, into a rota system to service the requests coming in.
The commitment to Help Harrow still stands today as the local authority continues to fund and support it. The services offered through the portal now also include mental health and advice.
“During this period we saw a significant shift in the trust and working partnership between ourselves and the local authority. Particularly how they co-commissioned and invested through us and other infrastructure organisations into local charities to combat emerging social pressures and needs.”
It led to the co-commissioning model between Young Harrow Foundation and Harrow Council being formalised. For Harrow Council, working with Young Harrow Foundation in this way meant they could reach a broader and more diverse range of services,
Who is Young Harrow Foundation today…
Today, the Young Harrow Foundation team have found their long term home in an office on Harrow on the Hill, supported by Harrow School. The charity has over 280 organisations part of its network locally.
It’s clear that a lot of its success has been testament to the team’s ability to work with the local authority and funders to align priorities with the voluntary sector.
As well as supporting its members to become better bid writers and fundraisers, Young Harrow Foundation has also evolved to become a large grant giver to the voluntary sector in Harrow. In the last 7 years it has been responsible for unlocking over £8 million through grants and supported partnerships.
“We have gone from giving out a £30k pot of funding, to now being responsible for giving out £1.4 million a year locally. That has naturally come with a need to review and improve our processes and the way we operate to ensure fairness and transparency.”
The organisation is also focused on forging new partnerships for its members with local schools and other stakeholders. Last year they hosted the first Harrow Children & Young People Conference that brought together 180 professionals across the voluntary, education, NHS and local authority sectors to collaborate on what services are available for young people. The aim is to continue developing an eco-system where partnership working is the norm not the struggle.
Young Harrow Foundation is also working closely with the NHS where they helped support program design and unlock funding for a new youth work delivery model in Northwick Park hospital.
“The work with the NHS really shows how as an organisation we are involved in social change and program design to actually deliver systemic change.”
The commitment to data driven insights also remains strong at Young Harrow Foundation.
“We’re now on our third needs analysis, and the results become the foundation for a lot of what we do, and continue to inform our funding support. There is always going to be the need to advocate for and highlight the social needs in Harrow to funders, and the report gives us a platform to have those conversations.”
Finally, after seven years, comes a new look for Young Harrow Foundation. They have recently launched a new logo and brand for their website and communications. The charity feels now is the right time to refresh their communications as they forge ahead with helping members to connect to stakeholders and children and young people in Harrow. The new logo and brand pack can be found here.
Dan concludes:
“It’s been an incredible 7 years and we’ve taken our members on the journey with us. We’re a small but ambitious team of people who are passionate about making real social change in Harrow. We’re not afraid to try things, and push doors open to make it happen.
I’d say the key to our success has been the deep relationships we have built up in the borough, with members, with funders, local authority and other organisations. There is a level of trust that when Young Harrow Foundation is involved in a project, we will go the extra mile to make sure it has the most impact for all involved, and ultimately, for children and young people.”
