(4 minute read)
Published: 23 August 2022
Written by: Sufina Ahmad, Director
This article is about our Annual Report and Financial Accounts for 2021/22, which can be accessed in full here.
Annual Reports produced by charities have a primary purpose of fulfilling a legal requirement in which the charity’s finances, resources and activities are reported on publicly. Here at John Ellerman Foundation, we find the process helpful as it allows the Board and team to come together to reflect on the last year and consider this in the context of the ambitions we have for the future. This is important in any year, but especially in 2021/22 whilst we continued to grapple with the difficulties caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, alongside the climate and nature emergencies, rising inflation and political precarity.
The last financial year was one of some more change within the Board of Trustees and team. We said goodbye to Hugh Raven, our Chair and Trustee with a specialist interest in environmental issues. Hugh first joined us in May 2010 and became Chair in November 2017. Throughout his time with us, he was a collegial and inspiring colleague. Peter Kyle OBE became our new Chair on 1 January 2022. Philee Ang-Chen also left us as our Grants Assistant in January 2022 for a more senior role at the National Emergencies Trust.
2021 was also a year of celebration, marking 50 years since our formation. We honoured this milestone in a variety of ways, including: commissioning a research team to explore the origins of our wealth; launching and leading the UK Overseas Territories Fund; partnering with the Centre for Knowledge Equity in delivering the Conference of Equals; launching Protea, an international curatorial exchange programme between the UK and South Africa; and gathering friends of the Foundation together for an evening at the Royal Geographical Society, which included a panel event hosted by Dame Julia Unwin DBE.
In March 2022 we approved our new strategy for 2022-25. The strategy outlines our ambitions in terms of our funding offer, our investment policy, our work with others and our commitment to accountability. It builds on much from the last few years, including our work in 2021/22 on: how we learn from and with others; transparency and accountability; diversity, equity and inclusion; and net zero and environmental sustainability.
As always, it is our grant-holders that inspire and motivate us with the vital work they do, and we hope that we can be a positive and supportive partner to them all. In our 2021/22 report, we have shared what we hope are interesting insights into the 72 grants we made for nationally significant work in the arts, social action and the environment, worth a total of £6,684,955. This includes six case studies on grants we made. The reality is that any one of our grant-holders could be featured as a case study, but we hope that we have chosen five that demonstrate well the ways in which we seek to deliver our aim to advance the wellbeing of people, society and our natural world. We are very grateful to Wildlife and Countryside Link, Turks and Caicos Reef Fund, We Belong, Welsh National Opera and Jurassic Coast Trust for agreeing to be featured.
We have also included more data about the grants we have made, including: our success rates based on the 298 applications we received in 2021/22; the number of applications received by category; the percentage of successful applications by type of applicant; the average size and duration of our grants; the number of core, core (unrestricted) and project grants we made; the kinds of work we supported; and the shape of the live portfolio of 191 grants we were managing as at 31 March 2022. As before, we hope that each year we will offer even more data and insights relating to our grantmaking in our next Annual Report.
As much as we have valued the time to reflect and look back on 2021/22, we are also very much looking forward too. To this end, we have been reflecting on whether we have the right organisational structure with which to deliver our strategy for 2022-25. Consequently, you may have seen that we are currently recruiting for six new roles across our grantmaking, finance and operations. We are excited by all of our new roles, including the Head of Research and Impact role, which will work closely with staff, the Board and me to drive forward the delivery of our new strategy. This role will support us to increase our impact by analysing and sharing evidence from our work to inform and shape existing and future grant programmes, investing activities and collaborations.
Thank you for your interest in and support of our work. We cannot say how much it means to us. If you would like to get in touch to discuss any aspect of our Annual Report and Accounts for 2021/22, then please do feel free to contact me directly