Raising Our Gaze
Since we were founded in 1996, Foundation Scotland has distributed over £150 million in support to more than 12,000 organisations across Scotland.
Whilst the amount of funding being invested in community projects has increased over time, many of our funding programmes have been designed to meet immediate needs, responding to issues facing communities right now. Whilst this approach can be vital, for example, during the pandemic, it rarely addresses some of the root causes of need within Scotland’s communities.
In the Foundation Scotland Strategy 2020-2030, we state:
"We see a difference between charitable giving, often supporting the status quo, and strategic giving, aiming to find solutions to change socio-economic situations for the better and for the long-term."
Since autumn 2021, we have been looking at how we can channel more funding towards activity that goes beyond short-term fixes and supports enduring transformative change. Inspired by the work of the global Wellbeing Economy Alliance, we began a conversation with their team in Scotland. That was just the beginning of an incredibly rewarding and continuing journey to explore our role in building a wellbeing economy.
So, over the past year, supported by WEAll Scotland, we’ve been sharpening our focus as an organisation and addressing how we could operate with an increasingly upstream focus and what this might mean for Foundation Scotland, our donors, and the communities we support.
"As Scotland’s Community Foundation, we have long supported the aims and aspirations of a wide range of donors. We look forward to continuing to do this but with a growing appetite and commitment to fund for long term prevention alongside continued support for critical, immediate issues facing communities. WEAll has been a dedicated and inspiring partner, helping us to take stock and recognise where and how funding we distribute can contribute to more enabling and enduring change for individuals and communities."
Rachel Searle, Head of Communities & Impact at Foundation Scotland
To mark the first anniversary of our collaboration and share our journey so far, we have co-developed a learning report called ‘Raising Our Gaze’, which we’re delighted to publish today. We hope you enjoy reading the learning report. If you wish to share any feedback or have any questions, we’d love to hear from you.
Commenting on the publication, Jimmy Paul, Director of WEALL Scotland, said:
"We’ve loved working with Foundation Scotland to explore what it means to fund programmes that prevent harm from happening in the first place. It’s been incredible to watch the team embrace the complexity of trying to do things differently. They’ve been willing to experiment and have exemplified what true partnership should look like. We need more organisations to be bold and radical like Foundation Scotland.
The report details the many concrete steps the organisation is taking to transform their practice and embed an upstream mindset, including piloting a new fund focussed on tackling inequality at its roots and creating space and time for funding applicants to explore more preventative approaches.”