Making connections

Friends House, 30 May 2012

Our lottery-funded Ecominds projects gathered at Friends House in London for an inspiring networking event focused on how to plan for a sustainable future.

The day was expertly chaired by Karen Lowthrop MBE, the dynamic CEO of Hill Holt Wood in Lincolnshire that hosts Big Wood, an Ecominds flagship project.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c_VR0rAAJOk

Mind’s CEO, Paul Farmer got proceedings underway with an insightful speech that paid tribute to Big Lottery Fund (BIG) for being ahead of its time in developing its award partner model. He acknowledged the fantastic achievements of the scheme to date, including the headline statistic that over 1400 people have moved into employment, training or other volunteering activities as a result of their Ecominds engagement.

Health commissioning changes

Delegates also heard from Mind’s Rezina Hakim and Beren Aldgridge from Growing Well. They both covered changes in health commissioning resulting from the coalition’s NHS reorganisation.

Download: Rezina Hakim's presentation PDF [197 KB]
Download: Beren Aldridge's presentation PDF [1.1 MB]

Future funding priorities for BIG

Priorities for future funding were outlined by BIG’s Elaine Warner. Her keynote covered BIG’s new policy direction with new themes around social investment and innovative funding. She stated that BIG would not be running any new major environmental funding programmes, but reminded delegates that Awards for All is still open and making this type of grant.

Download: Elaine Warner's presentation PDF [186 KB]

Shout about your impact

Delegates were also reminded of how important it is to communicate the impact of their work. Eibhlín Ní Ógáin from New Philanthropy Capital explained that communicating impact is critical in the new funding landscape for many funders and donors.

Download: Eibhlín Ní Ógáin's presentation PDF [525 KB]

Practical workshops

Workshops also gave participants a chance to find out more about how to evaluate their work thanks to Rachel Bragg from the University of Essex. A fundraising masterclass from Louise Farnell also highlighted the ingredients for a successful funding bid. Camilla Swain from Mind’s media team also gave an outline of how being media friendly can help raise project profile.

We had a photographer at the event. Check out our gallery to see what happened on the day.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/www-mind-org-uk/sets/72157630714135008/show/

Presentations and copies of the visual minutes will be available to download from this page shortly.