We’re delighted to announce that our Organisational Grants have been awarded.
This year we awarded four grants; one as part of our newly launched Futures programme, and three under our Human Development programme.
The Happold Foundation Organisational Grants are core funding which provides £30,000 per year for a three-year period to organisations that provide outstanding work in their focus areas. The funding is unrestricted and the organisations awarded it can spend it on any area of their work that they deem most affective.
Futures Organisational Grants
Following on from the successful pilot scheme with Matt+Fiona, earlier this year we officially launch our Futures Organisational Grants. It is designed to support organisations who work with school aged children (years 1-13) to deliver educational projects with an emphasis on the built environment. We sought applications from organisations who have a focus on delivering educational projects that combat inequality, exclusion, and climate action. We received several excellent applications earlier in 2022, three were selected for interview, and one new grant was awarded to:
COYO have engineering and education at the heart of the work they do. With a focus on STEM, they provide built environment and infrastructure projects for students through their Design Engineer Construct! Programme (DEC!); aiming to create learning programmes that deliver social, economic and environmental impact. DEC is designed to both provide practical experience of the engineering world and a wider understanding of sustainability and climate change.
As well as projects within schools, COYO also facilitates both in person and virtual work experience placements, working with employers and students to create a wide range of opportunities.
Along with COYO we look forward to continuing our partnership for a second year with:
Matt + Fiona (2 year Pilot scheme)
In 2021 Matt + Fiona were selected to test the Organisational Grant programme over two years. Set up by architectural educators Matthew Springett and Fiona MacDonald in 2016, the organisations’ important and inspirational work offers young people the opportunity to design their own spaces from conception through to completion.
Since restarting after the pandemic, Matt + Fiona’s projects have continued to grow and flourish, providing more students with the chance to experience engineering principles through creative education. Projects included student workshop, educational build products, CPD and training for teachers and running accreditation course for architecture students and architects. We are very excited to hear more about their work over the coming months.
Human Development Organisational Grants
This year has seen our second series of Human Development Organisational Grants. We chose organisations that we felt demonstrated a real commitment to furthering human development within their work; while also focussing on social and climate injustice and inequality within their work.
This year we have awarded three grants:
The Foundation chose REALL due to their dedication to providing marginalised communities opportunities to purchase secure, affordable, green housing. Working across five priority markets – Kenya, Nigeria and Uganda in Africa and India and Pakistan in Asia – Reall has created a housing programme that is both commercially and environmentally sustainable.
To date, the climate conscious homes have provided thousands of people with housing, jobs and access to clean water and sanitation. The projects have also saved over 100,000 tonnes of carbon emissions savings across all of the homes built so far.
We are delighted to be able to continue supporting Built It International with an Organisational Grant for a second time. The charity works in Zambia help unemployed young men and women to train for a career in construction; providing vocational training to enable sustainable jobs as well as providing a work force for an industry that has a lack of skilled tradespeople.
As well as high quality training, Built It International also works on community projects including hospitals and schools; creating facilities for the local people as well as opportunities for students to gain practical experience on building projects.
The Happold Foundation is also supporting Renewable World with its second Organisational Grant. Renewable World specialises in increasing access to inclusive, community-owned renewable energy systems; working alongside rural communities in Nepal and Africa to deliver several different projects that provide sustainable utility provision. The charity also provides a training programme to educate households in how to use and maintain the renewable technology used in the systems they install.
We remain incredibly impressed with Renewable World’s commitment to delivering outstanding projects. The organisation has been working tirelessly to keep their projects on track despite the challenging conditions created by the pandemic, and has a number of new programmes launching in the coming months.
‘Working with the Happold Foundation has been wholly positive, it’s been great to get to know the team and receive such positive feedback on what we’re doing and good to be challenged on our thinking on occasion too.” – Kate Gibson, Renewable World