The Society Foundation has announced the details of its grants for 2016

The Society Foundation is an independent charity that we helped to set up in 2014. We fund it with an annual donation, equal to at least 10% of our profits. Employees of the firm also undertake activities to support the Foundation's work, and to raise additional funds.

The Foundation offers micro-grants, for the purpose of capacity building, to programmes or organisations that are seeking to help people from the following groups move towards paid employment:

• the recently homeless or vulnerably housed;
• ex-offenders;
• 16-24 year olds not in employment, education or training.

Following a recet meeting of the Trustees, the Foundation has chosen to award the following grants in 2016:

…£1,848 to the Margaret Carey Foundation in Bradford. They run bike maintenance training workshops in prisons, and try to help ex-offenders into work. Their grant will allow them to conduct a complete system upgrade, including buying a new laptop, and purchasing Benchmark, a joint CRM and accounting system.

…£1,000 to London Reclaimed – a social enterprise in Peckham. They help NEETs from South East London through a year-long paid programme, either in their workshop, as junior furniture makers, or in their Lumberjack café, training as baristas. Their grant will allow them to purchase a new laptop, so that their students can keep their new furniture website continually up to date, and acquire stronger IT skills in the process.

…£1,928 to Babbasa Youth Empowerment Projects (BYEP) – a social enterprise in Bristol. They help NEETs from particularly disadvantaged communities. Their grant will allow them to buy a data management system, called Insightly, and to train all their staff on how to use it.

…£1,050 to Faithworks Wessex in Bournemouth. They help the recently homeless through a network of churches and faith groups across the region. Their grant will allow them to purchase three laptops for the central 'Hub' which they're creating, and which will particularly try to help people into employment.

…£1,000 to Citizen Coaching in Birmingham. They focus on anger management skills. Their grant will allow them to work with ASDAN (the Award Scheme Development and Accreditation Network) to accredit their ‘Think and Grow’ Personal Development Programme, which means their NEET young people will achieve an actual certificate/award in anger management at the end of the course. For some, this will be the first time in their lives they completed anything.

…£1,000 to Greenleaf Trust in Havering. They work with ex-offenders through their ‘Spark2life’ mentoring programme. Their grant will allow them to create a secure VPN (allowing more remote working) and to begin the development of a stakeholder database.