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The Listening Fund is a £940,000 initiative working across England funded by Big Lottery, Blagrave Trust, Comic Relief, and Esmée Fairbairn, aiming to empower young people and enhance outcomes through improved listening practices. Partners engage in governance, policy work, mentoring, and consultation to positively impact organizational culture. The initiative emphasizes the importance of creating a culture of listening, dedicating resources to develop listening skills and technologies, and influencing decision-making processes. The project seeks to challenge funders to deepen their understanding and integration of service users' perspectives, promoting systemic transformation. For more information, visit www.thelisteningfund.org.
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The Listening Fund Jo Wells, Director Edward Fry, Listening Fund Project Manager The Blagrave Trust
The Listening Fund • £940,000 fund working across England • 22 youth-focused partners • Funded by Big Lottery, Blagrave, Comic Relief and Esmée Fairbairn • Initially running for two years: 2018 - 2020 • www.thelisteningfund.org and @listeningfund
Background • Huge challenges in our sector • Blagrave launched The Feedback Fund in 2016 • 'Listening for Change’ – a report examining the relationship between funders and social change organisations • Listening better – a significant and under resourced challenge.
Establishment of the Fund • A clear but compelling vision • By the end of 2017, had secured agreements with Big Lottery, Comic Relief and Esmée Fairbairn for a £940,000 two year fund • Clear principles involved: • Belief in young people and ’advantaged thinking’ • A 'learning fund', open to course correction • Transparent and sharing what we learn • Ambitious about listening and acting • What difference does it make?
What our partners are doing • Intentionally working with a variety of partners • Governance work • Young Trustees • Reverse mentoring • Policy work • Giving young people access to data and information • Advisory groups and councils • Consultative work • Improved use of feedback • Peer-to-peer consultation
What we have learnt from them – part one • Young people want to be heard • That whilst they are creative and imaginative and idealistic, they are also practical, determined and resilient • The challenge is getting adults (the right adults) to actually act on what they hear • Partners are aware of the importance of listening to support better outcomes BUT • That 'listening well' is hard • Resource intensive • Challenging (the craft of listening) • Implementing the changes can be slow and even painful – affects whole organisational culture
What we have learnt from them – part two • To listen well organisations need: • A culture of listening • Policies for listening • Structures and processes for listening • Technologies for listening • Resources for listening • Skills for listening • To address the politics of listening • Articulation of listening to decision-making and policy making.
Effectively influencing partners • This work needs investment! • Programmatic iteration and adaptation, not funder prescription • Allow time for change to happen • Provide space and opportunities to learn and network
What The Listening Fund is doing • From inception, we have wanted The Listening Fund to be a learning experience for funding partners too • December 2018, appointed a consultant to support and challenge the four funders in England and the three other funders in Scotland • Will be producing a self-assessment tool which can be used more widely
What we want to achieve • Real challenge and deepening of thinking about how funders can be part of a system that values the views of service users at every level • Board and senior level engagement essential • It will look different for each funder • It will be iterative • It should build on the existing interest in this area across funders (variously framed as lived experience; PACT; systems change, ACF etc.)
