The Listening Fund

1. The Listening Fund Jo Wells, Director Edward Fry, Listening Fund Project Manager The Blagrave Trust

2. 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

3. 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.

4. 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?

5. Young people and partners

6. 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

7. 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

8. 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. 

9. 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

10. Young people and funders

11. 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

12. 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.)