Project Update: Summer 2024 - February 2025

Written By Leah Black

26 February 2025

Written by Leah Black, Co-Head of Regenerative Futures Fund

February 2025 Project Update

This is a general project update written by Co-Head, Leah Black, covering the second half of 2024 and into early 2025 and is structured around our six project plans areas. A PDF of the update copied below can be downloaded here.

1. Fund Design — Process, Participation & Programme

  • Summary Operational Plan - the majority of the fund co-design work happened in 2023, we closed off the organisational co-design group in the spring of 2024 (more about that here). The Summary Operational Plan describes more about the fund design which was designed with communities in 2023 and 2024.

  • Learning Report on Co-Design – this was published March 2024 after a series of retrospective sessions with each of the co-design groups (funders, End Poverty Edinburgh members and community organisations). We also had a reflective session with the facilitator group about the role of and important of good facilitation in co-design, some of the feedback from this was incorporated into the Learning Report on Co-Design

  • Collective Imagination - One of the most joyful parts of 2024 was the culmination of our collective imagination programme co-led by Shasta Ali and Jennifer Williams who designed and led this programme in 2023 and 2024 – here is a blog post about the project and the poetry anthology All That Is Needed Is A Dream: Poetry to Inspire Change. The result is this beautiful riso-printed anthology All That Is Needed Is A Dream: Poetry to Inspire Change. Shasta and Jennifer worked with Anupa Gardner on the dreamy design and illustrations and with Tee from Typewronger in Leith who printed the anthologies with love and care. These poems written by Kate Griffin, Caroline Cawley, Steven McLaren, Helene Van Der Ploeg, Debbie Douglas, Linda Craik, Shasta Hanif Ali and JL Williams are personal, moving, powerful, aspirational and inspirational. We launched the anthology in Edinburgh during the Edinburgh Festivals month in August as part of ALT Fringe with readings at Typewronger. And in August 2024 Shasta Ali and Vicky Nyanga-Ndiaye and Leah Black shared the stage at the Edinburgh International Book Festival, talking about why poetry, creativity, imagination and futures play an important role in designing a long-term funding programme and shifting power.

2. Recruitment and Team Development

  • Building Our Team - One of the most exciting developments of the past few months has been building our wee team to be ready to launch Regenerative Futures Fund.

  • Recruitment – In August not long after Leah moved into the team at Foundation Scotland we started on the job advert for the Co-Head role. This was designed as a co-leadership role for a number of reasons including to be able to model collaborative leadership at the team level, something that sits at the heart of Regenerative Futures Fund. We were taken aback to receive 108 applications for the role — applications filled with such care, passion, diversity and experience. What struck us about this was that we need more jobs like this in Scotland, as we have an abundance of talent and passionate people who want to work on long-term systemic change.

  • Co-Head – Aala Ross – Following this recruitment process Aala Ross joined the Regenerative Futures Fund in November 2024 as Co-Head. Aala has built a career that spans the third sector, starting in government and moving through the think-tank and corporate social responsibility worlds, before ultimately landing in philanthropy. With a passion for supporting communities, she has worked in multiple African countries co-building grassroots initiatives, focusing on sustainable development and empowerment of marginalised groups. Most recently, she was in New York, where she oversaw a portfolio dedicated to developing the next generation of African scholars through the lens of decolonisation.

  • Participation Lead – Andy Hyde – In late 2024 we started recruitment for a Participation Lead and in January 2025 we welcomed Andy Hyde to the team. Andy is still to write his own biography (soon to appear on our About Us page) but in summary for now – he has a background in research, facilitation, design, learning and project management and supporting the participation of people who are disabled and marginalised to help design services.

  • Foundation Scotland Team – this has all been possible through a huge amount of support and flexibility from a great number of colleagues within the wider team at Foundation Scotland. We are very lucky to be embedded in such a supportive organisation with colleagues who are also open to the adaptation required when development a new fund and programme and moving at the pace required– from finance, communications, HR, impact colleagues to the generosity of colleagues helping out with long and short-listing for recruitment.

3. Communications and Open Working

  • Working in the Open – this has played an important role in the development phase and we continued to share our ‘workings’ in the second half of 2024. This is something that we plan to continue into 2025 and beyond with a particular focus on amplifying the voices of our lived experience panel, community organisations and funders about collaboration and change. Here is a podcast about Working in the Open hosted by Nick Addington from William Grant Foundation and featuring Leah talking about the role that open working has played in Regenerative Futures Fund

  • Website – our website went live in summer 2024 – have a look here it’s a work in progress and will continue to evolve as the project does. Have a look at our News & Notes section for interviews, a podcast episode, blogs, reports and more.

  • Our First Media Release – we have been working with our colleagues in Foundation Scotland and the funders who are part of the collaboration to date, on a media release which talks broadly about the fund and is intended to encourage more funders and philanthropists to consider joining the collaboration. This is due to go live end of February 2025.

4. Governance Ecosystem (and Hosting)

  • Foundation Scotland & Hosting - In July 2024 Regenerative Futures Fund moved to being hosted by Foundation Scotland after almost two years of development which was hosted by EVOC.

  • Governance Eco-System – We have a developing governance eco-system, a draft of this is below. This is deliberately designed as an eco-system to allow for oversight and accountability but also to ensure that the decision making panel (lived experience group) play a integral part in the oversight and accountability. It includes the funded cohort who will participate in the learning and monitoring and evaluation space with others from the oversight and enabling board. This eco-system will evolve over time.

  • Oversight & Enabling Board – This group is currently made up of the funders and the Local Authority who are collaborating on the first stage of the pooled fund. In time this group will expand to include the decision-making panel and other funders and philanthropists as they join. The word ‘enabling’ has been used thanks to the team at What Matters To You for their work and this report on Codifying Learning which talks about their Oversight and Enabling Board and that they: ‘purposely chose the phrase enabling and built the behaviours and actions this would necessitate into the remit and purpose of the group. It is important that those with the greatest power understand the ways in which they are expected to exercise that in relation to what the staff and communities tell us is important to them AND what is getting in the way’ – we have started working with our Oversight and Enabling Board on how we work together, and what the role of ‘enabling’ looks like.

  • Early Decision Group – in late 2024 we put together a small group of people who have a mix of backgrounds, some who have been heavily involved in Regenerative Futures Fund throughout and some who are new to this and bring particular expertise. This group is time limited and will meet a small number of times between December 2025 working on the main decision – who will form the decision-making panel (lived experience group) who will make decisions for phase one and phase two. The Early Decision Group are Carmen Simon - End Poverty Edinburgh; Caroline Cawley - End Poverty Edinburgh; Mhairi Reid - William Grant Foundation; Khadija Coll - One Community Scotland; Satwat Rehman - One Parent Families Scotland and Just Transition Commission; Pheona Matovu - Radiant and Brighter; Liz Gadd – Freelance; Jovan Rao Rydder – Freelance – also included here on About Us.

  • Learning Partner – we will be calling out for a learning partner to work with Aala and the team on the Learning Space during 2025 starting in April. More on this soon.

  • Learning Space and Monitoring and Evaluation Space – these will be kicking off in Spring 2025 – more soon as there will opportunities for people outwith the eco-system to join.

5. Fundraising and Contracting

  • Overall Target - Reminder that our target is to create a £15 million pooled fund — we are doing very well! We have successfully reached with £5.75 million committed between a group of funders plus the local authority.

  • Who is in the collaboration? - We will be doing some comms with the funders in the initial collaborative pooled fund in February so watch this space! — but the funders who have committed to this are Turn2us Edinburgh Trust (£1 million over 10 years), Foundation Scotland (£250,000), The National Lottery Community Fund (£2 million over 10 years), Esmee Fairbairn Foundation (£500,000), The Robertson Trust (£1 million over 10 years) and City of Edinburgh Council (£100,000 approved with an in-principle commitment of a total of £1 million over 10 years), with support specifically for developing monitoring, evaluation and learning frameworks from William Grant Foundation.

  • Bringing More Funders and Philanthropists To The Collaboration - Read more here about the funder collaboration to date, funders involved etc. Throughout 2025 we will be working on partnerships in progress and actively seeking to develop more partnerships with funders, individual philanthropists, donors, and corporate partners interested in joining the funder collaboration to get us to the £15 million overall target to allow us to launch the 10-year programme in late 2025/early 2026. If you are reading this and it sounds like you, or you can make any introductions to help us meet people and funders who want to collaborate that would be much appreciated, drop Leah a line on leah@foundationscotland.org.uk

 

6. Monitoring, Evaluation, Accountability and Learning (MEAL)

  • Our Approach - Thanks to William Grant Foundation we have been working with a variety of people in the second half of 2024 and into 2025 on our approach to Monitoring, Evaluation, Accountability and Learning. Big thanks to Ailsa and Grace at Matter of Focus, freelancers Mhairi Reid and Suzy Glass, from our core freelance team as well as Charlotte Young who supported over the summer 2024, and to our colleagues at Foundation Scotland Jo Finlay and Deborah Cowan who helped with work on the outcome maps and theory of change. Aala is going to be our lead on MEAL and in 2025 be building on the work done to date and with our Oversight and Enabling Board and our Decision Making Panel to firm up our MEAL framework.

7. Field Building & Systems - Learning Partnerships, Sharing the Model

  • Learning Alongside Others - this strand of work is a work in progress but currently includes live learning with partners in other parts of Scotland who are developing similar programmes of work, pooled funds for collaborative and systemic change, shifting decision making power, place-based programmes. It also includes sharing learning with and learning from others on topics such as: new forms of governance needed for collaboration, pooled funds, future of philanthropy, local authority relationships with and funding for the third sector and much more – we are excited to continue field building as we move into the next phases of Regenerative Futures Fund - watch this space!

  • Many to Many Governance – hoping to pick up some of the threads of the Many to Many Governance work we started with Annette Dhami, Michelle Zucker, and Angela Tang (and the wider learning group) – important work thinking through how we contract for collaboration - now that we have our governance eco-system up and running – have a read here

  • Edinburgh Futures Institute – another key moment for us in 2024 was moving into the amazing Edinburgh Futures Institute as a partner in the Public Service Innovation Ward with Kristy Docherty (as Director of Public Services) and others, it’s already proving to be brilliant for cross sectoral collaboration and we are looking forward to learning more alongside the Prevention Hub (with Kristy) and the Compassion in Financial Service Hub (with Tobi Schneider)

If anything chimes, please do get in touch

Please do get in touch with us if you have any questions or you’d like to get involved:

Leah Black (Co-Head) – leah@foundationscotland.org.uk

Aala Ross (Co-Head) – aala@foundationscotland.org.uk

Andy Hyde (Participation Lead) – andy@foundationscotland.org.uk

For Future Updates

Please sign up to the Regenerative Futures Fund mailing list here

🌿

 

Leah Black
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Calling for Residents and Community Organisations
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‘All That Is Needed Is A Dream’: A Regenerative Futures Fund Anthology