Help us to save specialist support for London’s disability organisations
Transport for All
Dear partner,
We need your support. Please sign our letter to save specialist support for London’s disability organisations...
Dear partner,
We need your support. Please sign our letter to save specialist support for London’s disability organisations.
London Councils Grants Committee has recommended ending all capacity building funding for London’s voluntary sector including specialist support for London’s disability organisations. This recommendation goes to London Councils Leaders Committee for decision on 8 December.
If you have benefited from our Power Up work and/or believe that our sector needs specialist, accessible training and capacity building support to help keep our organisations strong, effective and sustainable, then please become a signatory to the letter below which we will be sending to all Council leaders. This comes at a time when demand for our services is growing and funding is shrinking.
Simply email your name and organisation to Raphael by 5pm on Friday 4 December confirming you are happy to be a signatory.
We really appreciate your support and hope that together we can save this vital support for our sector.
Letter to Council leaders:
Save pan-London specialist support for London’s disability organisations
There are over 280 disability sector organisations in London including 90 Deaf and Disabled people’s organisations (DDPOs).
Our organisations provide vital services to thousands of Deaf and Disabled Londoners, many of whom are no longer able to access statutory services.
We need specialist, accessible training and capacity building support to help keep our organisations strong, effective and sustainable at a time when demand for our services is growing and funding is shrinking.
London Councils has a proud history of supporting equalities and pan-London voluntary sector work (through their grants scheme ) including funding the Power Up project, run by Inclusion London and Transport for All, which provides specialist, accessible fundraising and capacity building support for London’s disability sector.
This project has helped our sector build fundraising, management, social media/ communications and business skills as well as creating opportunities for organisations to work with each other, become better informed about policy and funding issues that directly affect our organisations and our service users / members and create opportunities to better voice and represent our members at a local, regional and national level.
Our sector continues to need training and support that is accessible for Deaf and Disabled people and tailored to our needs. The Power Up project does this. It provides us with training and support that we cannot find anywhere else: it’s not available from mainstream infrastructure providers, it’s not provided at a local level and it would be too expensive for us to buy-in on our own.
We understand London Councils officers recommended continuation funding for key elements of specialist, equalities capacity building support which was also a key finding from the extensive consultation undertaken by London Councils into the Grants scheme in the autumn.
We are therefore very disappointed that the motion to terminate this vital funding was passed at London Councils Grants Committee meeting on 18 November in spite of officers recommendations and findings from the consultation.
We are very concerned that if this goes ahead there will be NO London Councils funding to specifically support London’s 1.4 million Deaf & Disabled communities.
We are therefore asking Council leaders, when they meet on 8 December, to vote to keep specialist capacity building funding for London’s disability sector that has helped our organisations and Deaf and Disabled Londoners so much.
Your signature will be added here.
Simply email your name and organisation to Raphael by 9am on Monday 7th December confirming you are happy to be a signatory.
