The Phoenix Way Children and Youth Round

Introduction

Thank you for applying to The Phoenix Way Children and Youth Round. We really appreciate the time and energy you put into applying for funding. In this blog post, we’ll explore the participatory panel process for decision making, and the main reasons applications were ineligible for funding.

The Participatory Grant-Making Process

The funding decisions for this funding round were made through a participatory grant-making process. This process involved engaging with community members nominated by the Phoenix Way regional partners to carry out the decision-making, which emphasizes shared decision-making, transparency, and equal representation, allowing those that the funding will serve to make decisions about how it’s distributed. Participatory grant-making encourages collaboration and inclusivity, allowing diverse perspectives to shape the funding decisions. The panel made a number of commitments to the way they worked and their decision-making, which included:

• Embracing diverse opinions and criteria debates.

• Honouring the applicants and their work.

• Valuing the efforts of grassroots organisations.

• Providing equal attention and significance to every application, regardless of length

The panel reviewed all eligible applications and met virtually to discuss and make decisions on the applications. This takes more time than a staff led decision making body, but decentralises power and invites those who’ve been historically excluded to participate in the decision-making process. The panel voted on applications through two rounds of online voting. In the first round, panellists from all regions voted on applications from various regions. For the second round, panellists were divided by region and voted on applications specific to their own area. A national panel then convened to make the final decisions. They particularly acknowledged the difficulty of making these decisions, as there were some great applications but only a limited amount of funding available.

Why wasn’t my application successful?  

We received 396 applications, and of these 342 were eligible. Of the total applications we received, 1 in 11 applications were funded. To give context, we received approximately £25 million worth of applications but only had £2.2 million available to distribute this round. The participatory community panel emphasised the difficulty of making decisions as there were many high-quality applications but a limited amount of funding available.

Each application was evaluated against specific criteria to ensure a thorough and fair assessment. The first, Reaching High-Risk Young People, focused on how effectively the application demonstrated its ability to engage young people at the highest risk of becoming involved in violence. This included considerations such as targeted outreach efforts, individualised support, and referral processes. The second, Innovation and Creativity, assessed the proposed activities or interventions, looking for unique features that distinguish the project from similar initiatives. The third, Impact on Reducing the Risk of Youth Violence, evaluated the project’s potential to positively influence community outcomes and reduce violence risk. These criteria allowed the panellists to identify projects that would be impactful and effective in reducing youth violence.

During the panel’s review process, they noticed that some applications appeared to use AI tools to help write responses. Whilst we recognise that AI can be a useful resource in drafting applications, in certain cases, it was not used effectively. This led to answers that were quite similar across multiple applications, which made it difficult for them to stand out or demonstrate the unique qualities, vision, or approach of the projects. Unfortunately, this impacted the scores of some applications. Other considerations made by panels included regional spread of projects, local knowledge of community needs and issues and the impact of interventions on the local community and young people. Ultimately, most applications were not able to receive funding due to limited resources.

We understand the significant time and effort that went into each submission, and the outcome is consequence of the high demand and limited funding capacity.

Top reasons for ineligible applications 

Due to the nature of participatory panel process, we’re unable to provide specific feedback on individual applications for this round, however, we have analysed the top reasons as to why organisations didn’t make it through the initial eligibility sift. The full eligibility criteria can be found here.

The top reason for an organisation being ineligible was that it didn’t demonstrate a strong enough link to reducing the likelihood of children and young people becoming involved in violence. This was the case for 89% of ineligible applications. Most other applications were not eligible because organisational incomes was over the threshold of £150,000.

In this round of funding, we were looking to support projects which are supporting children and young people with the highest risk factors of becoming involved with serious violence. In order to understand how you measure this, we asked questions to further delve into how you assess this risk, and how you fund the young people you work with. Ineligible applications often listed poverty or living in an area of high deprivation as a reason for why young people were more likely to become involved in violence. Whilst we acknowledge this is a risk factor, this is not a standalone reason as to why a young person might be likely to become involved in violence. Children and young people who are impacted by systemic issues and wider structural disadvantage are often affected by multiple risk factors, including experience of:

• the care system

• the youth justice system

• abusing or misusing substances

• abuse, maltreatment or neglect

• negative educational experiences such as exclusion
• trauma

We sincerely appreciate the considerable effort invested in your funding application, and we hope this information provides you with insight to understand the factors that may have influenced your outcome.

What’s next? 

On Tuesday 5 November 2024, we’ll also be hosting an information and learning webinar where you can learn more about our grant-making process, how participatory grantmaking works, and what the panelists valued in the applications. You can sign up below:

There will be future funding rounds taking place across 2025 so please keep an eye out for these. In addition to initiatives targeting youth violence reduction, we plan to introduce rounds with broader objectives.

The overarching goal of The Phoenix Way initiative is to support Black and racially minoritised organisations that are often overlooked to access grant funding, and we have been able to invest £4.2 million into grassroots organisation through this funding round. Future funding rounds, designed and led by community panels, will take into account the need for further flexible, core funding, to be launched later this year.

We will also be offering opportunities for organisations to seek support and collaboration, including webinars, seminar and networking events. To stay up to date with the latest opportunities, please follow The Phoenix Way on X, Ubele Initiative e Fundo Global para Crianças.