Community & Social Justice Health & Wellbeing 2023
Smallwood Trust

Women Thrive Fund Impact Report

The Women Thrive Fund was a £1.9 million grant programme delivered jointly by Smallwood Trust and Rosa UK, funded by the Government's Tampon Tax Fund via DCMS. Awarded in August 2021, it funded 70 specialist women's and girls' organisations across the UK with grants of up to £50,000, responding to sector-wide evidence of rising mental health need, emotional trauma and poverty among women following the pandemic. The fund prioritised by-and-for women's organisations working with the most vulnerable and complex-need women and girls. The impact report, published October 2023, documents key themes and outcomes across the funded cohort.

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📋About

Women Thrive Fund grant programme (partnership with Rosa UK, Tampon Tax funding from DCMS); grants to women-led and women-focused organisations delivering mental health and wellbeing support and financial resilience; organisations serving financially vulnerable women with complex needs; focus on grassroots, specialist women's sector organisations; grantees including Together Women (direct grants to women for financial stability, employment, housing, mental health) and others across UK

📊Key Metrics

£1.9 million distributed to 70 women's and girls' organisations across the UK; grants of up to £50,000 per organisation; funded by Government's Tampon Tax Fund via DCMS Key Metric 1
70 women's and girls' sector organisations funded; fund delivered in partnership with Rosa UK; grants targeted at mental health and wellbeing and financial resilience Key Metric 2
Fund responded to reports from women's organisations that declining mental health, increased emotional trauma and increased poverty were biggest concerns post-pandemic; focus on specialist, by-and-for women's organisations Key Metric 3

✅Key Outcomes

  • Together Women partnership: women given direct decision-making power over grants reported significant impacts on financial stability, employment, housing and mental health — demonstrating value of trust-based grantmaking
  • Fund launched February 2021 and awarded grants in August 2021 — responding directly to identified pandemic-related needs of women's sector; Smallwood Trust's broader mission: end gendered poverty through individual grants, sector grants and policy work
  • Smallwood Trust is a 130-year-old national gender-focused funder; also runs individual grants direct to women facing destitution, cost-of-living emergency fund, refugee and migrant women programme in Newham and Hackney, and policy amplification work on gendered poverty

📍Geography

UK-Wide

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