Yorkshire Funders’ 2025 Conference is now open for booking here. This year’s conference is being held at Horizon Leeds, an approx. 7-minute walk from Leeds station.

Tickets are priced at £65 for delegates from member organisations and £130 for delegates from non-member organisations. (Maximum 3 tickets per organisation – if you require more, please contact Alex – alex@yorkshirefunders.org.uk.)

Book early to ensure you are able to select the workshops of your choice, as these will fill up fast and close once they reach capacity. See below for the full agenda, along with details of the workshops available – you will need to enter your workshop choices as part of your booking.

AGENDA

9.30 – 10.00     Registration, networking, tea/coffee

10.00 – 10.15    Welcome from Yorkshire Funders

10.15 – 10.45    Abdou Sidibe, Director of Grants, Paul Hamlyn Foundation

Abdou is Director of Grants at Paul Hamlyn Foundation, one of the largest independent grant-making organisations in the UK. Within this role, Abdou leads the development of the foundation’s grant making strategy, towards its vision for a just society in which everyone, especially young people, can realise their full potential and enjoy creative lives. Prior to that, Abdou worked for the National Lottery Community Fund as Deputy Director of Partnerships, where he led the development of the fund’s approach to embedding innovative national and placed-based partnerships across England. He also spent three and a half years as Head of Regional Funding in Yorkshire and Humber, leading the fund’s approach to relational grant making within a regional context.

Before stepping into the grant-making sector, Abdou also worked in the voluntary sector for over 15 years, where he built a successful track record directly delivering and leading services aimed at refugee and asylum-seeking children, young people and their families, victims of domestic abuse, sexual exploitation and trafficking as well as disabled young people.

Q&As

10.45 – 11.30    Tech for Good Panel – How are AI and other technological changes transforming the funding experience for both funders and applicants?

• David Scurr/Joyce Borgs – CAST
• Alex Ellis-White – Leeds Community Foundation
• Brett Riley-Tomlinson – CEO The Charity Hub

11.30 – 11.50    Comfort break

11.50 – 12.45    Debra Allcock Tyler, Chief Executive, Directory of Social Change (DSC)

When your feet are to the fire do you douse the flames or chuck another log on?  Debra will talk about the challenges facing charities, the impact that has on funders and what the response options are.

Amongst numerous other roles, Debra is Co-Chair of The Soldiering On Awards. She is a Trustee of In Kind Direct, one of the Prince’s Foundation Charities, a governor of the Berkshire NHS Community Foundation Trust, a Commissioner on the Local News Commission of the Public Interest News Foundation, and just recently stood down as trustee of the Berkshire Community Foundation. She is also an Africa Advocacy Foundation Ambassador for women and girls at risk of or affected by Female Genital Mutilation (FGM).

Debra has served as a trustee of several charities including being the co-founder of the Small Charities Coalition and was its first Chair. She served on the Charity Commission’s SORP committee for over seven years and was the Vice-Chair of Governors of Whiteknights Primary School for six years.

Q&As

12.45 – 1.30       Lunch & Networking

1.35 – 2.35         WORKSHOPS – SESSION 1 (delegates to choose from one of the following)

 ‘Finding and funding collective solutions to address critical issues in a locality’ – led by Leah Swain (Woodsmith Foundation)

Overview: This workshop will focus on collaboration between funders to address gaps in capacity in Redcar and Cleveland. Woodsmith Foundation is working with Lloyds Bank Foundation, Tees Foundation, Rank Foundation, the local Council and the National Lottery Community Fund. They have collectively put £450K in a pot over the next three years to try to solve a significant issue in Redcar of not having a funded infrastructure support offer for all the local community groups and charities. This is an opportunity to share strategic approaches and consider how lessons learnt in Redcar and Cleveland can influence place-based collaboration elsewhere.

‘AI for Grantmakers – lessons, experiments and ideas from the sector’ – led by David Scurr (Programme & Partnerships Lead, CAST) and Joyce Borgs (Head of Digital Learning & Transformation, CAST)

Overview: Bringing learnings and examples from the 200-person strong ‘AI for Grantmakers’ peer group and the 250-person ‘Charity Digital Leads Network’, we’ll creatively explore the role of AI for grant makers – providing space for discussion, learning and practical action. Attendees will be able to learn from other grant makers and charities; connect with opportunities for ongoing learning and support and leave with practical tools and methods to explore their own responses to AI in their work.

‘How to have a positive impact as a trustee or panel member’  – led by Penny Wilson (Governance Consultant)

Overview: We become trustees to make a difference, so how can we ensure that we are having the maximum impact? What do we need to know? How should we behave? Come along to discuss having an impact with other funder trustees. Attendees will go away equipped to identify enablers of trustee effectiveness, to improve their own impact as a trustee and to explore considerations specific to trustees from funding organisations.

2.35 – 2.45         Comfort break + tea/coffee

2.50 – 3.50         WORKSHOPS – SESSION 2 (delegates to choose from one of the following)

‘Collaborating with health to maximise impact – together we are stronger, but we have to be brave & creative’ – led by Jo Baker (Associate Director, Strategy & Transformation, West Yorkshire Integrated Care Board), Gary Sainty (Head of VCSE, Humber & North Yorkshire ICB), Karen Smith (VCSE Programme Director, South Yorkshire ICB)

Overview: A chance to explore opportunities to maximise the use of funding through collaboration between health and funding organisations, and how we create, identify and respond to opportunities. In these challenging times of limited financial capacity across the system, how do we work together to maximise impact and keep communities at the heart of our work to tackle health inequalities and improve the health and well-being of our population? We will share some examples of great practice from across Yorkshire and consider emerging opportunities such as integrated neighbourhood health, and work and health.

 ‘Unleashing charitable giving: discussion into action’ – led by Ben Robinson (Regional Manager, Yorkshire & Humber, CSJ) and Kawika Solidum (Head of Region – North West, CSJ)

Overview: Following the release of the Centre for Social Justice’s new report, ‘Supercharging Philanthropy: How Government and Givers can Unleash a New Wave of Philanthropic Funding’, this workshop will discuss turning research into action. Focusing on collaboration to bring about both national and frontline change, and to enable grant makers to have the greatest impact possible from their giving.

 ‘Who, how much and to whom? Understanding the UK grant-making landscape’ – led by Emily Dyson (Interim Deputy CEO, 360Giving) and Katherine Duerden (Head of Support & Services, 360Giving)

Overview: Celebrating the launch of UKGrantmaking 2025, we’ll share insights into the funding ecosystem across the country. UKGrantmaking provides a comprehensive overview of grant-funding organisations across all funding sectors, showing key trends and giving useful context for people and organisations across civil society – about who makes grants, how much for, and to whom. We’ll take people through the data and have time for questions.

3.50-4.00     Summing up

4.00              Close of Conference

Book your tickets here.