The impact of South East London Mind’s engagement with voluntary and community organisations
Katie Yau, Zoë McHayle and David Woodhead
Local grassroots organisations provide vital mental health support to many people from marginalised communities. But they often face major obstacles to survival, like short-term funding and overly complex application and reporting processes.
South East London Mind commissioned us to evaluate their innovative approach to addressing these obstacles by providing local community-based organisations with direct routes to accessible funding in the London boroughs of Greenwich and Lewisham. Growing the grassroots shares the findings of our evaluation, highlighting major opportunities for larger charities to tackle mental health inequalities by working alongside grassroots groups.
The Equality Grants Fund and Culturally Diverse Communities Project, delivered by South East London Mind, provided funding for local projects including online support for people from Black African and Caribbean communities, mindfulness workshops for people from the Nepalese community, and nature-based activities from young people who identify as LGBTQ+.
The report finds that this funding enabled grassroots organisations to provide vital support to people whose needs are often not met by mainstream mental health services. 65% of respondents said they wouldn’t know where to seek support if these services were not available.
Growing the grassroots calls for larger charities, foundations and commissioners to learn from this example and use grantmaking powers to get funding where it is most needed. Resourcing voluntary and community sector organisations longer-term would sustain their essential work, supporting better mental health from the ground up.
