Grants made in last financial year 2021/22
Below is a report of the grants made in the last financial year to September 2022.
** Since September 2022 some further grants have been made, an update can be viewed at Recent Grants since September 2022.
1.Young people:
Improving their life chances, especially around the transition from school to employment, and their emotional and mental wellbeing. This includes early interventions that prevent issues from getting worse.
Impetus
Impetus works with their charity partners to give young people from disadvantaged backgrounds the support they need to succeed. AIM has been a long-time funder of Impetus, and in recent years has focused its unrestricted financial support towards research and policy. They work on policy in education attainment, widening participation and youth unemployment.
Impetus has taken a leading role in responding to the crisis affecting young people on the national stage. They were founding partners in two major projects: the National Tutoring Programme (NTP) and the Youth Employment Group (YEG). AIM’s continued unrestricted support of made it possible for them to seize these opportunities and play a key role in high-level policy decisions.
In 2022 AIM also contributed an extra £30,000 to support the capacity building of the 5 organisations in their Engage Fund. The Engage Fund’s mission is to narrow the gap in school, work and life outcomes for young people who are excluded or at risk of exclusion from mainstream education.
Young Minds
Young Minds focuses on influencing policy about young people’s mental health and wellbeing. They have driven changes in mental health units in the NHS and schools. Young Minds listens and actively involves Young Activists in its work.
AIM made a second-year grant towards the core costs of the policy team at Young Minds, allowing them to make significant and continuous strides in influencing government and policy.
CYPMHC
The Children’s and Young People’s Mental Health Coalition has brought together leading charities to campaign jointly on the mental health and wellbeing of children and young people for ten years.
A grant of £40,000 was awarded to cover the costs of CYPMHC’s inquiry into challenging behaviour and the underlying conditions. The research will seek evidence and best practice in addressing the mental health and wellbeing through a trauma informed approached.
42nd Street
42nd Street aims to provide accessible mental health services for all young people in Manchester region. They support young people with their emotional wellbeing and mental health-promoting choices and creativity. AIM is funding their training coordinator for a third year to work with young people to develop their training programme, including courses for those working with young people on how to de-escalate critical situations.
Youthscape
Guided by an advisory board of health care practitioners and teachers, Youthscape aims to help young people with their wellbeing. AIM has continued its commitment to the Alumina program, a live online service for young people to seek help with self-harm with a new three-year award of £105,000.
The Children’s Society
AIM continues to support the Children’s Society East by contributing to the funding the role of a Young Carer Support Worker with £25,000. This role provides one-to-one and group sessions, organising and supporting family activities and developing self-care resources to support hidden young carers. Hidden young carers carry a weight of extra responsibilities, such as caring for family members due to parental mental illnesses or substance dependency.
The Prince’s Trust
The Prince’s Trust helps vulnerable young people get their lives back on track. Focusing on young people aged 11 to 30, the Prince’s Trust helps those who are unemployed, struggling at school and at risk of exclusion. AIM made a second year’s grant towards the training of young people in Essex around self-employment and apprenticeships.
2. Environment
AIM has responded to the urgent need to increase funding for environmental issues and have signed up to the Funder Commitment on Climate Change. This is a relatively new funding area for AIM. Initially support will be focussed on Restoring and protecting UK Rivers and Coastal Waters and Global Oceans and Coastal Waters. Priority areas are nature restoration when linked to carbon sequestration and working with communities.
Synchronicity Earth focuses on overlooked critical problems in our oceans such as poor governance,. Synchronicity Earth’s work is based on years of research, and engagement with their partners.
AIM has committed a grant of £25,000 per year for three years to Synchronicity Earth. Synchronicity Earth is a flexible strategic, and forward-thinking grant-maker willing to take measured risks and would allocate all AIM’s funding to where most needed.
Blue Marine Foundation (BLUE) is dedicated to restoring the ocean’s health by addressing overfishing, securing marine protected areas, restoring marine habitats and connecting people with the sea. BLUE has projects in the UK and all over the world.
AIM has committed to £33,550 for a feasibility study in East Anglia’s coastal waters. BLUE hope to use their previous experience to develop a large scale restoration program for seagrass, salt marsh and oyster beds in the area.
A grant of £31,500 was given as match funding for UK river projects with community involvement. As well as supporting these projects directly, match funding creates an incentive for others to give money to these projects.
A grant of £100,000 was made towards their Environmental and Learning Fund. This provides an opportunity to collaborate with EFF and other funders in early stage, higher risk, impact driven nature based social investments. Trustees are participating in the peer learning programme in order to build our knowledge of impact investing.
Central Office of Public Interest
A grant of £30,000 was made towards the development of a creative campaign to raise public awareness of river pollution.
A three year unrestricted grant award of £90,000 was made towards their ecological work restoring beavers to their former range in order to help build climate resilient landscapes and restore freshwater habitats and the species that rely on them.
3.Early Years:
Focusing on early interventions that improve the emotional and social development of young children from vulnerable families.
Parent Infant Foundation is committed to ensuring every baby has a loving and nurturing relationship laying the foundation for their emotional and physical wellbeing. They want to strengthen their First 1001 days Movement.
AIM increased their second-year commitment to £32,999 towards the policy work supporting the growth and quality of specialised parent-infant relationship teams across the UK.
Best Beginnings works towards helping parents to give their children the nurturing, loving care and attention that provides healthy development. They developed an evidence-based app called Baby Buddy. The app provides understandable information on child development, answers questions, signposts support and helps to make parents feel less alone.
A new three-year total grant of £90,000 has been awarded to contribute the salary of their Engagement Lead to amplify the voices of those parents who disproportionately face inequalities and thereby the impact of Best Beginnings in giving every child the best start in life.
The Institute of Health Visiting (iHV)
iHV’s core mission is improving the lives of all infants and their families through excellence in practice and reducing health inequalities. AIM continued its support by contributing towards the core costs of their Perinatal Mental Health Team with a second year’s grant of £40,000.
Association of Infant Mental Health (AIMH)
AIM further supported the Association of Infant Mental Health in 2022 to develop the infant mental health competency framework. This framework sets the standard for all infant mental health practitioners to work towards to become accredited. It will raise awareness and knowledge of infant mental health amongst practitioners working with at-risk pregnant parents and their infants to strengthen attachment and improve emotional and social development.
Home-Start is a local community network of trained volunteers and expert support helping families with young children through challenging times.
A new three-year total award of £105,000 was made towards developing and delivering their new induction and development programme for senior leaders of their network of Home-start charities across the UK.
4. Nutrition for Health and Wellbeing
Increasing the understanding of nutrition and its importance for health amongst health practitioners. During this year we added further organisations that are addressing Childhood Obesity and encouraging more nutritious eating habits.
All the charities supported in this strategic area are funded from profits from Cytoplan, who in 2021/22 transferred a sum of £450,000 to The AIM Foundation.
NNEdPro
NNEdPro is a not-for-profit think tank, training academy and knowledge network based at Cambridge University. NNEdPro aims to: develop, provide and evaluate impacts of nutritional education in healthcare; research and interpret data in current unexplored areas of how nutrition aids healthcare; and improve policymakers, and healthcare practitioners access to the information.
AIM has provided a third year of funding of £35,000, which has been distributed towards their core costs in developing the undergraduate curriculum around nutrition, how to engage patients in consultations around diet and self-care, and increasing the number of medical schools in their network.
Initially set up in 2017 by two medical students, Nutritank describes themselves as an information hub of food, nutrition and lifestyle medicine. AIM’s funding has helped them to campaign successfully for increased nutritional education at medical schools.
AIM has provided a third year of funding of £35,000, so that Nutritank can continue to deliver the medical student courses and start to adapt their work so that it can reach a wider audience.
Institute of Health Visiting (iHV)
AIM has committed to three years of grants. The third year’s funding of £34,660 has been distributed to cover costs of delivering and evaluating their new two-day e-learning events about oral health and two update events. They will scope the opportunity to provide training to GPs, Practice Nurses and Speech and Language Therapists.
Culinary Medicine UK teaches health practitioners the foundation of clinical nutrition and how to cook themselves to help motivate their patients to lead healthier lives using food. They have developed and run a series of evidence-based courses for both medical students and qualified doctors.
AIM has provided a third year’s grant of £35,000, which Culinary Medicine will use to cover the core costs of developing and delivering online practical nutrition courses to a wider audience. This audience includes nursing staff, allied health professionals, post-graduate junior doctors, and the public.
Nutrition Implementation Coalition
AIM has committed to supporting the partnership costs of The Nutrition Implementation Coalition for a further two years. The coalition brings together organisations with a variety of educational, professional and research experiences who all share the same vision for the need to advocate for nutrition education for healthcare professionals and bridge the gap between knowledge and practice. They are combining their efforts to improve the ability of doctors, nurses, health, and social care professionals to deliver effective nutrition care.
The Food Foundation focuses on changing food policy and business practices to help ensure everyone in the UK can afford a healthy and sustainable diet. AIM has provided a grant of £25,000 to the Food Foundation for an in-depth study on early years food and nutrition and how it may contribute to high levels of overweight and obesity in early childhood.
School Food Matters teaches children about food and aims to improve school children’s access to healthy and sustainable food. Their project, Young Marketeers, allows children to experience the joy of growing fresh fruit and vegetables and developing their skills by selling their produce at the London Borough Market. AIM has committed to a £50,000 grant over two years so that School Food Matters can continue with their Young Marketeers project.
In addition, AIM’s funding will allow them to pilot their other programme of improving the food offer in breakfast and after school clubs, as well as helping schools to develop and implement school food policies that put children’s health first, in three extra schools in another London Borough.
Sustain – Children’s Food Campaign
Sustain is an alliance of organisations and communities working together for better food, farming and fishing. They advocate for food and agriculture policies and practices that have the health and welfare of people and animals at their centre.
AIM has awarded a grant of £25,000 to support putting pressure on the government to introduce universal free school meals and campaigning for healthy school meals.
AIM has awarded a grant of £30,000 towards the development of Baby Steps digital behaviour change intervention to encourage and support the development of healthier dietary and activity behaviours amongst expectant parents.
5. Other Wellbeing & Community Support & Family Fund
- International Rescue Committee – £5000
- The Outward-Bound Trust – £3000
- The Silver Line – £1000
- British Red Cross – £1000
- Suffolk Community Foundation – £1000
- Snape School Parent and Staff Ass – £1000
- Inside Out Community Arts & MH – £1000
- Home Start Isle of Wight – £1000
- The Christie Charitable Fund – £1500
- Friends of St Nicholas – £1000
- The Charlie Waller Trust – £1000