3 July 2017

Bps Foundation Clocks Up £2.5M in Grants

The Battersea Power Station Foundation (BPS Foundation), the independent UK charitable body established by the Battersea Power Station shareholders – Sime Darby, SP Setia and The Employees’ Provident Fund (EPF) – celebrates its first anniversary this month following a fruitful year in which over £2.5 million was granted to local charities and community organisations to help improve quality of life for people living in the area local to the iconic Power Station.

The Battersea Power Station Foundation (BPS Foundation), launched in June 2016, created two grant-making funds (The Evolve Fund and The Spring Fund*) to support community development across local boroughs Wandsworth and Lambeth. The funds were created to ensure the benefits arising from the Power Station redevelopment were felt within neighbouring communities in a practical and sustainable way over a long-term period.

Since its inauguration, the BPS Foundation has awarded 69 grants to 66 organisations totalling £2,617,232. Recipients range from a diversity of charities and local organisations providing vital community services such as mentoring for local disadvantaged young people; tackling loneliness and isolation in the elderly; tree planting and horticulture; arts, music, fitness and wellbeing projects; assistance for disabled residents; tackling youth violence and helping ex-offenders into employment.

The largest grant made by BPS Foundation to a single organisation was to the local arts and community venue, Battersea Arts Centre (BAC), which suffered considerable damage to its historic building during a fire in March 2015. They received a grant of £305,400 towards supporting their arts-based portfolio of community initiatives supporting local organisations and practical building support to help rebuild the space.

In addition to providing larger grants via its Evolve Fund* programme, the Foundation has also made several smaller donations to a series of charities in need of immediate assistance. The smallest grant made by the Foundation was £1,000 to the Rotary Club of Battersea Park towards their annual Christmas Day Lunch for the elderly.
Some of the other charities that BPS Foundation has assisted over the past 12 months are:

• Working with Men (WWM) – A multi award winning specialist charity supporting positive male activity, engagement and involvement, their programmes and services both engage and support boys and young men at critical points in their lives. The Foundation provided a grant of £222,000 funding is towards a youth violence initiative. WWM have also begun to extend its Expectant Fathers Programme from St Georges hospital in Wandsworth to Kings College Hospital in Lambeth, and anticipate a brand new service for expectant fathers to access from August. Studies show that if fathers are more engaged during the perinatal period they are more likely to stay involved in their child’s lives regardless of whether the parents stay together.

• The Walcot Foundation – an independent grant making foundation focusing on breaking the cycle of financial deprivation for people living in Lambeth. The Foundation granted £120,000 via their Evolve Fund towards a Peer Support Network programme in partnership with the Walcot Foundation for charitable organisations in Wandsworth and Lambeth.

• Chance UK – A specialist early intervention mentoring programme, providing a solution focused programme to 5-11 year olds with behavioural difficulties and who are at risk of involvement in anti-social behaviour, gang activity and adolescent crime. The Foundation provided £120,000 of funding towards a youth violence initiative.

• Carney’s Community – an organisation which aims to reduce offending, re-offending and anti-social behaviour in Battersea through boxing and one-to-one mentoring. The Foundation made a grant of £75,000 via their Evolve Fund.

• E:Merge/FAST – helps young people on the Patmore Estate opposite Battersea Power Station to fulfil their potential and improve their lives through mentoring and coaching work. The Foundation has contributed £75,000 towards funding the expansion of their work so they can support more young people in the area.

Eoin Heffernan, Interim Director of the Foundation, said: “The BPS Foundation has provided invaluable support to a wide range of community initiatives over the past year, helping to improve the quality of life for local people. A special focus has been the outreach out to local young residents and, in particular, the work to combat youth violence. By giving young people greater opportunities via the funding of youth programmes, we have been able to support these individuals at a critical point in their lives. It has been extremely rewarding to see the positive impact that has been made in local communities and we look forward to making even further progress over the coming year”.

George Turner, Chief Executive of Carney’s Community, commented: “BPS Foundation has been a huge support to Carney’s Community, by covering some of our core costs and therefore allowing us to focus more of our time in engaging and supporting some of the boroughs most disadvantaged young people. The outcome of this funding has been that in the last year we have supported over 400 local residents (with half of them coming from a disadvantaged background) by engaging them in positive activities, mentoring and employment support.”

Shane Ryan, Chief Executive of Working with Men, said: “Funding from the BPS Foundation has allowed us to work with boys most at risk of exclusion across five schools in Battersea that most need our support. We began this evidence based work in June and have already worked with more than 60 boys, keeping them engaged and in education which is better for them their families and the wider community.
We have also begun to identify key partners in Battersea in a variety of venues to support our Ventoring assertive outreach with the intention of identifying young men that have fallen through the gaps of the system, building relationships with them and keying them into a range of opportunities locally.”