From time to time the trustees of the Baring Foundation choose an issue to support which lies outside our three main grant programmes but within our values. The sums of money deployed are less than for grants programmes. Funding is used flexibly, for instance on commissioning research, networks or awards.

Climate Change and the Third Sector
The stark conclusion of the Stern Report published in October 2006, that ‘climate change presents very serious global risks and it demands an urgent global response,’ prompted the trustees of the Baring Foundation to explore what the Foundation could contribute to this response. We went on to establish a Special Initiative on Climate Change and the Third Sector. Our first step in 2007 was to offer free environmental audits to a group of our grantees. The audits generated some useful outputs for organisations in terms of practical ideas for reducing their carbon footprints. Whilst some organisations were able to reduce their carbon emissions, we saw that helping this to happen in a small number of organisations was useful but not the whole story. We also saw that some voluntary organisations remained unconvinced that climate change was an issue for them when set against the immediate needs of their beneficiaries. Organisations therefore saw no role for themselves in engaging with climate change issues. There are two damaging consequences of this. Firstly organisations are not thinking about how climate change will affect their work – its nature and scale. Secondly, those fighting to achieve the necessary urgent global response are doing so without the help of organisations with valuable skills and resources to add to the effort. We felt that it would be useful to try to establish a wider understanding amongst non-environmental voluntary organisations that climate change is more than just an environmental issue. Climate change will have an impact on many areas that concern voluntary organisations such as poverty, housing, health, security and well-being. On that basis, we decided to focus the Special Initiative on supporting non-environmental voluntary organisations to understand how the impacts of climate change will affect their charitable purposes. The results of this will be shared with practitioners and policy makers as part of the effort to encourage a more urgent response to the serious risks of climate change. We have funded four projects working with different parts of the non-environmental voluntary sector – refugee organisations, children and youth organisations, community anchors and organisations working with vulnerable people. We plan to hold an event in 2010 to share the results of the work and will publish a project report. Click here to read a short paper giving more detail on the background and activity.

We supported the publication of a pamphlet by Stephen Hale of Green Alliance called The new politics of climate change; why we are failing and how we could succeed. This outlines the role the third sector can play in persuading politicians to take action on climate change on the scale that is needed. Click here to see the publication.

Interculturality
In 2007 the Baring Foundation explored the concept of interculturality through a series of meetings. The term interculturality is unfamiliar to most people and its definition and merit contested. We see it as an acknowledgment of the cultural diversity of the UK along with a belief that cultures should not live in isolation. Interculturality is suggested as a process of dialogue between cultures which recognises that all cultures change over time. The Foundation sees this as a positive, though sensitive, process and wishes to promote its daily expression on the ground through annual awards to celebrate and document good practice.

Our working definition. Interculturality is a dynamic process whereby people from different cultures interact to learn about and question their own and each other's cultures. Over time this may lead to cultural change. It recognises the inequalities at work in society and the need to overcome these. It is a process which requires mutual respect and acknowledges human rights.

A major element of this initiative is the creation of awards for interculturality in action. They are funded by us and delivered by the Institute of Community Cohesion. The awards are for smaller and larger voluntary sector organisations and for public and private sector organisations helping them. Awards were given for the second year running at the Royal Society for Arts in London on 1 December 2009. Recipients of the awards are shown on the News page of this website. A dedicated website www.bridgingcultures.org.uk describes these awards.

Interculturality - notes of a Core Costs Club meeting.
In February 2007 our Core Costs Club met and discussed the topic of interculturality.

Past Special Initiatives

Creating a Better Deal for Parents with Learning Difficulties and their Children
People with learning difficulties are now more likely to become parents, but the chance of a child being taken into care is remarkably high - by some estimates 50%. In 2004 the Foundation began to explore what might be done to enhance support for those parents.

A report published in March 2006, commissioned by the Foundation, Finding the Right Support? A review of issues and positive practice in supporting parents with learning difficulties and their children, (to download, click here) created a great deal of interest among the media, policy makers and practitioners.

To sustain this momentum we have funded a consortium led by the Norah Fry Research Centre at the University of Bristol, with additional funding from the Esmee Fairbairn Foundation. The consortium involves parents with learning difficulties in all it does which includes: a dedicated website; bi-monthly newsletters; a network in Scotland; a policy Taskforce; and a series of regional meetings in England for practitioners.

More information can be found on the website www.right-support.org.uk

The Foundation support for this Special Initiative ended in December 2009.

Replication
Although not a current Special Initiative, the Foundation has funded a number of pieces of work on the theme of replication in the voluntary sector which are brought together here. The first instance of our interest was co-funding the 2003 publication under the auspices of the Association of Charitable Foundations of Replicating Successful Voluntary Sector Projects by Diana Leat click here to download. We went on to give core costs grant to two major pieces of work in this area. Firstly we funded the Young Foundation's Launchpad project. Accompanying this work has been a report by the Young Foundation's Director, Geoff Mulgan, on social innovation, growth and replication: In and Out of Sync. You can obtain them by going to the Young Foundation's website here. Secondly we funded the UnLtd Ventures team to work with social entrepreneurs on replication which led to a series of resources which can be found by clicking here. We were very sad indeed to here of the tragic death of Sarah Dodds who worked so hard to complete this work. Lastly, the UnLtd Ventures team worked with one of our grant recipients, the Revolving Doors Agency. The reflections of their Director, Julian Corner on this issue can be found in Same Difference? which can be downloaded here. The Foundation held several seminars for funders under the auspices of ACF on this issue.