Here you’ll find updates from the last couple of months on our latest news, insights and upcoming events. Read on to hear more about new support recently added to the portal, plus other news, and updates from us and our partners.
New support available on the Lightning Reach Portal
In the last couple of months we have been delighted to welcome the Naval Children's Charity to the portal. The Naval Children’s Charity provides grants to support children up to and including the age of 25 whose parent or guardian serves or has served in the Naval Service.
It is also fantastic to have welcomed The Book Trade Charity as a new support partner on the portal. The Book Trade Charity offers a range of grants to help those who have worked in the UK Book Trade and their dependants.
SIC Quarterly Forum: June 2023
Thank you to everyone who came along to our June SIC Quarterly Forum, with the session focused around discussing the theme “How can working in partnerships lead to changes in the ways support is delivered to individuals facing financial hardship?”
A big thank you in particular to our two speakers Julie Green, Chief Executive at Glasspool, who spoke about how they plan to work with Grants Delivery Partners to deliver support as part of their new Flexible Frontline Fund, and Simon Peleszok, Programmes Lead at TSB, who discussed how TSB are partnering with domestic abuse charities to provide various support initiatives to survivors of domestic abuse.
Read our summary of the Forum here.
Lightning Reach featured in reports and publications
We were delighted to be mentioned (on p.49) in End Furniture Poverty’s report, The Extent of Furniture Poverty in the UK - highlighting how people can access available support during times of crisis. Read the full report here. It was also great to be featured in an article by Fair4All Finance on Maximising the income of people in financially vulnerable circumstances – the tools that make a difference. Read the article here.
Past events
The Lightning Reach team have been invited to speak at several events over the past couple of months to share more information about the portal, this includes speaking at:
London Funder’s Festival of Learning 2023 - to share how we worked with the Social Innovation Council to streamline access to financial support, and how a collaborative approach to product development led to the creation of the portal.
Two Association of Charitable Organisations (ACO) events, the Regional Charities Forum and Forum for Scottish Benevolent Charities, to highlight local and regional support available on the portal.
News from our partners
Lightning Reach Support Partner The Royal Naval Benevolent Trust (RNBT) are pleased to announce that they can now award e-vouchers for supermarkets to purchase food/clothing and vouchers to enable energy top-ups for those on pre-paid meters to Royal Navy and Royal Marines personnel who meet their criteria for assistance.
Social Innovation Council founding partner the Association of Charitable Organisations (ACO) has recently published new research on understanding the economic impact of giving essential household appliances. You can read the full report here.