Rank Foundation awarded £3m of lottery funding

Charitable trust The Rank Foundation has been awarded £3.3m from the National Lottery Community Fund to improve skills within the third sector.

Its successful ‘Time to Shine’ programme provides paid opportunities within the charity sector for people experiencing underemployment, while simultaneously addressing gaps in skills and capacity both within individual charities and the wider social sector.

The foundation was first supported by National Lottery funding for its Time to Shine programme back in 2016, which was initially delivered across Northern Ireland.

The National Lottery funding will enable the programme to roll out across the UK, increasing the number of individuals and organisations eligible for the programme and allowing it to be better tailored to specific operational and business development challenges faced by small and medium-sized charities.

Caroline Broadhurst, deputy CEO at The Rank Foundation, said: ‘Our partnership with The National Lottery Community Fund is a great boost for the Time to Shine Leadership Programme.

‘The Rank Foundation and the Fund share a passion for bringing new talent and skills into the social sector, whilst future-proofing the role of small and medium-sized charities.

‘This grant will help to scale Time to Shine across the UK with a wider reach than ever before.’

Each year charities are invited to apply, outlining a priority organisational development gap and what difference a leader would make in addressing this need. Charities are shortlisted and then the charity identifies an individual with the skills and talent to carry out the leadership programme.

This year there are 31 Leaders in 31 different organisations within the Rank network. The charities and social enterprises address many significant and deep-seated problems in society such as bullying among young people, knife crime, food poverty, loneliness among older people and rural isolation.

The Rank Foundation operates as the major charitable legacy of Lord Rank, a British Industrialist, filmmaker and philanthropist, funding more than 2,500 organisations over the past 10 years through more than six different funding streams and multiple funding partnerships.