Who are we supporting?

We’re supporting Llamau with £15,000 of grant funding. Working with the most vulnerable groups in Wales, the charity works to prevent homelessness, provide safe accommodation and supports people to move on with their lives. Llamau has a track record of providing innovative, creative and high quality services that successfully prevent homelessness and generate savings to the public purse.

What’s the idea?

Traditional models of third sector funding are becoming increasingly unsustainable. The ongoing climate of austerity has led to UK charity funding decreasing by £3.8billion over the last 10 years, with further cuts to local government budgets expected.

Llamau, and similar organisations, continue to face the impact of these financial pressures and, should conditions continue, many risk closure; leaving gaps in public services.

To tackle this, Llamau is piloting a new sustainable social investment funding model that uses one of Llamau's most successful projects – Symud Ymlaen/Moving Forward (SY/MF) – to evidence, realise and share cashable savings and sustainable service improvements among charities and the public sector.

Llamau will use the research and development phase to define and share a robust evidence base for expected savings delivered by SY/MF; build key relationships and investor agreements across a range of public bodies; and explore the most appropriate methods for payment from public sector bodies to charities.

The eventual funding model will ensure that charities share the savings they generate for public sector bodies, enabling them to become more innovative and sustainable.

Why is this important?

The current approach to funding projects and services has inhibited innovation and led to charities, such as Llamau, maintaining increasing deficits and seeking alternative streams of income in order to deliver agreed outcomes.

This uncertainty is echoed across the sector. In 2015, a study by the Garfield Weston Foundation found that 85 per cent of charities in Wales reported that it was becoming increasingly difficult to secure core costs.

Llamau’s proposed idea will ensure that service users across the country are not left vulnerable to the often transitory nature of successful projects.

How are they hoping to save money and improve services?

Projects run by third sector organisations often generate significant savings for a wide range of public bodies that have the potential to be re-invested in the sector. Our new funding model will ensure that charities can share these savings.

Through evidence, negotiation and agreement, our idea will enable these public bodies to invest a proportion of those savings back into project delivery, driving a cumulative process of savings and investment, and enabling projects to become self-sufficient over time.