With our Autumn Grants Programme now open, over the coming weeks we will be sharing some of the organisations that were funded in our Spring programme.

This week we are pleased to be talking about The Archway Foundation, who received a £4500 grant towards their core costs. The Archway Foundation is a registered charity working to alleviate loneliness and social isolation in Oxford and the surrounding area. The charity reaches around 250 older people each week, with an average age of 76.

The charity’s application scored highly with our trustees, demonstrating a clear benefit to older people alongside the intergenerational nature of its work, with many of its volunteers being from younger age groups. 

As a grassroots charity, depending on the commitment of its volunteers and with a clearly defined community focus, the trustees felt that both the programme and the organisation were well aligned with the foundation’s focus on helping older people through intergenerational work at a community level. Through this the charity are able to address ageism, negative stereotyping, and change the attitudes of everyone involved. Their work also highlights the many limitations in reducing these interventions into easily measured numbers – with many of their observed outcomes being subtle and behavioural in nature, such as increased eye contact, higher levels of engagement, and improved confidence.

Funding will help to support the costs of managing the charity’s various programmes, supporting and training volunteers, and meeting the ongoing costs of charity operations.

We are delighted to be working with them, and look forward to hearing from the charity in the future.