help@hymans.co.uk

better futures

DEC Pakistan Floods Appeal Donation

In response to the desperate situation which continues to unfold in Pakistan, the Hymans Robertson Foundation has recently made a donation of £5,000, on behalf of the firm, to DEC Pakistan Floods Appeal | Disasters Emergency Committee.

It’s been more than two months since the record monsoon rains began, affecting more than 30 million people and leaving more than 6 million in urgent need. At one point more than a third of Pakistan was underwater, and across the country more than 1.7 million home have been destroyed or badly damaged and whole villages remain submerged or cut off. Many people have been left homeless and facing huge challenges, and alongside a lack of food and clean water there is an increasing risk of waterborne diseases including cholera and dengue fever.

Support from across the UK, including matched funding from UK Government, has already reached £25million but rain continues to fall in some of the worst hit areas. Eleven DEC charities are currently engaged directly and with local authorities and other agencies, to provide emergency relief, with the immediate priorities to provide temporary shelter, emergency food support and access to clean water and medical care.

Visit the DEC website for further details or to make a donation directly.

“Our priority right now is to help save and protect lives as waters continue to rise. The scale of these floods has caused a shocking level of destruction – crops have been swept away and livestock killed across huge swathes of the country, which means hunger will follow” said Saleh Saeed, chief executive of the Disasters Emergency Committee

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How the Foundation Bursary is making an impact

In October 2020 we launched the Hymans Robertson Foundation Bursary, aimed at supporting young people aged 16-25 years in education, training, volunteering or employment with small grant funding for essential digital/data kit, travel, clothing, energy and food bills. Through our charity partners, young people were able to apply for grants that would make a difference in their lives. The Bursary was extended during 2021 and the Foundation Board has now confirmed its approval of a further £60,000 funding for this financial year.

Between April 2021 and March 2022, our Bursary fund provided essential financial support to nearly 270 young people across the UK with an average grant award of £140.  The impact of a small amount of funding, when needed, is evident from the stories that young people shared with us. We are pleased to share this short video from one of our Bursary partners, The London Screen Academy.

From April 2022, we have extended the range of charity partners supporting the distribution of Bursary funding across the UK.  We will also encourage young people to take advantage of MyBnk’s financial education support, ensuring that young people are better advised and equipped to manage their finances.

Please get in touch direct if you could benefit from the Bursary or financial education support and we can connect you to the appropriate charity partner.

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Support for Mental Health and Wellbeing

The Hymans Robertson Foundation Partners with Lifelink to bring professional counselling and wellbeing support to more young people throughout the UK.

The Foundation is delighted to welcome Lifelink to our charity network. Through working closely with our partners who are supporting young people across the UK, we recognise that young people are experiencing high levels of anxiety and social isolation. Poorer levels of mental health and wellbeing are adding to the barriers some young people already face moving into, or staying in, positive destinations.

Now in its 30th year, Lifelink is a social enterprise and registered Scottish Charity, focused on supporting people to make positive changes in their lives, by helping them realise their own abilities to cope with stress and find ways of overcoming anxiety and depression. Lifelink is bringing professional counselling and wellbeing support to the young people supported by our existing charity partners, as well as to those who support them through this work.

Read more about our partnership here.

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Our 2021 Roundup

Welcome to our 2021 summary from the Hymans Robertson Foundation.  Our impact is delivered through our charity partners. On behalf of the Foundation’s Board, I recognise the hard work and commitment our partners have made throughout the pandemic: supporting minoritized young people and communities. Without them the Foundation cannot deliver against our priority areas: securing financial futures for young people and making a positive change to communities through fundraising and volunteering.

During 2021 we continued to listen and be advised by our charity partners, our stakeholders and like-minded funders, ensuring we prioritised our resources to areas of most need and where we could make real differences to people and communities’ lives.  The Board saw the early impact of the introduction of the Foundation Bursary and approved at least a further 2 years (and increased) funding during the year. We also engaged with new charity partners in Birmingham and London during 2021: ensuring that we extended the Bursary’s reach to young people in those cities.

Some of our partners distribute the Bursary to young people directly and the stories from young people have shown the impact that direct funding can have on young people’s lives. Please see our annual report which provides more information on our Bursary and 20/21 impact.

We invite our charity partners to our Board meetings throughout the year. Our Board always benefits from direct engagement with our partners: highlighting areas which are working well and areas of emerging need which could be supported by the Foundation in the future.

In late 2020, our charity partners collectively highlighted the growing and urgent need to support more young people with mental health and wellbeing support. The Board recognised that young people had additional barriers to opportunities resulting from poor mental health and wellbeing and that our own charity partners’ staff needed support and training in this area.  At the end of 2021, we were able to appoint a new mental health charity partner to working directly with young people and provide complementary training to charity staff. I look forward to sharing more of this new partnership shortly.

Finally, a big thanks from the Foundation team to the Firm’s volunteers and fundraisers. Our charity network has brought through specialist, active and virtual volunteering opportunities for Hymans Robertson LLP’s staff and, despite an ever-moving horizon with restrictions and lockdowns, volunteers have continued to support local and Foundation charities throughout the year.  

As we leave our 5th anniversary year, the Foundation has demonstrated its strong social purpose and impact. The new year lies ahead and given the tumult of 2021 we will continue to be a flexible, thoughtful long-term funding partner: showing agility in our Foundation funding commitments, particularly exploring how and where we can support charity partners build back reserves or contribute to core costs. We are also partnering with an increased number of Foundation charities and I look forward to sharing more news on that in the coming months.

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Action on Financial Education

Our CEO, Marcella Boyle, has written a blog for our funder (Hymans Robertson) on the importance of action on financial education for children and young people. Marcella shares recent UK money statistics from The Money Charity, research on inconsistencies in financial education for the younger generation by Money and Pensions Service (MaPS) , and the work the Foundation’s partner, MyBnk is doing to try to plug this gap through its Money Works programme, which it also delivers to the Foundation’s other charity partners:

“With our extended charity partner network, we recognised the need (particularly in young people’s employability programmes) to offer specialist education in managing finances. Building financial capability is a key priority for the Foundation.”

You can read Marcella’s full article, plus find links to further research, on the Hymans Robertson website: “Building better financial security through education“

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Hands reaching across table

Extending our Bursary – supporting more Young People across the U.K.

This month, we recognize a sad one-year anniversary as the ongoing pandemic and its restrictions continue to impact on people and communities.

The Prince’s Trust launched its annual Index (January 2021) with very sobering feedback from young people across the UK[1].  This year’s Youth Index, which surveyed 2,180 16-25 year olds from across the UK, reveals:

  • 60% of young people say that getting a new job feels “impossible now” because there is so much competition
  • a quarter (24%) of young people claim that the pandemic has “destroyed” their career aspirations
  • Young people state that they are more likely to feel anxious now than at any other time since the Youth Index was first launched over a decade ago

Bursary 2020 Background

In October we launched the Hymans Robertson Bursary, aimed at retaining 16-25 year olds in education, training, volunteering or employment. The Fund is nationwide and supported by four Foundation charity partners (Barnardo’s, FARE, Prince’s Trust and Works+). Our financial education partner (MyBnk – Delivering expert-led financial education to young people) also provides wrap services around the Bursary for young people receiving funding.

Our Impact

Over the last 3 months, charity partners identified over 50 young people in the Scottish Borders, Glasgow and North England to be supported by the Bursary. Young people have been able to access funding for a range of employability and training needs (including driving lessons, interview clothing, work and training kit (tools, digital and data).  We also recognize that needs relating to mental health and wellbeing are increasing and the Bursary has been able to support young people access wellbeing sessions with trusted providers.

“the funding gave me the chance to settle in at work without worry about how I was going to get there for the first couple of months”

“the Bursary has allowed me to progress to the Employability Fund Stage 2 course”

“I have just progressed to further training and I’ll be able to do my course work independently at home with my laptop”.

“I’ve secured a new job and feel supported and far less chaotic than I did before. I’m feeling positive about my future”

What’s Next?

The Foundation is committed to supporting young people who, with a little help, can access or continue in training, volunteering and employment. From April 2021, we will double our funding for the Bursary Fund and involve a wider range of our community based charities across the UK. That means over 200 more young people will be supported in 2021/22.  Similar to our crisis approach (Hardship Fund), we will work with our local offices and communities to ensure the Bursary is accessible to young people most in need.

Get In Touch

If you feel the Bursary can support you or vulnerable young people you know, please get in touch. We can connect you to one of our charity partners who can help you access Bursary funding.

[1] Youth Index 2021 | Research, policies and reports | About The Trust | The Prince’s Trust (princes-trust.org.uk)

For information please contact Marcella Boyle, CEO, at marcella.boyle@hymans.co.uk

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Our 2020 Roundup

The Foundation started the year with a clear plan to further develop relationships with our charity partners and offer opportunities for Hyman Robertson LLP’s volunteers and fundraisers, to continue to deliver support to young people and our communities. The full extent of the global pandemic took hold, our plans adapted and funds were redirected. Despite everything 2020 threw at us, there have been some memorable and positive achievements we want to recap on.

The Hardship Fund

The Fund was launched in April, with extra funding released to help charities across the UK to meet the immediate and urgent needs of the most vulnerable in our communities. By the time funding closed, just over £45,000 had been donated to more than 30 charities, helping to provide urgent food and care packages, vital PPE, counselling and support, educational and digital tools.

Moving online

With face to face support either limited or prohibited, we worked with our Foundation partners to move our financial education support – delivered by our partner MyBnk – to an online delivery model, rolled out directly to young people who could engage remotely via our other partners. This change meant we’ve been able to help over 500 young people since the start of the pandemic.

The Foundation Bursary Fund for Young People

In October we launched the Bursary, aimed at retaining 16-25 year olds in education, training or employment. With young people disproportionately impacted by the UK recession and ongoing Covid-19 restrictions, our charity partners advised us of the urgent need for greater intervention in supporting young people in a positive destination.  The Fund has been rolled out nationwide via our existing charity partners and will operate for at least 18 months until April 2022.  In the first 3 months, the Bursary has supported over 50 young people in Glasgow, the Scottish Borders and North England. Here’s the impact of the Bursary for some young beneficiaries:

“the funding gave me the chance to settle in at work without worry about how I was going to get there for the first couple of months”

“the Bursary has allowed me to progress to the Employability Fund Stage 2 course”

“I have just progressed to further training and I’ll be able to do my course work independently at home with my laptop”.

More work is planned to expand the bursary to Birmingham/Midlands and London area in 2021.

Looking ahead

2020 has shown us that we work best when we listen and respond to the needs of community based charities and young people. We want to thank all our partners who continue to work in hard hit communities and with young people who now, more than ever need practical and expert advice to secure a positive future.

Thank you for reading this Roundup.

Marcella Boyle

CEO, February 2021

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Piggy bank

Launching our Bursary for Young People

We are pleased to announce the launch of our Bursary Fund for 16-25 year olds. Funding will be prioritised to support young people into jobs, volunteering, further education and may also be used to financially support young people at the senior end of school.

The Bursary will be delivered via our existing charity network and applications managed by the Prince’s Trust, Barnardo’s, Works + (Scottish Borders) and FARE (Greater Glasgow). Bursary applications will open on 12th October and the fund will operate for at least 18 months until April 2022.

Launching the Bursary Fund, our Chair, Clive Fortes commented:

“Young people are, and will be, disproportionately impacted by the UK recession and ongoing Covid-19 restrictions. Entry level employment opportunities have been significantly impacted by the pandemic and traditional routes to high-vacancy employment (retail, hospitality, travel and tourism) have contracted.

Our charity partners advised us of the urgent need for higher intervention in retaining young people in positive destinations – education, retraining and employability programmes, and volunteering – in the short to medium term. The Bursary is our response to this, and complements the UK and Scottish governments’ youth guarantee and employment schemes. Our financial education charity partner, MyBNK, will provide critical wrap-around support for Bursary holders to ensure that young people’s understanding of personal finance is also supported through the Bursary.

For information please contact Marcella Boyle, CEO, at marcella.boyle@hymans.co.uk

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Hymans Robertson Foundation is a registered charity (1168951 / SC046931).

2020 Hymans Robertson Foundation