Looking back at 2023 and ahead to 2024…
The photographs on the easels are striking: a girl reaches beguilingly out to the lens, pulling you in with her vivacious eyes as much as her hand; a young woman salutes the camera and stares pointedly sideways, military cap atop headscarf; a lad is suspended in mid-air, as he heads a ball hanging like a full moon; another boy perches on a wall in his shades, striking a cheeky Mod pose.
These fantastic images adorned the Lightbulb annual breakfast during late November 2023. They brightened the room, just as our partners consistently brighten lives. More than thirty of these organisations’ leaders gathered at Megan’s in the High Street, in the heart of the borough of Kensington and Chelsea, the community that we serve with so much of our work. We all came together to share ideas, celebrate our common purpose, and break banana bread (any surplus food was delivered immediately afterwards to the food bank at Refettorio Felix in Earl’s Court).
The fine art portraits could have been taken by Misan Harriman but were in fact the work of West London kids, their subjects being their friends – all under the expert guidance of another famed photographer, Alison Jackson. These workshops, facilitated by Lightbulb’s support and in partnership with Young K&C, took place during the summer at Caxton Youth and Solidarity Sports (as they had previously at other Lightbulb partners, Design Museum, Earls Court Youth Club and Dalgarno Trust, among others).
The portraiture captures brilliantly the incredible spark, bright exuberance, and sheer potential of these young people: kids – like countless others – who benefit regularly from the amazing programmes laid on by our wonderful partners (offerings such as Alison’s specialist workshops, which will culminate in an exhibition later this month at Cadogan Hall, no less).
We are proud to have helped this past year so many brilliant practitioners provide people – young and old – with such opportunities to forge ahead, be it via safe and inspiring places to be, expert mentor support, or other means… all leading toward enhanced chances for these individuals to shine (excuse the obligatory Lightbulb pun).
Since our previous annual breakfast event in 2022 (yes, as you ask, it has become our favourite morning of the year), Lightbulb awarded thirteen grants from our Greenlight fund to the tune of £400,000 and twenty-one grants from Lightbulb totalling £585,000.
We also, during 2023, made two impact investments to inspirational start-ups. Social enterprise investment has always been a driving element of Lightbulb, from the get-go, but often had to come second to grant-making. This is changing. Our investment arm has expanded, thanks to the expert help of new senior adviser Colman Chamberlain during the latter half of 2023. Having refined our processes with Colman, we want to be as transparent about them as possible. To that end, we recently laid out our investment strategy on the Lightbulb website.
We have of course greatly missed our brilliant Director, Luísa Gockel, the glowing filament of Lightbulb, during those recent months (though, as with everything we do, she too was behind this recent impact investment drive) – but rejoice also that Luísa welcomed her third child, Tiago, into the world! While Sonia Bouclainville has deputised superbly in Luísa’s absence, with Colman’s input, we of course look forward to welcoming Luísa back from maternity leave in due course later this year.
Other highlights of 2023 included our ramped-up pro bono offerings. We will always look for new ways to buttress the services and offerings we can provide our partners, to aid growth and enhance capacity. Our friends at Analysis Group continued to make huge differences to the processes of several key partners, remarkable organisations such as West London Zone, Football Beyond Borders, and The Shannon Trust (please check out the blog on the latter collab here).
Meanwhile, impact consultant Jami Dixon offered insightful support to multiple other partners via a range of webinars, drop-in calls, and also more tailored exchanges. Read more here about Jami’s transformative work with us and what is coming up from her (including in the next few weeks).
We remain incredibly grateful to Analysis Group and Jami for their fantastic support, as we do our trustees.
Lightbulb also enjoyed fostering further excellent collaborations between partners via our Integration Challenge. These team-ups remain consistently rewarding success stories, proving that two plus two sometimes really can equal five (and then some)! They included, toward the end of 2022, under the Greenlight umbrella, The Curious School of Puppetry working with Steppaz arts and dance school; and then, in West London on the Lightbulb side, Nova and Earls Court Youth Club both teaming up with West London Zone (read more about the former partnership here).
Lightbulb, in these sorts of ways, remains committed to supporting the network of brilliant charities with whom we partner with more than just grants. We want to prove more than the sum of our parts, to help change lives for the better. We are committed to adopting innovative methods wherever possible and continually hone our processes to make our funding as intentional, user-friendly, and meaningful as possible: for example, this past year, in consultation with partners and in accordance with our own theory of change, we recalibrated our application process. We owe it to those partners to remain nimble, self-critical, and open. Indeed, at the Breakfast event, we asked attendees to share insights and feedback beneath three blue-skies of Post-Its… ‘I wish’, ‘I wonder’ and ‘I hope’ (the responses were suitably thought-provoking).
The fundraising landscape for charities remains as tough as ever. We have moved through Covid but its aftershocks rumble on, particularly in mental health. The cost of living keeps stinging. Political change and renewal may be in the air – this year, over four billion people will vote in elections worldwide, more than ever before – yet we all know that these touchstone challenges aren’t going away anytime soon.
We will never rest on our laurels. During the past four years, we have paid out more than £2.3 million. Yet we try to help not just financially, as explained already. We want to be as mindful and proactive funders as possible simply so that our partners are enabled to do their best work. We are resolved to continue that mission this year (our fifth). With those inspiring photographs taken by young people of young people firmly in mind – photographers and subjects who all deserve the very best possible chances in life – we feel more determined than ever to keep trying our best.
Salome & Ben Holden
Trustees & Co-founders, The Lightbulb Trust
Looking back at 2023 and ahead to 2024…
The photographs on the easels are striking: a girl reaches beguilingly out to the lens, pulling you in with her vivacious eyes as much as her hand; a young woman salutes the camera and stares pointedly sideways, military cap atop headscarf; a lad is suspended in mid-air, as he heads a ball hanging like a full moon; another boy perches on a wall in his shades, striking a cheeky Mod pose.
These fantastic images adorned the Lightbulb annual breakfast during late November 2023. They brightened the room, just as our partners consistently brighten lives. More than thirty of these organisations’ leaders gathered at Megan’s in the High Street, in the heart of the borough of Kensington and Chelsea, the community that we serve with so much of our work. We all came together to share ideas, celebrate our common purpose, and break banana bread (any surplus food was delivered immediately afterwards to the food bank at Refettorio Felix in Earl’s Court).
The fine art portraits could have been taken by Misan Harriman but were in fact the work of West London kids, their subjects being their friends – all under the expert guidance of another famed photographer, Alison Jackson. These workshops, facilitated by Lightbulb’s support and in partnership with Young K&C, took place during the summer at Caxton Youth and Solidarity Sports (as they had previously at other Lightbulb partners, Design Museum, Earls Court Youth Club and Dalgarno Trust, among others).
The portraiture captures brilliantly the incredible spark, bright exuberance, and sheer potential of these young people: kids – like countless others – who benefit regularly from the amazing programmes laid on by our wonderful partners (offerings such as Alison’s specialist workshops, which will culminate in an exhibition later this month at Cadogan Hall, no less).
We are proud to have helped this past year so many brilliant practitioners provide people – young and old – with such opportunities to forge ahead, be it via safe and inspiring places to be, expert mentor support, or other means… all leading toward enhanced chances for these individuals to shine (excuse the obligatory Lightbulb pun).
Since our previous annual breakfast event in 2022 (yes, as you ask, it has become our favourite morning of the year), Lightbulb awarded thirteen grants from our Greenlight fund to the tune of £400,000 and twenty-one grants from Lightbulb totalling £585,000.
We also, during 2023, made two impact investments to inspirational start-ups. Social enterprise investment has always been a driving element of Lightbulb, from the get-go, but often had to come second to grant-making. This is changing. Our investment arm has expanded, thanks to the expert help of new senior adviser Colman Chamberlain during the latter half of 2023. Having refined our processes with Colman, we want to be as transparent about them as possible. To that end, we recently laid out our investment strategy on the Lightbulb website.
We have of course greatly missed our brilliant Director, Luísa Gockel, the glowing filament of Lightbulb, during those recent months (though, as with everything we do, she too was behind this recent impact investment drive) – but rejoice also that Luísa welcomed her third child, Tiago, into the world! While Sonia Bouclainville has deputised superbly in Luísa’s absence, with Colman’s input, we of course look forward to welcoming Luísa back from maternity leave in due course later this year.
Other highlights of 2023 included our ramped-up pro bono offerings. We will always look for new ways to buttress the services and offerings we can provide our partners, to aid growth and enhance capacity. Our friends at Analysis Group continued to make huge differences to the processes of several key partners, remarkable organisations such as West London Zone, Football Beyond Borders, and The Shannon Trust (please check out the blog on the latter collab here).
Meanwhile, impact consultant Jami Dixon offered insightful support to multiple other partners via a range of webinars, drop-in calls, and also more tailored exchanges. Read more here about Jami’s transformative work with us and what is coming up from her (including in the next few weeks).
We remain incredibly grateful to Analysis Group and Jami for their fantastic support, as we do our trustees.
Lightbulb also enjoyed fostering further excellent collaborations between partners via our Integration Challenge. These team-ups remain consistently rewarding success stories, proving that two plus two sometimes really can equal five (and then some)! They included, toward the end of 2022, under the Greenlight umbrella, The Curious School of Puppetry working with Steppaz arts and dance school; and then, in West London on the Lightbulb side, Nova and Earls Court Youth Club both teaming up with West London Zone (read more about the former partnership here).
Lightbulb, in these sorts of ways, remains committed to supporting the network of brilliant charities with whom we partner with more than just grants. We want to prove more than the sum of our parts, to help change lives for the better. We are committed to adopting innovative methods wherever possible and continually hone our processes to make our funding as intentional, user-friendly, and meaningful as possible: for example, this past year, in consultation with partners and in accordance with our own theory of change, we recalibrated our application process. We owe it to those partners to remain nimble, self-critical, and open. Indeed, at the Breakfast event, we asked attendees to share insights and feedback beneath three blue-skies of Post-Its… ‘I wish’, ‘I wonder’ and ‘I hope’ (the responses were suitably thought-provoking).
The fundraising landscape for charities remains as tough as ever. We have moved through Covid but its aftershocks rumble on, particularly in mental health. The cost of living keeps stinging. Political change and renewal may be in the air – this year, over four billion people will vote in elections worldwide, more than ever before – yet we all know that these touchstone challenges aren’t going away anytime soon.
We will never rest on our laurels. During the past four years, we have paid out more than £2.3 million. Yet we try to help not just financially, as explained already. We want to be as mindful and proactive funders as possible simply so that our partners are enabled to do their best work. We are resolved to continue that mission this year (our fifth). With those inspiring photographs taken by young people of young people firmly in mind – photographers and subjects who all deserve the very best possible chances in life – we feel more determined than ever to keep trying our best.
Salome & Ben Holden
Trustees & Co-founders, The Lightbulb Trust
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On the morning of November 27th, Lightbulb Trust hosted its annual breakfast with our partners, both longstanding and newly welcomed,
We had feedback from amazing partner organisations doing great things that they often struggle to capture learning and showcase their
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The Integration Challenge – West London Zone and Earls Court Youth Club In summer term 2023, through the support of
