Young People

Youth Futures Fund previously Future Changemakers

We’ve worked with over 50 young people to award £900,000 in funding youth work in Camden since 2018. Through our Future Changemakers Fund and the Youth Futures Fund, we’ve given opportunities to hundreds of young people and are breaking down barriers with Camden’s institutions.

Background

The sole focus of Future Changemakers is young people; the panels were made up of 16-25 year olds, who had complete control over the fund criteria and application questions. The funds raised and distributed were awarded to initiatives and organisations dedicated to safeguarding and empowering Camden’s younger generations.

In February 2018 three young men were tragically stabbed in Camden, two of them fatally. Camden Giving’s response to this is the Future Changemakers programme. At a point where young people felt very powerless, we felt it was crucial to respond to this pressing need and shift power to young people in the borough.

Since it was first launched in 2019 the Future Changemakers panel had been an annual staple in our funds. The panel is made up for a group of passionate 16-25 year olds living in Camden

Although Camden Giving has established this blueprint, we’re acutely aware that entering adulthood in Camden remains challenging. Camden Giving has worked with a group of young people to establish the next steps for how we shift inequality for young people. We firmly believe in putting power into the hands of those who understand the challenges best, so who better to decide youth service funding than Camden’s young people.

Youth Futures Fund

After 4 successful years of the Future Changemakers, seeing 46 young people trained into panelist and awarding £567,134 to 59 successful applicants, our alumni decided that the Future Changemakers was due an evolution to fund longer-term, larger-scale youth-focused projects.

This lead to a collaborative consultation, talking to both past young panelist and youth-focused organisation on what gap they were seeing when it came to the funding sector and more specifically youth-organisations receiving funding and what Camden Giving could be doing to address these issues… and thus the Youth Futures Fund was born!

Find out more about how the changes came to be here.

While we don't have immediate plans to mirror this funding initiative in 2025, we remain attentive to evolving needs and opportunities. For the latest updates, we invite you to follow us on on Instagram here, where we'll keep you informed about our initiatives and potential developments.

Together, let's continue to empower the leaders of tomorrow.

The Funds’ Achievements at a Glance

  • The inaugural Future Changemakers fund in 2019 saw 10 young people fund 9 projects including:

    • AYBI

    • Coram’s Field

    • Fitzrovia Youth in Action

    • hFoundation

    • Pro Touch SA CIC

    • SYDRC

    • Urban Community Projects & Somers Town

    • The Winch

    The £83,512.02 funded, benefitted 908 young people around the borough.

  • The second cohort of the Future Changemakers decided on a list of issues they identified as being the issues faced by young people in Camden.

    1. Drugs and Racism

    2. Hate Crimes

    3. Lack of Trusted Role Models and Adults

    4. Poverty/ Exclusion of Young Men/ Subsequent Affiliation with Drugs/ Knife Crime

    5. Polarisation of Education

    Year 2 saw £115,449 being awarded to 14 organisations:

    • Action Young Boxing Intervention

    • Coram’s Fields

    • Pro Touch SA CIC

    • Project 10:10

    • QCCA

    • Sir Hubert Von Herkomer Arts Foundation

    • Small Green Shoots

    • SYDRC

    • STORE CIC

    • hClub Creative Foundation

    • Sapphire Foundation

    • Unloc

    • YourBikeProject CIC

  • Year 3 saw £121,112 distributed to 13 organisations

    • Fitzrovia Youth in Action

    • Head Held High

    • STORE CIC

    • Eat Club

    • C4WS

    • Diginnova Foundation

    • Survivors Can Shine CIC

    • Sobriety Films UK CIC

    • Buri Academy

    • KCBNA

    • Skills Exchange Project CIC

    • St. Pancras Tenants and Residents Association

    • Music Studio Programme

    This cohort identified their key focuses to be:

    1. Youth services being severely underfunded and having low reserves

    2. A bigger fund would allow for more collaborative work between groups

    3. Future Changemakers can sustain the WMCK work

  • Year 3 saw £281,698.96 distributed to 16 organisations:

    • YBY Learning Ltd

    • Creators House

    • Local Village Network

    • Somali Youth Development Resource Centre

    • Urban Outdoors London

    • London Infinity Elite

    • Kings Cross Brunswick Neighbourhood Association

    • Coram’s Fields

    • Old Diorama Arts Centre

    • Small Green Shoots

    • Survivors Can Shine C.I.C

    • Action Youth Boxing Intervention C.I.C

    • Pro Touch SA

    • Camden United CIC

    • Fitzrovia Youth in Action

    • NW5 Project

    The novelty of this year’s fund was that it also included an additional ‘staff wellbeing’ grant which was available to any organisation is they so wished to spend on their staff to improve or cater to their wellbeing.

    This cohort welcomed proposals which centred safeguarding and empowerment of young people in Camden as their focus as well as the their key focuses to be around:

    1. Opportunities

    2. Mental Health

    3. Prevention of Racism and Violence

    4. Sports

    5. Police

  • In June 2023, we proudly allocated a total of £321,200.00 in funding to support the aspirations of young individuals through four esteemed organisations within the vibrant community of Camden. A panel of 9 Camden citizens aged between 16 and 25 came together and awarded £321,200 to award grants to four organisations:

    1. Corams Fields: Support for their ongoing collaboration with Camden and Islington NHS Trust to merge traditional psychology and youth work, assisting young people at risk of youth violence.

    2. Kings Cross Community Association: Funding for MMA sessions, social action initiatives, and providing healthy in-house meals.

    3. Somali Youth Development Resource Centre: Support for their youth programs, including coding, volunteering, and a youth-led leadership programme.

    4. St Mary Community Centre: Support for improving young people's mental health, working with the police on 'stop and search,' and empowering young people to influence the Mayor's office regarding knife crime policy.

  • On the 12th of September 2019, Camden Giving hosted a Future Changemakers debate, bringing together 70 people from all walks of life to celebrate the pilot fund programme and share their thoughts on improving youth safety in Camden.

REPORTS

So far we have been able to fund 44 projects, and award £406,546.88. For more information about our previously grant awards for work with young people in Camden, you can read our reports below:

  • A blog post detailing the changes by panellists from Year 4 of the Future Changemakers Fund and this years fund

  • On the 12th of September 2019, Camden Giving hosted a Future Changemakers debate, bringing together 70 people from all walks of life to celebrate the pilot fund programme and share their thoughts on improving youth safety in Camden.

  • We’ve been supported by individual donors, trusts and foundations, and businesses to create our Future Changemakers Grant.

    Thank you to:

    • Paul Hamlyn

    • Camden Council

    • Auto Trader

    • Fred Mulder

    To find out how you can support the Future Changemakers, click here