The National Lottery Community Fund: Impact Strategy consultation, 2024-25

In 2023, TNLCF launched a new strategy, ‘It Starts with Community’, that will guide their grant making until at least 2030. Central to this is the Impact Strategy - a key element of the implementation of the Fund’s organisational strategy. This will support the Fund to fulfil their commitment to be impact-focused and make a bigger difference for communities.

We were commissioned to carry out qualitative research among grant holders on the draft Impact Strategy, with three aims:

1. Understand feedback on the current Strategy.

2. Strengthen communication of the Strategy, testing key terminology and level of detail.

3. Identify how best to support grant holders when implementing Strategy, including any training or resources required.

We conducted 80 interviews with 60 grant holders across two phases of research. Phase 1 focused on grant holder views of the content of the strategy, while Phase 2 focused on how to best implement the strategy and support grant holders.

After each phase, we provided a report and debrief, detailing recommendation changes and feedback from grant holders. These findings were then used to refine and optimise the final strategy, to ensure it fully supported grant holders.

The Impact Strategy has been published on TNLCF’s website.