The Connect Fund’s Manager, Jessica Brown, will be taking up a new post as Grant Director for the Trusthouse Charitable Foundation in June. The Foundation will be managed by the Centre for Social Justice. This is an independent trust of the Trusthouse Forte hotel business, providing core funding to small UK charities.

The Trustees of the Barrow Cadbury Trust, along with the Access Foundation, congratulate Jessica on her new role at Trusthouse Charitable Foundation, and thank her for her fantastic work in setting up the Connect Fund.

We are pleased to announce that Liz Hayes, currently the Assistant Manager at the Connect Fund, will take on the role of Connect Fund Manager from 1 June. Liz has worked on the Connect Fund for the past two years, and has a strong background in both grant-making and voluntary sector infrastructure.

The Connect Fund will have an important role to play in the recovery of the social investment sector and we will focus our resources on supporting the infrastructure of the market. In alignment with Access’ strategic objectives and the work of its other programmes, the Connect Fund will now fund projects across a small number of key areas, including championing equality and diversity in the sector, deepening our understanding of the most effective ways to provide business support, and exploring resilient and agile business models. We will be providing a further update in the next couple of weeks, which will set out in more detail what we will be looking to support across these focus areas and our funding guidelines.

If you are a current or recent partner of the Connect Fund, we continue to encourage you to talk to us about the impacts of the virus either on the work we are funding or the wider work of your organisation.