Annual Conference 2026

9.30 – 10.00     Registration, Networking & Tea/Coffee

10.00 – 10.10     Welcome from Yorkshire Funders

10.10 – 11.00     In Conversation with ……… David Holdsworth (Chief Executive, Charity Commission)

David Holdsworth has been Chief Executive Officer of the Charity Commission since June 2024. Prior to that, he served as Chief Executive Officer of the Animal and Plant Health Agency (APHA), the UK’s biosecurity agency and before that, as Deputy Chief Executive Officer of the UK Intellectual Property Office (IPO).

Immediately prior to his role at the IPO, David was Deputy CEO and Registrar of Charities for England and Wales at the Charity Commission. Earlier in his career, David spent over a decade at the Home Office in various senior operational and policy roles.

David also spent 5 years in the private sector in senior executive positions of Managing Director and Partnership Director at two different FTSE 100 companies. He is a fellow of the Institute of Directors and a past Chairman of the Liverpool city region branch.

Q&A

11.00 – 11.30     Comfort Break and Networking

11.30 – 12.30    WORKSHOPS – SESSION 1 (delegates to choose from one of the following)

1. ‘Rethinking Organisational Endings: From Survival Mode to Strategic Choice’

Led by Iona Lawrence (Co-founder, The Decelerator)

Overview: This session explores how funders can enable courageous, compassionate conversations about endings……with grantee boards, leaders, staff, volunteers and communities. We’ll start by introducing a set of ending archetypes to help participants understand their own instincts and responses, and those of the organisations they fund, when changes, transitions or endings loom. From there, we’ll move into practices, approaches and conversation starters tailored to different archetypes and funder relationships.

The session will share conversation openers, script templates, and a short guide to creating understanding, dignity and respect in difficult discussions with grantees. Through live practice and reflection, attendees will leave with tools they can apply immediately in their funding relationships, and a renewed sense that even the “graveyard slot” can be a place of renewal.

2. ‘All Change! Companies House and Charity Commission Changes in 2026……What Are the Implications for Groups, And for You as Funders?’

Led by Katy Sargeant (Chief Executive at West Yorkshire Community Accountancy Service) and Rhys North (Senior Accountant, WYCAS)

Overview: Charities and Community Interest Companies face a host of practical challenges from 2026 onwards, with multiple changes to both company and charity regulations. This session will touch on some of these including:

• Companies House: ID verification; increased payments; filing extensions
• Charity Commission: Independent Examination & Audit thresholds; new SORP rules

Good accountants will be working with their clients to ensure they are ready for the changes, but what about funders? We look at the implications including:

• Will the changes help or hinder some groups?
• How much of an additional financial burden will it put on groups?
• How do funders ensure that their own due diligence processes adapt to the changes without adding extra work for them and the groups they are supporting?

3. ‘How Can Funders Respond to What Matters Most to Grantees in 2026?’

Led by Ben Cairns (Director and Co-founder, Institute for Voluntary Action Research – IVAR), with contributions from Bruce Warnes (Shears Foundation) and Emma Goldthorpe (Eric Wright Charitable Trust)

Overview: This session draws on IVAR’s recent Funding Experience Survey findings to surface what grantees value most, what’s improving and where funding practice still falls short. We’ll start with a presentation highlighting key insights from the survey data and what they suggest about ‘Open and Trusting’ grant-making. Next, a facilitated discussion will help funders in the room locate where they are on the journey, identify what’s getting in the way of progress, and explore practical changes that could make funding work better for grantees and strengthen their ability to support local communities.

We’ll also tease out the real-world barriers funders face when adapting processes, risk approaches, and accountability expectations, and name what support or conditions would help them feel confident making shifts.

Finally, a Q&A with Bruce Warnes (Shears Foundation) and Emma Goldthorpe (Eric Wright Charitable Trust) on their move toward more open, trusting funding, what they’ve learned, and what they want to improve next.

12.30 – 1.15     Lunch & Networking

1.15 – 2.15     WORKSHOPS – SESSION 2 (delegates to choose from one of the following)

1. ‘How Funders Can Collaborate for System Change’

Led by Ellen Berry (Head of the UK Democracy Fund, JRSST Charitable Trust)

Overview: When the problems that funders want to address are too vast and complex to be solved alone, coordinating with other funders can lead to greater impact. This workshop uses the UK Democracy Fund as a case study.
The Fund brings together multiple funders committed to increasing democratic equality and has recently seen some big wins in the Representation of the People Bill currently going through Parliament. Drawing on research for the Joseph Rowntree Foundation and her own experience as Head of the Uk Democracy Fund, Ellen Berry will discuss how pooled funds can work in practice, how they can be effective for funders in bringing about systemic change, and what they need from funders to work well and have the greatest impact.

Attendees will have the opportunity to have an open discussion about the challenges that they want to address through their funding, where funder collaboration might help them have greater impact
and explore how they can overcome barriers to collaboration.

2. Community-led Change in Doubly Disadvantaged Neighbourhoods’

Led by Rachel Rowney (CEO of Local Trust) with Tilly Steward (Senior Policy and Parliamentary Manager at Local Trust)

Overview: In 2012, Big Local was created as an experiment in hyper-local, long-term community-led change, investing £271m in the 150 most deprived places in England, 18 of which can be found across Yorkshire. With March 2026 marking the close of the programme, this interactive workshop provides a timely opportunity for funders looking to deliver community-led approaches. Local Trust will share key learning and insights from delivering the Big Local programme over the past 15 years and use bespoke data from the Community Needs Index to explore the implications of such an approach for Yorkshire. Participants will also be able to hear first-hand from a Big Local area based in the region, drawing on their experience of resident-led change.

3. Grants Data: What’s in it for me?

Led by Oliver French, Independent Consultant and Researcher

Overview: In this session, attendees will explore grants data as a practical tool for their own learning and development. For trusts and foundations, ‘open data’ isn’t just an exercise in transparency. Used wisely, it’s a way to illuminate and communicate the patterns of your own giving; gain a better understanding of your place in the funding ecosystem; and highlight opportunities for collaboration.

With live examples and a dose of the all-important audience participation, this workshop will look at the ways in which grants data can be used to reflect on and improve foundation practices. It’ll support attendees to investigate the who, how and how much of their funding in the context of the bigger grant-making picture, and they’ll also leave better equipped to address any gaps between intentions and reality in their own resourcing approaches.

2.15 – 2.35     Comfort Break and Networking

2.35 – 3.05     Keynote Speech – Tricia Young, Interim Director of Influence and Impact, BBC Children in Need.

‘The Work of BBC Children in Need, Its New Strategy and How it is driven by the Power and Agency of Children and Young People.’

Tricia's career has been dedicated to transforming outcomes for women and children experiencing marginalisation, discrimination and/or adversity. It has centred on driving organisational transformation and building high-impact collaborations with funders, government, UN agencies, corporate partners and civil society.

Tricia has designed, scaled and overseen programmes that deliver measurable outcomes, shaped policy and narrative influence and secured significant institutional and philanthropic funding, most recently as the Director of the Moving Minds Alliance.

Tricia also served as a founder Trustee of the Global Fund for Women UK, one of the world's leading feminist philanthropic institutions and is now Interim Director of Influence and Impact and BBC Children in Need.

3.05 – 3.50     Panel Discussion – ‘Civil Society is Burning Out – Are Funders Part of the Problem?’

• James Banks – London Funders
• Ben Cairns - IVAR
• Iona Lawrence – The Decelerator
• Lindsay Oliver – New Beginnings Peer Support

3.50 – 4.00     Closing comments from Yorkshire Funders’ Chair

4.00     Close of Conference

Booking Information:

1. If possible, please pay by credit card, but if you do need an invoice to pay by BACS or cheque, you will see this option listed. We will then send you an invoice directly to the person who has made the booking.
2. It is a maximum of three people per organisation at conference.
3. The cost is £70.00 per person if you or your organisation is a Yorkshire Funders’ member and £140.00 for non-members. This includes the opportunity to network over lunch, which is provided.

With thanks to our 2026/27 sponsors: