The Lily-Jo Project

An online platform devoted to eliminating the stigma of mental health through music, digital resources, and community engagement.

Founded in 2016 by UK-based pop singer, songwriter, and qualified counsellor, Lily-Jo, The Lily-Jo Project's self-help website provides a balance of expert advice, personal stories, and top tips to support those struggling with common mental health challenges, such as depression, anxiety, eating disorders, self-harm, and childhood trauma. The team also runs an online learning platform of engaging and high energy courses for schools, using music, dance, and activities to inspire kids and teens to take control of their mental health.

Alongside digital resources, The Lily-Jo Project also takes its message of hope out into the world by hosting lessons, workshops and gigs in schools, workplaces, churches, conferences, and music festivals across the world.

Big Brothers Big Sisters UK

Big Brothers Big Sisters creates long term mentoring and friendships that support children to thrive in life.

The Big Brothers Big Sisters UK Foundation is working with partners to replicate the US mentoring programme, Big Brothers Big Sisters of America. The programme matches volunteer mentors with local children aged 7-11, who spend time together once a week, from going on trips or working on homework, to fun activities like swimming, learning guitar, or going to the cinema.

These mentoring relationships create long term friendships, and have a positive, lasting impact on young people’s lives, boosting their self-esteem and helping them to achieve their goals.

The programme has had a successful pilot in Oxfordshire since 2017, and the BBBS UK Foundation is working with other local authorities across England to expand this impact. Their priority is for the programme to be embedded within Children’s services, adding support to link workers.

Root Seventy Three

Youth led artist development, built by and for the local community.

Root 73 operates an open-door, community rooted recording studios in London. The team focuses on artist development - they welcome and nurture new, young artists serious about their craft, giving them access to equipment, space and time to write and record, and a wealth of industry experience.

Being a community focused platform, the team develops opportunities for new artists to collaborate, showcase their work, and cross-promote. Through a partnership with Ditto Music Publishing, Root 73 also supports through distribution, marketing and monetisation.

In 2019, Root 73 started The Silhouttes Project:

“We started The Silhouettes Project… to shine a light on the new generation of underground Hip-Hop, Jazz, and Soul music in the UK. Community is everything to us, and we wanted to show that with a proper support network, access to professional facilities, and the encouragement of a family of artists, our community could produce something incredible.

We felt a joint frustration that the current music scene in the UK only had structures in place to support talent of a certain genre whilst overlooking a buzzing alternative Hip-Hop culture. We wanted to unify artists who are making ground-breaking music but who are in need of a solid structure to work within - artists who we felt deserved more recognition. This led us to the name ‘The Silhouettes Project’, as we wanted to shine a light on those artists in the shadows.”

Listen to their first album on Spotify

Grow To Know

Building gardens to inspire, educate, & heal whilst empowering more diverse communities through horticulture.

Tayshan Hayden-Smith, born & raised in North Kensington, brought love & life to his community in response to the Grenfell Tower fire in 2017. With no plan or strategy, Tayshan and the community turned to nature to gather and unify in what was a baron, neglected and unloved space. A transformation occurred as people came together to dig, plant and discuss, and the space came to be known as the “Grenfell Garden of Peace”. The community would then go on to reclaim three more spaces – completely unresourced: Acklam Nature Project, Maxilla Nursery, Kingsnorth House. Tayshan would go on to adopt the name the “The Grenfell Guerrilla Gardener”.

Grow To Know’s heart lies in reclaiming space and reconnecting people with nature and each other. Putting community at the forefront in the creation of public, outdoor spaces, Grow To Know is pioneering a model that pivots on consultation, collaboration, and place-making.

Building partnerships to activate spaces, the grassroots non-profit is committed to inspiring a culture change to implement more sustainable systems that promote biodiversity, circular economies and regenerative practices. Grow To Know is on a mission to inspire, heal and educate through horticulture – embarking on a journey to make gardening more inclusive and nature accessible to all.

Her Path To Purpose

Her Path to Purpose CIC exists to equip and empower young women to advance personally and professionally.

Her Path to Purpose CIC exists to equip and empower young women to lead purposeful lives. Their mission is to provide skill-building opportunities and resources to equip young women with the essential tools to advance personally and professionally, and their vision is to see young women discovering their passion, striving to achieve their purpose and growing in confidence.

They support young women through the following programmes: mentoring and coaching (curriculum based, 1:1), mental health support (free access to online and in-person counselling with qualified practioners), employability support, and school empowerment programmes (developing confidence and self-esteem through a variety of workshops and events).

Since debuting in 2018, they have impacted the lives of 5000+ women and provided over 150 hours of free mental health counselling.

Creative Opps

User-led programmes, designed by and for young people, to support members in creating positive change for themselves and their communities.

Creative Opportunities gives young people access to the tools, networks, and experience that they need to independently achieve their ambitions. They deliver user-led programmes, designed by and for young people, to support members in creating positive change for themselves and their communities. Whether this be through mentoring, work experience, or social action, they work to unlock potential and make a lasting impact on a young person’s life.

Over the next three years, they plan to deliver three core programmes, each designed to support young people to create positive change for themselves and their communities, and allow Creative Opportunities to build a self-sustaining trading entity. These are: paid work placements, mentoring and cooperative membership. ZING's funding will be primarily toward the support of work placement and mentoring.

My Power

Enabling social workers to co-produce behavioural change with children and families as experts by experience.

The My Power app will be a new pilot service for social workers, children and their families, grounded in effective behavioural change models and technology that we all know and use. It will enable social workers to co-produce behavioural change with children and families as experts by experience, empowering families to take ownership of their work plans, regularly keep in touch with/update their social worker, and significantly reduce the time social workers need for admin, maximising the time they can spend supporting each family.

The 93% Club

Dismantling the class inequality that exists in Britain today through the power of community.

The 93% Club is a members' club for people who went to state schools, bringing together thousands of like-minded individuals across the country to break down the structural barriers to social mobility and build a future that’s fairer for the next generation. The current 'system' is not broken - it works incredibly well at serving those it was designed for: keeping power with those of privilege, status and wealth.

Starting with a Facebook group in 2016, a community of students who did not come from wealthy backgrounds assembled, quickly growing to 10k+ strong, covering more than 45 universities. This is the UK's least exclusive members club - the 93% of people who went to state schools in the UK, and who occupy a much smaller percentage of the top roles: 34% of FTSE 350 CEOs, 35% of senior judges, 43% of the House of Lords, 56% of journalists...

The 93% club brings together professionals and state school students, providing: access to life-changing career advice, courses and expert lectures in social mobility; empowering members to realise their potential by volunteering and mentoring; and running regular social and network events across the UK. Through a growing network of leading employers, members can also access employability training, CV clinics, job opportunities and career change support.

The New Society aims to inspire the next generation of leaders, community workers, creatives, promotors, producers and artists coming out of Brighton and its surrounding areas. Founded by Bobby Brown, a young change maker in Brighton, New Society takes a collaborative approach, working with youth & community organisations, art institutions, venues, commercial brands and the wider music industry.

While youth led and trauma informed, they aim to: raise aspiration levels and provide paid opportunities for some of the most marginalised young people, provide platforms for emerging talent, develop alternative systems of working and living, and use emerging technology to empower young people and society at large.

Bobby and his team has worked with local organisations including AudioActive, the Trust for Developing Communities, Platform B, Brighton CCA, Brighton Dome and Lighthouse Arts, as well as global brands like Adidas, Nike & Red Bull.

Milk & Honey

An expressive, safe space that allows young women and girls to flourish and take ownership of H.E.R (Healing, Empowerment and Resilience) through 1:1 sessions and creative group projects.

Milk and Honey Bees aims to enable young women and girls - who are often deemed as hard to engage - to express creatively, give them the chance to feel supported and access opportunities, as well as gain skills to navigate in society. Milk and Honey is a project that supports young women on their journey of healing whilst equipping them with social, employment and life skills that enable them to mobilise in their communities.

Relatable Role Models

Relatable Role Models works to empower young people who lack relatable role models in the community.

Working with young people in and out of education, Relatable Role Models builds trusting relationships to identify and meet their needs, walk alongside them, and encourage them to maximise their potential.

They provide one-to-one mentoring and engaging community projects such as pop-up youth spaces, mobile music studios, and Lived Experience workshops that cover a range of topics like: identity, gang culture, knife crime and youth violence, children exploitation, healthy relationships, and career paths.

Paradigm Project

Fighting social inequality and unlocking the potential in the lives of disadvantaged young people.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, year 7’s faced unprecedented disruption to their education, either through missing learning time, school closures, or reduced engagement through virtual learning. Joel Dunn, founder of Paradigm Project, collected data on students transitioning from year six to year seven, and the teachers working with them, to better understand the impact of COVID-19, and presented his findings through: "Bridge the Gap 2021".

Growing out of this report, Paradigm Project addresses complex youth issues through proactive and preventative methods at a young age, to disrupt negative cycles at the earliest opportunity.

Currently, the team runs two programmes: