Introducing Julie Young - Chair of ACT

I have proudly chaired the Anglian Community Trust ( ACT ) for almost five years and during that time, I have enjoyed seeing the difference our investments have made to projects on the ground.

During COVID, we supported charities that did so much to support our community in North East Essex, including The Foodbank and Next Chapter.

ACT of course used to be the charity arm of Anglian Community Enterprises. However, when that organisation ceased operations a few years ago, we were no longer associated with ACE. So as an independent Board of Trustees, we decided to adopt a different approach to the traditional grant giving model we had delivered before.

This new approach now involves us working towards helping the projects we support to make a longer term impact to issues faced by vulnerable people in the community by developing an ongoing relationship with them. We would prefer to take this route instead of awarding £5,000 grants here and there and not staying in regular contact with the applicants.

I know this vision of establishing new long-term partnerships with organisations and doing things a little differently is whole-heartedly shared by other trustees too.

We have taken our time to work out the best approach to take and how applications can match our criteria in the best way, while also making it easy for them to apply to us. Over the last few months, we have made great progress with this approach.

Following ACT’s relaunch recently at the opening of the new Level Best Enterprises premises on 14 March 2023, we now feel confident we will be able to use our funds wisely to support people with making a big difference in the community.

For us, it is all about seed funding projects, to help people do more for themselves in the future. Therefore, we are keen to consider projects that have a goal of helping people to live healthier, more active and fulfilling lives.

Overall, our ethos and values are centred around treating people with kindness and respect, by supporting them to feel better about themselves. We believe these principles will resonate strongly with people within the community of North East Essex.

For example, we want to help people who might have a physical or mental health disability to lead the most fulfilling lives they possibly can.

Personally, I have always felt passionate about fighting inequalities and this focus is at the heart of what I would like us to do with ACT in the future. So we are keen to hear from any kind of innovate projects working in this kind of area, especially ones were nothing would happen if we did not support them.

So far, I think we have got some good ideas in the pipeline, which will involve working with some fantastic community organisations. I believe we can add value to what they do by working alongside them and supporting them in the best way we can.

I am also aware that some charities and community organisation feel intimidated when it comes to applying for grants, but we want to make the procedure less daunting for them, by assisting them through the process.

If they can align themselves to our mission, values and criteria, I think we could work very collaboratively with them after a personal conversation. We would prefer to take this more hands-on approach over receiving a large amount of applications forms in a big batch from here there and everywhere, without much direction beforehand, or supportive interaction in between, due to time. Overall, we would like the system to be free from bureaucracy and to get to the heart of what counts quickly.

At times, we will also invite people working on good ideas in specific areas, to get in touch with us, to discuss how we can work together with them.

So the overall focus will be more on quality than quantity. We of course only have a definitive amount of funding we have invested in and know roughly how much we can give out each year, so we want to make sure we fund projects in Colchester and Tendring that can be very effective.

We are definitely in this for the long-term and are very excited about where ACT could be heading in the future, following the successes we are aiming for. We cannot wait to support future projects to solve big problems in our community and watch how they develop to resolve these issues.

The first grants we have awarded have gone to Level Best Enterprises. We paid for them to have 60 new reusable mugs for their café and a new compost loo at their allotments. Recently the ACT Trustees had a great evening with Level Best at their launch event, seeing their stunning new building and marking the start of our collaboration. The Dacon Trust are doing remarkable work with their trainees, with learning disabilities, to improve their skills and well-being. This fits perfectly with our ethos and mission and that is why we are proud to work with them. 

Picture above: Julie Young with David Sollis, Deputy Chair for ACT, at the launch of the new Level Best Enterprises building.