The charitable activity of Cytoplan & The AIM Foundation in 2022

We have continued to support charities locally and nationwide this year, thanks to our loyal customers. With 2022 drawing to a close, here’s an update on some of the charity activities The AIM Foundation and the Cytoplan team have been fortunate enough to support over the past 12 months.

Charity is right at the heart of the day to day running of Cytoplan. Since conception in 1990, the philosophy of the company has been built on the foundations of helping others and improving people’s health and wellbeing. Cytoplan is wholly owned by the charitable trust, The AIM Foundation, and a share of Cytoplan’s profits funds their Nutrition for Health and Wellbeing grants.

The AIM Foundation is a family foundation which achieves its charitable purpose ‘to promote wellbeing’ through awarding grants to other charitable organisations. AIM recognises there are different ways to achieve social and environmental change and seeks to balance its funding across these 3 strands:

Changing the system

Intervening at the level of the system, as change here can reach a larger number of people and make a lasting impact. This includes supporting work that changes policy, structures, mindsets, and practice including raising the voices of those under-represented, collaborations, awareness raising, campaigning, testing and spreading ways of working, and research. This type of work takes longer, is harder to achieve, and the result is uncertain. AIM recognises that it is more responsible to commit funding for a longer timeframe to achieve system change – stopping funding too soon could jeopardise previous year’s work. It is rarer to find Foundations prepared to do policy work.

Strengthening the sector

By supporting infrastructure bodies that work to support and develop a sector. This includes supporting the professional development of practitioners, funding collaborative working, developing best practice and sharing learning. This work brings efficiencies as umbrella organisations co-ordinate, convene, offer support and advocate for several organisations at once.

Direct support

Recognising that people are struggling here and now, AIM supports the direct work of charities based in East Anglia, where the family has strong connections. It is hoped that the family will be able to visit these organisations and learn from meeting those working on the frontline. Funding this type of work helps AIM to get to know an organisation and understand the issues they seek to address. Developing this knowledge and understanding e.g. examples of good practice informs other funding decisions. Direct support projects can be effective during a shorter time scale.

Grants Made in last financial year 2021/22

Total of number grants awarded: 44
New organisations supported: 9
Core or unrestricted grants: 4

Total value of grants distributed: £986,498
Total value of new awards made: £987,045

AIM provided unrestricted, core and project funding to organisations with charitable purposes working in these 4 focus areas:

Young people

Improving their life chances, especially around the transition from school to employment, and their emotional and mental wellbeing. This includes early interventions that prevent issues from getting worse.

Impetus

Impetus works with their charity partners to give young people from disadvantaged backgrounds the support they need to succeed. AIM has been a long-time funder of Impetus, and in recent years has focused its unrestricted financial support towards research and policy. They work on policy in education attainment, widening participation and youth unemployment.

“Following our work with the Education Endowment Foundation to set up and deliver year one of the National Tutoring Programme, we continue to support our charities Action Tutoring and Tutor Trust to make the most of the opportunities. The Youth Employment Group of more than 250 organisations, which we chair, continues to be a trusted partner of the Minister for Employment as government considers how to support young people into work. Most recently we have developed a blueprint for the Department for Work and Pensions’ new Youth Hubs, which we hope will influence the 162 hubs across the country. In the coming months we are expecting significant announcements on higher education policy which we have been working towards for some time, and we will be pushing the government to ensure young people from disadvantaged backgrounds are front and centre of their decision making.

Impetus has taken a leading role in responding to the crisis affecting young people on the national stage. They were founding partners in two major projects: the National Tutoring Programme (NTP) and the Youth Employment Group (YEG). AIM’s continued unrestricted support of made it possible for them to seize these opportunities and play a key role in high-level policy decisions.

In 2022 AIM also contributed an extra £30,000 to support the capacity building of the 5 organisations in their Engage Fund. The Engage Fund’s mission is to narrow the gap in school, work and life outcomes for young people who are excluded or at risk of exclusion from mainstream education.

“Thank you for your generous donation of £30,000, which is restricted to capacity building work on the Engage Fund. Impetus exists to help young people from disadvantaged backgrounds get the best chance to succeed at school and in work. Disadvantaged young people are still being hit especially hard by the COVID-19 crisis and need access to the right support more than ever before. We will continue to find, fund and build the most promising charities working with these young people, working across organisations from their leadership teams to their delivery staff and helping them succeed in these challenging times.” – Harriet Gugenheim, Director of Philanthopy & partnerships, Impetus

Young Minds

Young Minds focuses on influencing policy about young people’s mental health and wellbeing. They have driven changes in mental health units in the NHS and schools. Young Minds listens and actively involves Young Activists in its work.

AIM made a second-year grant towards the core costs of the policy team at Young Minds, allowing them to make significant and continuous strides in influencing government and policy.

“This is amazing! Thank you so much for the extra funding.” – Sarah, Young Minds

CYPMHC

The Children’s and Young People’s Mental Health Coalition has brought together leading charities to campaign jointly on the mental health and wellbeing of children and young people for ten years.

A grant of £40,000 was awarded to cover the costs of CYPMHC’s inquiry into challenging behaviour and the underlying conditions. The research will seek evidence and best practice in addressing the mental health and wellbeing through a trauma informed approached.

42nd Street

42nd Street aims to provide accessible mental health services for all young people in Manchester region. They support young people with their emotional wellbeing and mental health-promoting choices and creativity. AIM is funding their training coordinator for a third year to work with young people to develop their training programme, including courses for those working with young people on how to de-escalate critical situations.

Youthscape

Guided by an advisory board of health care practitioners and teachers, Youthscape aims to help young people with their wellbeing. AIM has continued its commitment to the Alumina program, a live online service for young people to seek help with self-harm with a new three-year award of £105,000.

The Children’s Society

AIM continues to support the Children’s Society East by contributing to the funding the role of a Young Carer Support Worker with £25,000. This role provides one-to-one and group sessions, organising and supporting family activities and developing self-care resources to support hidden young carers. Hidden young carers carry a weight of extra responsibilities, such as caring for family members due to parental mental illnesses or substance dependency.

The Prince’s Trust

The Prince’s Trust helps vulnerable young people get their lives back on track. Focusing on young people aged 11 to 30, the Prince’s Trust helps those who are unemployed, struggling at school and at risk of exclusion. AIM made a second year’s grant towards the training of young people in Essex around self-employment and apprenticeships.

Environment

AIM has responded to the urgent need to increase funding for environmental issues and have signed up to the Funder Commitment on Climate Change. This is a relatively new funding area for AIM. Initially support will be focussed on Restoring and protecting UK Rivers and Coastal Waters and Global Oceans and Coastal Waters. Priority areas are nature restoration when linked to carbon sequestration and working with communities.

Synchronicity Earth

Synchronicity Earth focuses on overlooked critical problems in our oceans such as poor governance. Synchronicity Earth’s work is based on years of research, and engagement with their partners.

AIM has committed a grant of £25,000 per year for three years to Synchronicity Earth. Synchronicity Earth is a flexible strategic, and forward-thinking grant-maker willing to take measured risks and would allocate all AIM’s funding to where most needed. This year it has been used for:

Blue Marine Foundation

Blue Marine Foundation (BLUE) is dedicated to restoring the ocean’s health by addressing overfishing, securing marine protected areas, restoring marine habitats and connecting people with the sea. BLUE has projects in the UK and all over the world.

AIM has committed to £33,550 for a feasibility study in East Anglia’s coastal waters. BLUE hope to use their previous experience to develop a large scale restoration program for seagrass, salt marsh and oyster beds in the area.

Big Give

A grant of £31,500 was given as match funding for UK river projects with community involvement. As well as supporting these projects directly, match funding creates an incentive for others to give money to these projects.

Esmee Faribairn Foundation

A grant of £100,000 was made towards their Environmental and Learning Fund. This provides an opportunity to collaborate with EFF and other funders in early stage, higher risk, impact driven nature based social investments. Trustees are participating in the peer learning programme in order to build our knowledge of impact investing.

Central Office of Public Interest

A grant of £30,000 was made towards the development of a creative campaign to raise public awareness of river pollution.

Beaver Trust

A three year unrestricted grant award of £90,000 was made towards their ecological work restoring beavers to their former range in order to help build climate resilient landscapes and restore freshwater habitats and the species that rely on them.

Early Years

Focusing on early interventions that improve the emotional and social development of young children from vulnerable families.

Parent Infant Foundation

Parent Infant Foundation is committed to ensuring every baby has a loving and nurturing relationship laying the foundation for their emotional and physical wellbeing. They want to strengthen their First 1001 days Movement.

AIM increased their second-year commitment to £32,999 towards the policy work supporting the growth and quality of specialised parent-infant relationship teams across the UK.

Best Beginnings

Best Beginnings works towards helping parents to give their children the nurturing, loving care and attention that provides healthy development. They developed an evidence-based app called Baby Buddy. The app provides understandable information on child development, answers questions, signposts support and helps to make parents feel less alone.

A new three-year total grant of £90,000 has been awarded to contribute the salary of their Engagement Lead to amplify the voices of those parents who disproportionately face inequalities and thereby the impact of Best Beginnings in giving every child the best start in life.

The Institute of Health Visiting (iHV)

iHV’s core mission is improving the lives of all infants and their families through excellence in practice and reducing health inequalities. AIM continued its support by contributing towards the core costs of their Perinatal Mental Health Team with a second year’s grant of £40,000.

Association of Infant Mental Health (AIMH)

AIM further supported the Association of Infant Mental Health in 2022 to develop the infant mental health competency framework. This framework sets the standard for all infant mental health practitioners to work towards to become accredited. It will raise awareness and knowledge of infant mental health amongst practitioners working with at-risk pregnant parents and their infants to strengthen attachment and improve emotional and social development.

Home Start UK

Home-Start is a local community network of trained volunteers and expert support helping families with young children through challenging times.

A new three-year total award of £105,000 was made towards developing and delivering their new induction and development programme for senior leaders of their network of Home-start charities across the UK.

Nutrition for Health and Wellbeing

Increasing the understanding of nutrition and its importance for health amongst health practitioners. During this year we added further organisations that are addressing Childhood Obesity and encouraging more nutritious eating habits.

All the charities supported in this strategic area are funded from profits from Cytoplan, who in 2021/22 transferred a sum of £450,000 to The AIM Foundation.

NNEdPro

NNEdPro is a not-for-profit think tank, training academy and knowledge network based at Cambridge University. NNEdPro aims to: develop, provide and evaluate impacts of nutritional education in healthcare; research and interpret data in current unexplored areas of how nutrition aids healthcare; and improve policymakers, and healthcare practitioners access to the information.

AIM has provided a third year of funding of £35,000, which has been distributed towards their core costs in developing the undergraduate curriculum around nutrition, how to engage patients in consultations around diet and self-care, and increasing the number of medical schools in their network.

Nutritank

Initially set up in 2017 by two medical students, Nutritank describes themselves as an information hub of food, nutrition and lifestyle medicine. AIM’s funding has helped them to campaign successfully for increased nutritional education at medical schools.
AIM has provided a third year of funding of £35,000, so that Nutritank can continue to deliver the medical student courses and start to adapt their work so that it can reach a wider audience.

“Nutritank is incredibly grateful for AIM’s financial support over the last 4 years.  AIM’s ongoing grant funding has meant Nutritank C.I.C. can work on multiple successful projects and continue our mission to increase and improve nutrition education within medical training. In addition, AIM’s financial sponsorship has enabled Nutritank to collaborate with organisations with similar visions. This cross-sector work has culminated in the ‘Nutrition Implementation Coalition’. A coalition that engages healthcare education stakeholders and promotes a gold standard for medical nutrition education. The coalition is currently comprised of the following organisations; Nutritank CIC, NNEdPro Global Centre for Nutrition and Health, Culinary Medicine U.K CIC and ERImNN. Thank you. Your support is deeply appreciated. We look forward to developing this partnership into the future.” – Iain, NutriTank

Institute of Health Visiting (iHV)

iHV is a charity that delivers training and is actively involved with research and policy. Through training Nutrition Champions, iHV aims to positively impact families and children’s nutrition and the systems that support them.

AIM has committed to three years of grants. The third year’s funding of £34,660 has been distributed to cover costs of delivering and evaluating their new two-day e-learning events about oral health and two update events. They will scope the opportunity to provide training to GPs, Practice Nurses and Speech and Language Therapists (I think!).

Culinary Medicine (UK)

Culinary Medicine UK teaches health practitioners the foundation of clinical nutrition and how to cook themselves to help motivate their patients to lead healthier lives using food. They have developed and run a series of evidence-based courses for both medical students and qualified doctors.

AIM has provided a third year’s grant of £35,000, which Culinary Medicine will use to cover the core costs of developing and delivering online practical nutrition courses to a wider audience. This audience includes nursing staff, allied health professionals, post-graduate junior doctors, and the public.

Nutrition Implementation Coalition

AIM has committed to supporting the partnership costs of The Nutrition Implementation Coalition for a further two years. The coalition brings together organisations with a variety of educational, professional and research experiences who all share the same vision for the need to advocate for nutrition education for healthcare professionals and bridge the gap between knowledge and practice. They are combining their efforts to improve the ability of doctors, nurses, health, and social care professionals to deliver effective nutrition care.

The Food Foundation

The Food Foundation focuses on changing food policy and business practices to help ensure everyone in the UK can afford a healthy and sustainable diet. AIM has provided a grant of £25,000 to the Food Foundation for an in-depth study on early years food and nutrition and how it may contribute to high levels of overweight and obesity in early childhood.

School Food Matters

School Food Matters teaches children about food and aims to improve school children’s access to healthy and sustainable food. Their project, Young Marketeers, allows children to experience the joy of growing fresh fruit and vegetables and developing their skills by selling their produce at the London Borough Market. AIM has committed to a £50,000 grant over two years so that School Food Matters can continue with their Young Marketeers project.

In addition, AIM’s funding will allow them to pilot their other programme of improving the food offer in breakfast and after school clubs, as well as helping schools to develop and implement school food policies that put children’s health first, in three extra schools in another London Borough.

Sustain – Children’s Food Campaign

Sustain is an alliance of organisations and communities working together for better food, farming and fishing. They advocate for food and agriculture policies and practices that have the health and welfare of people and animals at their centre.
AIM has awarded a grant of £25,000 to support putting pressure on the government to introduce universal free school meals and campaigning for healthy school meals.

Best Beginnings

AIM has awarded a grant of £30,000 towards the development of Baby Steps digital behaviour change intervention to encourage and support the development of healthier dietary and activity behaviours amongst expectant parents.

Other Wellbeing & Community Support & Family Fund

• International Rescue Committee – £5000
• The Outward-Bound Trust – £3000
• The Silver Line – £1000
• British Red Cross – £1000
• Suffolk Community Foundation – £1000
• Snape School Parent and Staff Ass – £1000
• Inside Out Community Arts & MH – £1000
• Home Start Isle of Wight – £1000
• The Christie Charitable Fund – £1500
• Friends of St Nicholas – £1000
• The Charlie Waller Trust – £1000

“Thank you so much for supporting the IRC’s work for Ukraine, during these very worrying times. Your generous gift represents a tremendously valued contribution to the IRCs mission to transform the lives of millions of Ukrainians whose lives and livelihoods have been shattered by conflict. Thank you for your support and commitment to our work.”  – Emmanuelle Parre de Forero, International Rescue Committee

Grants Made since September 2022

Young People

Impetus – A new 3-year unrestricted award of £90,000.

“A very warm thank you from all of us at Impetus, our portfolio charities, and their beneficiaries. Your dedication to our organisation and mission is hugely appreciated.” – Harriet Gugenheim, Impetus

Young Minds – 3rd year payment towards Policy Team of £25,000 and an extra inflation uplift of £5000.

The Children’s Society – A new 3 -year unrestricted award of £90,000.

MAC-UK – A new 3-year award of £90,000 of core funding towards the Public Health Prevention Team.

Place2Be – Contribution of £50,000 per year for two years toward the cost of the Qualifying Training Programme seeking to improve the diversity of the Place2Be workforce.

Anna Freud National Centre for Children and Families – Core funding 3-year award of £105,000 towards supporting teachers and school leaders to embed good mental health at the heart of their school communities.

Environment

Synchronicity Earth – 2nd years payment of £25,000 towards their policy work of their High and Deep Seas programme.

Other Projects are being investigated for funding in 2023:

Internationally Coastal – to support community-led Mangrove Restoration and Blue Carbon ecosystem.

UK Rivers – Addressing water quality and pollution.

Early Years

Parent Infant Foundation – 3rd year payment of £31,312 towards the policy work supporting the growth and quality of specialised parent-infant relationship teams across the UK.

Best Beginnings – 2nd year payment of £30,000 to contribute the salary of their Engagement Lead to amplify the voices of those parents who disproportionately face inequalities and thereby the impact of Best Beginnings in giving every child the best start in life.

Nutrition for Health and Wellbeing

School Food Matters – 2nd years commitment of £12,500 was paid towards costs of their Young Marketeers project and towards their other pilot programme of improving the food offer in breakfast and after school clubs.

Other Community Support

Good Faith Foundation

A £30,000 grant was awarded towards Welcome Hubs. This model has been developed in Bristol as part of the local Homes for Ukraine response. The innovative approach to unlocking civil society refugee resettlement, is already working in 15 hubs serving 200 refugees. Good Faith Partnership are joining forces with Social Finance to expand and develop to other LA areas. AIM’s funding will enable adding a 3rd area of 10 Welcome Hubs and serve 250 refugees over next 9 months.

Thank you

Every customer who purchases our products, whether it be one, twice or ten times a year, is helping us to try and help those who are much less fortunate than ourselves. We believe this is a sound business model; one that we are proud of and one that hopefully, in time, will achieve a goal we have set ourselves: to help improve the health of the nation. Our charity work – both on a small and large scale – is testament to this.

We hope that this information has given you an insight into the charitable structure of Cytoplan and the significant role it plays in the day to day running of the company. We hope you can continue to support us in the future.

Last updated on 19th December 2022 by cytoffice