We piloted a wellbeing support fund: here’s what happened

Between September to December 2024, we piloted a wellbeing support bursary fund. We set it up so that network members could access mental and emotional health support following the summer's racist and Islamaphobic riots. People could apply for up to £300, and had the freedom to choose how they used the money. 

Why we created the fund

We’re people not robots. We can’t always separate what’s happening in our jobs, from what’s happening in the rest of our lives. And work just by itself can be overwhelming. Sometimes everyone needs support to cope with life's challenges. 

Although we’ve had a wellbeing policy for Catalyst employees since we were a part of CAST, we’d been considering how to support the wellbeing of people in our network too. We knew we needed something separate, not just an extension of what was available to the staff team. 

Following the riots, we started exploring opportunities to support wellbeing in the network. We wanted to treat our partners and collaborators with care. The fund is a practical way to make sure that our value of love underpins the way we work. 

Curiosity's role

One of our values is curiosity:

“We are open to possibilities and actively explore the unknown. We test new approaches to systems and organising. This is sometimes painful but we recognise it’s where the growth is.”

It’s difficult to create a flexible approach to supporting mental and emotional wellbeing. So we used curiosity to guide us in this pilot. We iterated the approach as we went along. And, wherever possible, provided people with the space and freedom to choose what worked. 

Making the application process accessible 

We wanted to minimise any potential barriers for applicants. So we designed a process that made it easy for members to apply. 

The process had 3 stages:

1. Applicants filled out a short application form that asked for the following information:

• name
• email address
• role within Catalyst
• how much they were applying for
• who we should pay
• how they were going to use the funds (if they felt comfortable sharing it)

2. We acknowledged applications within a week.

3. We paid applicants.

We agreed to fund all requests until our budget of £6,000 was distributed. Then we would decide what to do next.

Trust and equity were key principles

Trust is important in Catalyst. We believe that people will do what’s right for them and others if given trust. So we didn’t dictate how members should use the money they got from the fund.

There’s no ‘one size fits all’ approach to mental and emotional wellbeing. Each individual is unique, so their support needs will be different. It’s up to them to decide what kind of support is going to be most helpful.

We wanted to avoid using a top-down, equality-driven approach that assumed everyone’s needs are the same. What we did instead aligns with our value of equity.

Results and next steps

By the end of the pilot, we had distributed £1,940 from the £6,000 budget. Requests ranged from £200 to £300, and we supported 7 network members.

After the pilot, we reopened the fund until the end of March 2025. We’ve invited people who have already accessed funds to re-apply if they want to. 

We’ve also invited feedback on how we could improve specific parts of the process. This included the:

• Notion page that outlines what the fund is for and how to apply 
• application form
• acknowledgement applicants receive 
• payment process.

As yet no-one has made any suggestions. The process seems to be working well.

We also asked our evaluation partner, inFocus, if there's any other feedback we could gather to aid learning and impact reporting. 

What we’ve learned 

The fund has shown that there’s a need for this kind of flexible mental and emotional health support for people in the network. They’re using the funds for a range of things, with therapy being the most common. Without funds, they wouldn’t have been able to access the help they needed. 

In their applications, people were very open about what they were going through. It’s a reminder that we’re all dealing with a lot in our lives. So it's important to recognise that and support each other where we can. Applicants said they feel supported and that it's really positive that Catalyst has been able to offer this.

We’ve also learned that it can be complex to set up a scheme like this.

Offering a scheme to a network is more complex than offering one to employees. Network members work with us as employees of organisations with whom we have a contract. Or as freelance individuals with whom we have a contract. 

This means we’re not legally able to offer the same benefits that could otherwise be offered to employees (for example, a more traditional employee assistance programme.) So we asked our HR advisors for help. This is why we set up the fund as a bursary scheme with an application process.

We also worked with our accountants to provide guidance on implications for applicants. Our accountants told us that the payments applicants receive from this fund may be taxable for them. This is because it’s 'received in relation to an existing trade'. 

So we suggested that network members may wish to take advice on this from their own accountants. We also expect to incur corporation tax on the amounts we’ve paid out.

How the fund has helped applicants

Feedback about the fund has been overwhelmingly positive. Here’s what some applicants shared with us:

"The wellbeing support bursary fund helped me in a very concrete way. I applied because, at the time, I had surgery that was making life very difficult. And the situation surfaced some very specific issues about the difficulty I have with asking for help. 

I wanted to speak to my psychologist and have a few sessions to work on this specific issue. If I hadn't been able to access the fund, I wouldn't have been able to process that. And I'd still be bad at asking for help, and not understanding why." - Fund applicant

"I was depressed and my GP recommended that I try talking therapy before going on medication, or taking time off work. The depression impacted my relationship with my family and friends, and I was even considering leaving my job. I thought the bursary sounded too good to be true. £300 paid for 4 therapy sessions. 

If the fund hadn't been available, I would've been in a very bad place mentally. It was great to be able to apply and not have to give a justification. It gave me a level of access that I wouldn't have got if it had been another service. The NHS for example." - Fund applicant

"I've been going through a very tough situation trying to get a UK Settlement permit. So the bursary has been very helpful for me, it's helping me to access psychotherapy. And because of the therapy, I'm feeling better. In the sense that I'm managing my level of depression better. My therapist is amazing.” - Fund applicant.

Sources of inspiration

We drew on resources from RadHR and Dark Matter Labs’ peer contracting group, Beyond the Rules, when we were creating the pilot.

RadHR looks for ways to apply anti-oppressive approaches to how social change organisations and workplaces organise their internal systems and processes.

Beyond the Rules’ focus is:  “...the deep, thoughtful and highly creative work required to rewrite, reinvent or reimagine rules, norms and laws that hold us in the current system.”

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Photo by Erol Ahmed on Unsplash