Reports and publications

We want to encourage learning from the work we fund, and will support the costs of evaluation and dissemination as part of a wider project. We also occasionally fund research where its aims match our priorities and where we consider it is likely to have an impact. Examples of evaluation and research we have supported are below, together with other reports that have resulted from our funding.

View our Annual Report and Accounts 2009

On this page:

• An Inconvenient Sandwich (July 2010)
• After the War on Drugs (November 2009)
• Writing is Primary (November 2009)
• Introducing the Cambridge Primary Review (October 2009)
• Green Fiscal Commission - Final Report (October 2009)
• Culture and Learning: a new agenda for advocacy and action (December 2008)
• Rethinking Crime & Punishment: The Manifesto (July 2008)
• Mitigation - the role of personal factors in sentencing (October 2007)
• Restorative Justice: the evidence (February 2007)
• Local Enterprise Agency Loan Funds: a review of performance (December 2006)
• The UK Tax System and the Environment (October 2006)
• Allotments Regeneration Initiative (October 2006)
• Living values: A report encouraging boldness in the third sector (June 2006)
• Fade or Flourish: How primary schools can build on children's early progress (June 2006)
• Aspire - microloans for business (April 2006)
• Inspiring schools (Feb 2006)
• Foundations and Social Investment (October 2005)
• Digital beginnings: Young children's use of popular culture, media and new technologies (September 2005)
• Carbon Disclosure Project 2005 (September 2005)
• Time for Growth (July 2005)
• Regional Theatre Initiative (May 2005)
• Street (UK): Learning from Community Finance (April 2005)
• An Enquiry Into Continuing Professional Development for Teachers (April 2005)
• I Would Rethink Crime and Punishment by... (January 2005)
• Rethinking Crime & Punishment: The report (December 2004)
• Crime, Courts and Confidence (November 2004)
• Stakeholder accountability in the UK supermarket sector - the final report of the 'Race to the Top' project (November 2004)
• OxCAB/HMP Springhill Evaluation Report (October 2004
• Wings of Learning: the role of the prison officer in supporting prisoner education
• Philanthropy UK reports
  
  

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Living Values: A report encouraging boldness in the third sector
The value-driven ethos of third-sector organisations is often cited as their distinguishing feature. But what are these values and how do they influence the working practices of the sector? Community Links, with funding from Esmée Fairbairn, undertook some research to answer the questions, what are the values of the third sector, are these values unique to the sector, are these values under threat and what can we do to promote and protect these values?
Download Living Values full report (399k)

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Fade or Flourish: How primary schools can build on children's early progress
Evidence suggests that some of the benefits of pre-school can be lost during later childhood if they are not consolidated. This report looks into how primary schools can play a crucial role in sustaining the social and academic gains provided by early years interventions. It provides a broad ranging review of evidence and best practice, with the use of case studies, relating to a range of pedagogical and administrative elements of primary school practice.
Download Fade or Flourish full report (2.5Mb)

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Inspiring schools
Since the launch of the Citizenship Curriculum in England, many schools have started to embrace pupil participation. As commitment grows, pupil participation is increasingly seen as an important tool in school improvement. It was in this context that the Carnegie Young People Initiative, as part of the Carnegie UK Trust, and Esmée Fairbairn Foundation came together in Spring 2005 to gain a better understanding of the impact of pupil participation on schools. The project involved secondary schools in England. The results of the project are set out in four publications, under the ‘Inspiring Schools’ banner: Impact and Outcomes, A Literature Review, Case Studies for Change and Resources for Action.

Download Impact and Outcomes (107KB)
Download Literature Review (101KB)
Download Case Studies for Change (212KB)

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Foundations and Social Investment
Conventional wisdom is that charities are required to keep their money in two silos: for investment or for grant-making. It is often assumed that trustees should maximise returns by investing only in mainstream financial products without regard to their match or mismatch with their charitable purposes. Social investment challenges this model. Over the last thirty years or so, practitioners in the UK and US have engaged in a range of social investment activities - defined as investments which generate a social as well as a financial return. This briefing and the full report describe the principles and concepts behind social investment and use case studies - from both the UK and the US - to help shed light on how social investments have actually happened and worked in practice.
Download Foundations and Social Investment briefing (212 KB)
Download Foundations and Social Investment full Report (228 KB)

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Digital beginnings: Young children's use of popular culture, media and new technologies
This report presents the findings of a study which took place from September 2004 to July 2005. The study explored young children’s (aged from birth to six) use of popular culture, media and new technologies in the home through a survey of 1,852 parents and carers of children who attended 120 individual maintained and non-maintained early years settings in England. A total of 524 early years practitioners who worked in 104 of these settings were also surveyed in order to determine their attitudes towards children’s use of popular culture, media and new technologies and to explore how far they planned for their use in the communications, language and literacy curriculum of the foundation stage.
Download Digital beginnings report (1.06 MB)

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Carbon Disclosure Project 2005
Drawing upon data requested from FT500 companies on behalf of investors whose combined assets total $21 trillion, this report outlines the key issues that make climate change an investment-relevant issue and draws upon company responses to highlight important trends, quantify the risks and direct attention to new investment opportunities. The report demonstrates that the answer to reducing greenhouse gas emissions lies as much with companies and investors as it does with governments, international agencies and the public.
Download Carbon Disclosure Project 2005 report (2.1 MB)

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Time for Growth
Time for Growth was a challenge established by a
£1 million grant from Esmée Fairbairn Foundation to Community Foundation Network. Ten community foundations each received £100,000 in core cost support in order to enable them to achieve a combined total of £20 million in new endowment investment over a three year period. By the end of the challenge the total raised in new endowment was nearly £19.5 million. This briefing follows an evaluation of the project. A copy of the full evaluation is available below.
Download Time for Growth briefing (167 KB)
Download Time for Growth full evaluation (678 KB)

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Regional Theatre Initiative
The Regional Theatre Initiative (2001-05) aimed to give emerging directors the chance to direct on the main stage of key regional theatres. An initiative of the Arts & Heritage programme, the project was worth £500,000, and was developed in association with the Arts Councils. This document celebrates the achievements of the ten directors who were supported through the RTI.
Download Regional Theatre Initiative booklet (399 KB)

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Street (UK): Learning from Community Finance
In recent years community leaders, charities, business people and politicians have championed the development of 'community development finance' as a way of getting finance to people and organisations that struggle to gain access to mainstream financial services. This helps build assets and develop businesses, particularly in disadvantaged areas where community finance is often targeted. This briefing follows an evaluation of Street (UK), carried out by the New Economics Foundation and funded by Esmée Fairbairn Foundation. A copy of the full evaluation is also available below.
Download Street UK briefing (151 KB)
Download Street UK full evaluation (300 KB)

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An Enquiry Into Continuing Professional Development for Teachers
A one-year research project by Dr Sandra Leaton Gray of Cambridge University, funded by Esmée Fairbairn Foundation and the Villiers Park Educational Trust. The main aim of the research was to review current subject-based professional development opportunities, to identify gaps in provision and to make recommendations for improving future provision.
Download Continuing Professional Development for Teachers report (242 KB)

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I Would Rethink Crime and Punishment by...
A collection of contributions from well-known figures from inside and outside the criminal justice system. What would ex-footballer Tony Adams, peer L
ord Archer, business guru Anita Roddick and broadcaster Nick Ross do to improve the way we respond to crime? This is published by Rethinking Crime & Punishment, a strategic initiative of Esmée Fairbairn Foundation.
Download I would rethink... booklet (1.50 MB)

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Rethinking Crime & Punishment:
The Report
Rethinking Crime & Punishment is a four-year £3million initiative of Esmée Fairbairn Foundation. It aims to raise the level of public debate about the use of prison and alternative forms of punishment in the UK. The key findings and recommendations emerging from RCP are set out in The Report, and are summarised in the Executive Summary.
Download Rethinking executive summary (70 KB)
Download Rethinking report (1.86 MB)

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Crime, Courts and Confidence -
Report of an independent inquiry into alternatives to prison
This report by the Commission of Inquiry chaired by Lord Coulsfield contains a number of radical proposals to increase the effectiveness of and confidence in alternatives to prison. The inquiry was commissioned by Esmée Fairbairn Foundation as part of the Rethinking Crime & Punishment initiative, which aims to raise the level of public debate about the use of prison and alternative forms of punishment in the UK.
Download Crime, Courts and Confidence summary (32 KB)
Download Crime, Courts and Confidence report (530 KB)

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Stakeholder accountability in the UK supermarket sector - the final report of the 'Race to the Top' project
This report charts the course of the 'Race to the Top' project, an innovative collaboration to track supermarket progress towards sustainability. This report is a primer for the strategic and tactical choices that now need to be made.
Download Stakeholder accountability report (411 KB)
For further information visit www.iied.org

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OxCAB/HMP Springhill Evaluation Report
An evaluation of the partnership between Oxford Citizens Advice Bureau and HMP Springhill where prisoners train to work as CAB advisers. This project, and the evaluation carried out by a joint team from Oxford and Cambridge Universities, was supported by the Foundation.
Download OxCAB/HMP summary (142 KB)
Download OxCAB/HMP full report (406 KB)

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Wings of Learning: the role of the prison officer in supporting prisoner education
Previous research has shown that prisoners involved in education value support and encouragement from officers on the wings. The study was aimed at discovering how officers viewed prison education, that support they could offer, and how it might best be given in the future. Twelve prisons in England and Wales were visited, between December 2004 and May 2005, and small group interviews were carried out with a total of 77 prison officers.
Download Wings of Learning report (1,530 KB)

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Philanthropy UK reports
The Foundation supported Philanthropy UK, a project set up to work with others to promote new philanthropy, particularly among higher earners and those with significant resources. Two publications resulted from this project:

A Guide to Giving
A guide providing the latest information on how to give and how to make donations go further. (3rd edition 2008)
www.philanthropyuk.org/AGuidetoGiving

Why Rich People Give
(2004) www.philanthropyuk.org/Resources/WhyRichPeopleGive


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