Learning and Knowledge Management
Comic Relief Charity

The Client

Comic Relief is a major charity based in the UK who’s vision is a just world, free from poverty.

The Challenge

To facilitate and capture collective learning with a cohort of grantees working around the use of Sport for Change to improve social integration in London.

The Project

Working alongside Comic Relief in a four year project to develop a grantee learning network, through both physical and online meetings & workshops, and foster learning and connections between them.

inFocus provided a range of knowledge and learning services which aimed to support grantees in three areas. Firstly, services enabled grantees to share challenges, strategies and successes on practical elements of project implementation and processes. Secondly, inFocus facilitated and captured collective reflections and learning from across projects on the use of Sport for Change and social integration. Finally, the activities provided a space for projects to connect and explore areas for mutual support or links between projects and organisations.

Each year inFocus ran two inter-related strands of learning activities: The first focused upon grantee learning and network development; and the second focused upon Comic Relief and the GLA’s own reflection and learning. The former involved 10 grantees in year 1, increasing to 20 grantees for years 2 and 3 and again 10 grantees in year 4, reflecting the staggered nature of the grant making. All activities were designed to reflect the annual mixing of new and old grantees. 

 

We proposed forming, during the initial London workshop, a ‘Grantee Learning Leads’ steering group, consisting of 3 or 4 grantee representatives who were the most interested in inputting into the learning topics for consideration across the year and providing initial ‘first look’ feedback on any resources produced during the year, to ensure the learning activities are closely aligned to grantees needs. This is in line with our previous experiences of successfully running ‘learner led’ communities of practice. After each webinar and workshop inFocus made available for download an associated set of learning materials which were developed for grantees. In addition to the two strand of learning activities inFocus reviewed grantees’ 6 monthly and annual reports to draw out common learnings and themes to inform collective learning. 

 

inFocus also identified and followed up on any interesting cases of learning or cross-project collaboration that emerge during the year through a combination of a one day project visit to a grantee to conduct interviews and/or a focus group discussion, combined with (a broader survey of the wider grantee experiences. At the end of the 4 year assignment, inFocus will combine the learning and all resources produced into a final summative report & set of resources for continued use and distribution by Comic Relief.

 

The Project

Our work with Comic Relief is ongoing, and we will update this page in the future. 


In the meantime, we have plenty more case studies for you to browse, visit our case studies page to see just a snippet of our work with clients across the globe.