Category: Blog

The UK Democracy Fund supported forty organisations to develop a shared, cross-sector vision for delivering Votes at 16 effectively across the UK.

The Democracy Classroom Network, led by The Politics Project, published  A Roadmap to Votes at 16, in Parliament on 16 July, at an event attended by the Minister for Democracy and Homelessness, Rushanara Ali MP.

Developed with input from hundreds of teachers, youth practitioners, young people and leading organisations, the roadmap sets out 16 key recommendations to ensure that lowering the voting age becomes a transformative step for UK democracy.

It argues that without significant investment in democratic education, youth engagement and infrastructure, the extension of the franchise risks being symbolic rather than substantive.

The roadmap recommends:

• Establishing a minimum entitlement to democratic education from primary through to post-16 settings.

• Supporting educators and youth practitioners with specialist training, resources and guidance.

• Modernising the curriculum to prepare young people to vote for the first time.

• Expanding opportunities for young people to engage directly with politicians and influence policy.

• Launching national youth-led communications campaigns to build a new culture of participation among first-time voters.

The roadmap has been endorsed by 40 key organisations, including: Association for Citizenship Teaching, Association for Colleges, Education Scotland, National Union of Students UK (NUS), National Youth Agency, Network of Regional Youth Work Units, Shout Out UK , The Politics Project  and UK Youth alongside leading academics in democratic education and participation.

Thanks to the excellent work of campaigners, including many JRRT and UK Democracy Fund grantees, we see some really positive steps towards renewing our democracy.

Some highlights include:

A firm commitment to introducing Votes at 16 – enabling approximately 1.5 million young people to vote in elections, a transformative reform for youth voice.

A significant expansion of Voter ID to include bank cards and digital forms of ID, which is likely to be impactful, particularly for newly enfranchised young voters.

And recognition of the importance of a more automated system for voter registration, with plans to better use existing Government data for the ease of the voter, and a commitment to “work to create an automated registration system” over the coming years. The timeline and type of automated system is as yet unclear. The Fund has worked with experts to produce guidance on what effective Automatic Voter Registration could look like in the UK. It is important that steps are taken to ensure that this happens in time for the next General Election (expected 2028 or 2029) to urgently help reverse our declining participation rates.

Other areas of progress include technical changes to the timetable for elections, to make it easier for people to vote, an enhanced role for the Electoral Commission in encouraging voter participation, and measures to rationalise the complex legislation on election offences, making it easier to understand, fairer to apply.

In some areas, there has been progress though less than campaigners hoped for

Rules around campaign finance will be tightened, such as reporting thresholds for Unincorporated Associations and permissibility checks for their donors. Rules on company donations will also be tightened. The substantial increase in possible fines for serious breaches is also welcome. However, there is still no sign of a donations cap.

Another outstanding issue is the independence of the Electoral Commission, as the strategy and policy statement introduced in the last Elections Bill is so far to remain in place. Chair of the Electoral Commission John Pullinger said “The independence and impartiality of an electoral commission must be clear for voters and campaigners to see, and this form of influence from a government is inconsistent with that role. This bill offers a timely opportunity to repeal the power for government to designate a statement.”

Together, this announcement represents a very welcome step forward.

However, is also clear that work remains to be done to ensure we achieve the government’s ambition to “bequeath a democracy more robust and relevant to the next generation.”

Image Jane Campbell, Shutterstock

Every year, the Sheila McKechnie Foundation’s National Campaigner Awards celebrate the best campaigners and campaigns. They seek to find those who have made change happen – most effectively, creatively, and courageously.

That change might be in law or policy, it might be in attitudes, social norms or behaviour, it could be in how services are provided, or in the protection of a service or asset. A campaign could be aimed at righting a wrong or holding a body to account.

David & Goliath Award

JRRT is the proud sponsor of the David & Goliath category at the SMK Awards. It celebrates individuals or small campaign groups that take on much bigger organisations and challenge vested power. We make our sponsorship in memory of former JRRT Director, Lord David Shutt.

2025 winners

The winners of the 2025 Award were announced at a ceremony in London in June 2025…

And they are Gambling With Lives

SMK explained that, “Gambling with Lives was founded by families who had all experienced the same loss — the death of a loved one due to gambling-related suicide. In seeking answers, the families discovered an industry profiting from harm, and a system that blamed those most affected. The families came together to share their experiences, challenge the dominant narrative of personal individual responsibility, and expose the structural and political failures that  contributed to this harm. They have spoken truth to power and achieved meaningful change to protect others.” 

Congratulations to Gambling With Lives!

The other shortlisted campaigns in the David & Goliath Award were:

• Stop MSG Sphere
• Can’t Buy My Silence

You can watch the full SMK National Campaigner Awards ceremony on YouTube now!

In late 2024, we invited grantees and applicants of JRRT, the UK Democracy Fund and JRSST-CT to share their views – anonymously – about our application processes, grant making and strategic priorities via our survey.

Chief Executive Fiona Weir introduces some of the findings of the survey in her blog below and describes our next steps in responding to the valuable insights shared.

You can also download the full survey report here 

It’s hard to exaggerate how much we value the feedback and rich insights from the 110 of you who responded to our 2024 survey (59% is a good response rate!).

You told us about your organisations, what you think of us, our grant application processes, the Democracy Network, and what you think our strategic priorities should be going forward. The responses are fascinating so please do read further.

36% (46% JRRT) of respondents were non-charitable campaign groups; 32% (23% JRRT) charities. 10% said “yes” to their primary focus being racial justice; and 18.5% said that their organisation is Black or minority-ethnic led (as defined by the Funders for Race Equality Alliance).

We held our breath a bit to see what negative feedback might come through in an anonymous survey… but were delighted at how overwhelmingly positive the feedback was. Thank you! The Board and the staff team really appreciated this.

It’s important not just to publish the responses but to also tell you how we are using them to inform our work.

At the Democracy Network Summit in Sheffield in February, I highlighted the data on size of organisations by turnover – 32% of respondents have low income, less than £100k pa.   53% of respondents put “growing and diversifying income” top of the list for capacity building needs.  “Working to bring other funders towards the democracy space” was your clear first choice for JRRT direct activity priorities. In the open responses, a number of grantees raised the need for multiyear funding. We are looking hard at what we can do as part of live strategy discussions.

Over half of grantees (55%) understand JRRT strategy well, UK Democracy Fund 70% and JRSST-CT 46%. We’d like this to be much higher, so we are thinking through how we communicate the new strategy in June and how we reinforce that regularly.

The application process was rated positive for speed (85%) and ease (75%). 29% of applicants reported feeling pressure to modify priorities – partly offset by 87% of grantees feeling comfortable approaching us if there is a problem.  Alongside scope for improving feedback and discussions about reports, there is food for thought which the team is working through so we can improve our processes.

Finally, we have shared the responses on the Democracy Network with their staff to supplement work they are doing on the state of the sector and future role of the Network. Only 39% of respondents are members so do click here to find out more about the Democracy Network!

Both the JRRT and JRSST-CT Boards received the full survey responses ahead of strategy development sessions in York in late March. We have also reflected on research, policy, polling and citizen engagement by the sector in recent years and what we have heard from you at conferences, retreats and learning events over the last year.

This includes your input to the survey question: Can you tell us what you think our priorities should be, and why? Across the three entities there was solid support for many of the issues we have been prioritising to date. JRRT’s focus on “Open and accountable government”, JRSST-CT’s focus on “Informed and engaged citizens”, and UK Democracy Fund’s focus on “Voter participation and system reform” were each rated highly, as were two issues not included in the 2020 survey: “Trust in politics” and “Countering support for populist and extremist policies” – both of these reflecting long-term threats to democracy in the UK and the challenge of building democratic resilience.

We plan to finalise and communicate our new strategy and funding priorities before the end of June and look forward to talking to many of you about how we take this forward.

Fiona Weir

Chief Executive JRRT & JRSST-CT

Downloads

Report of the survey findings 

And you can also download the full text of all the open responses given to the survey for each entity using these links:

• • JRRT
  • JRSST-CT
  • UK Democracy Fund

The SMK National Campaigner Awards are back for 2025!

Each year, SMK celebrates the best campaigns and campaigners. Their interest is in finding those who have made change happen – most effectively, creatively and courageously.

That change might be in law or policy; it might be in attitudes, social norms or behaviour; it could be in how services are provided, or in the protection of a service or asset.

What all entries will have in common is the determination to secure a specific change that will make things better – whether for an individual, a local neighbourhood or for every single one of us.

And nominations are now open! 

David & Goliath Award

JRRT is proud to sponsor the David & Goliath category of the SMK Awards. This Award is all about the little guys. It celebrates individuals or small campaign groups that take on much bigger organisations and challenge vested power.

Our sponsorship is made in memory of our friend and former Director, Lord David Shutt.

Previous winners of the David & Goliath Award have included:

2024

The Justice For Omisha Campaign; one family and their community taking on the Home Office’s hostile environment immigration system and fighting for an NHS that is free to provide universal healthcare for all.

2023

Power for People‘s Community Energy Revolution campaign which co-ordinated grassroots advocacy across the UK for the Local Electricity Bill.

The Bill, if enacted, would empower community energy schemes to sell their clean energy back to their community. Their campaign gathered cross-party support from more than 300 MPs.

2022

The #FacebookHasNoStandards campaign from Coventry Youth Activists which sought to change the way disability hate and ableism is handled by social media platforms.

Nominate your top campaign for the David & Goliath Award now!

Nominations close on Friday 28 February 2025 at 5pm. 

Check out details of all of the SMK Award categories on the SMK website

JRRT is one of 13 funders supporting the Foundation Practice Rating, an initiative led by Friends Provident Foundation to improve practices of Trusts and Foundations on transparency, accountability and diversity.  Each year 100 of the UK’s biggest foundations are assessed, including the funders associated with the initiative.

Our results

In year 2, JRRT’s overall rating remains unchanged at B.  Our rating for diversity is C, accountability B (up from C the year before) and transparency A.  Within these we have made improvements on accountability and diversity.

The limited improvements reflect work by the staff team.  We aim to make further changes this year, including three commitments sparked by the campaign to prompt participating Trusts to make pledges to improve.

Our pledges

This year, we plan to:

• increase grants to organisations led by people from black and minority ethnic communities;
• publish information on our investment policy;
• and develop and publish a feedback and complaints policy.

Year 2 report launched

The Foundation Practice Rating launched the full report into the Year 2 findings across the 100 sampled organisations in March 2023.

You can download the report from their website.

And watch the report launch event below: