Why staff wellbeing matters: supporting the people behind the work
What happens when you explicitly fund staff wellbeing
Alongside our Equality Fund, we offered a 10% wellbeing top-up to seven funded organisations. The aim was simple: to create space for organisations to support the people behind the work in ways that felt right to them.
The decision was made by our alumni, a group of previous panellists and Camden residents who have run community projects themselves. They were asked to choose between two options:
allocate £21,000 towards staff wellbeing for existing grantees
or fund an additional Equality Fund application, supporting one more organisation
They chose to invest in wellbeing.
Wellbeing is part of the work
Across the applications, organisations prioritised support such as counselling, reflective practice, time off, creative activities and physical health treatments.
As one organisation shared:
“The aim is to reduce burnout and support the emotional wellbeing of staff working in high-pressure environments.”
Another reflected:
“Staff are often dealing with emotionally demanding situations, and this support would help them process and sustain their work.”
This highlights something important: emotional support is not separate from delivery, it is part of sustaining it.
Making space to reconnect
Many organisations also focused on collective wellbeing, creating time for teams to pause and reconnect.
This included:
team meals
away days and reflective sessions
shared creative activities
time to celebrate and come together
These weren’t described as extras. They were described as essential, especially in smaller organisations where pace and pressure can be constant.
As one organisation shared:
“We want to create space for staff to reconnect with each other and feel part of something supportive.”
Small amounts, practical impact
What stood out was how relatively small amounts of funding could make a tangible difference.
Organisations used the top-up for:
counselling sessions
creative courses
improvements to shared spaces
low-cost wellbeing activities
These were practical, proportionate responses to real needs, shaped by organisations who understand their teams best.
What this means for us as a funder
Staff wellbeing can often sit at the edges of funding conversations, harder to measure, less visible, and sometimes seen as outside programme delivery.
But what we heard suggests the opposite.
It shapes:
How long people stay in their roles
How organisations respond to pressure
The consistency and quality of delivery
The long-term sustainability of the sector
If we focus on outcomes without considering the conditions that enable them, we risk placing unsustainable pressure on the people doing the work. The choice our alumni made reflects this tension clearly: sometimes, supporting impact means investing more deeply, not just more widely.
A small shift, with wider implications
This was a modest intervention, a 10% top-up to existing grants, shaped and awarded by people with lived experience of both funding and community work.
But it offers a useful prompt; in a sector full of staff who put other people’s needs ahead of their own, would these organisations have put staff wellbeing measures in place without restricted funding to do so? I don’t think they would have.
As funders, we often talk about resilience. This is one way of resourcing it in practice. It may not be the most visible investment, but it could be one of the most important.