In April, we commissioned a storyteller to work with 10 Pathways Fund partners to produce content for the sector in their own word. Part of this content is a four-part thematic essay series for the sector, capturing the key themes that came up from partners. This blog is part of the series, please read the other blogs here.
Not every plan works. Not every programme ends the way it was imagined. But in the Pathways Fund, change, even when unexpected change, wasn’t seen as failure. It was seen as an opportunity to learn and adapt.
For almost every grant partner, the ability to ‘fail’, restructure, and pivot mid-programme was essential. Some groups shifted strategy. Others scaled back. Some changed leadership. Instead of being punitive or withdrawing support, many in the cohort said that Blagrave leaned in and listened to what was happening, and more importantly, why it was happening.
“I feel like they trust us to just try things out. If something hasn’t gone to plan, they’ve never been like, ‘How dare you, we’re pulling the funding.’ It’s more like, ‘That’s okay, this is what happens when you’re starting out.’ And that’s been really reassuring.” — Isabelle, Care Experienced Movement
That flexibility changed how partners approached their work. A lot spoke about how other funding pots tied them to fixed KPIs, regardless of whether those goals still made sense for the issue they were working on, and that they didn’t feel like they could be fully transparent with them.
“Some funders have this process where every three months you have to update them on X, Y, Z. It’s process-based, very tick-box. And even though I have positive relationships with our funders, I never felt like I could speak to them the same way I do with Blagrave.” — Nadine, Young Justice Advisors
This flexible approach not only included how partners could choose to spend their money, but also when. Blagrave themselves recognised that many groups do not spend their grant instalment within 12 months and decided to be flexible about when instalment payments are approved and paid.
This flexibility was noted by Our Streets Now as being extremely helpful when they were navigating a tricky transition period after an organisational restructure.
“In year two, we shifted our grant instalment, just to give us a bit more time to get our impact reporting and budget sorted, because we’d dropped the ball slightly with all the transitions happening. Blagrave was really flexible about it, which was great. I came into the Pathways Fund around that time and took over the relationship, so we just needed a bit more time with everything — and they gave us that.” — Issy, Our Streets Now
For some, their early organisational plans simply weren’t the right ones for their capacity. Not A Trend, for instance, originally planned to deliver a month-long schools-based programme, but came to realise it wasn’t sustainable or reflective of what they actually wanted to do and Blagrave understood this.
“Our plan was to launch More Than a Month, a ready-made programme we’d deliver in schools. But pretty early on, we realised it just wasn’t sustainable, and it didn’t feel true to what we were actually trying to change. It was too traditional, too programme-heavy. We’ve always been consistent in our framework of the three Cs – conduct, culture and curriculum – but how we deliver that has shifted a lot. We now work with teacher training courses, and we’re moving into public education too. Since starting out, that idea of creating more lifelong learning opportunities has become a lot more important to us.” — Ava, Not A Trend
After a lot of trial and error, Radical Body Arts also pivoted its strategy and valued the support it received as it navigated those changes.
“There were moments where we thought, ‘Oh my God, why isn’t this working?’ We asked ourselves, ‘Are we doing enough? Are we spending the money in the best way? Are we moving fast enough?’ We kept hitting barriers and having to course-correct, like, ‘Not that way, try another route.’ It meant that we didn’t always achieve what we originally set out to do or meet every timeline we had in mind. But honestly, I’d say this has been an incredibly educational experience about working in this sector as a disabled led company and is really, really useful. I think most people can learn from that.” — Elle, Radical Body Arts
This reframing of failure as learning is significant for younger leaders who are navigating changing political landscapes. The Halo Collective revised its strategy twice this year — and plans to again.
“When your strategy is based on policy work, and the government’s constantly shifting, you have to adapt fast. But how do you do that without derailing the work you’re already doing? That kind of constant change is something we’re still learning to navigate, especially with things like bills and policy deadlines that are totally outside our control. And while the funding has given us more capacity and space to respond, it also shifts internal dynamics.” — Olamide, Halo Collective
Failure, in the Pathways Fund context, wasn’t something to fear. It was part of the process. And when the process is trusted, the learning deepens, the work strengthens, and the people behind the work feel supported to stay in the game.
Radical Body Arts echoed that sentiment — especially as a disabled-led organisation working to a completely different rhythm than most of the sector.
“A lot of the time, growth has looked like failure. It’s realising something isn’t for us, and that we need to go about things a different way. But that’s just the reality of being a disabled-led company. We can’t work the way a non-disabled organisation does, our goals and timelines need to be different. There were check-ins where we hadn’t done what we hoped and where I’d say, ‘No, we haven’t done that yet.’ Some things just didn’t work. But it’s helped us narrow in on what we can do sustainably and are going to work on.” — Elle, Radical Body Arts