The St. James’s Place Charitable Foundation, established in 1992 as the philanthropic arm of St. James’s Place Wealth Management Group, has raised and distributed over £100 million to support thousands of charities. With a mission to create lasting, meaningful change, the Foundation funds initiatives across key areas such as education, health, and social mobility.
To ensure its efforts continue to deliver measurable and sustainable impact, the Foundation partnered with Bean Research to evaluate and refine its approach to monitoring and impact assessment.
The Challenge
As the Foundation marked its 25th anniversary, it sought to better understand the full extent of its impact over the years. With a portfolio of diverse grantees addressing complex social issues, the Foundation needed:
- Comprehensive Evaluation: To assess the outcomes for beneficiaries and the organisational changes its grantees achieve.
- Ongoing Monitoring Improvements: To develop regular processes that capture meaningful data on impact.
- Annual Impact Reporting: To provide consistent and transparent reporting showcasing the impact of the Foundation’s work.
The challenge lay in developing a scalable, data-driven framework that could accommodate the Foundation’s diverse grant-making, while identifying actionable insights to maximise its impact.
The Solution
St. James’s Place Charitable Foundation partnered with Bean to create and implement an evaluation framework tailored to its needs.
Starting with the independent 25th Anniversary Evaluation, Bean conducted a detailed evaluation to celebrate the Foundation’s milestone year, focusing on the difference made to people through funded programmes and organisational changes among grantees, such as increased capacity, new partnerships, or enhanced service delivery.
Developing regular monitoring and evaluation, Bean worked closely with the Foundation to embed systematic data collection and reporting processes, ensuring that insights are continually captured across grant cycles.
Bean now conducts an independent evaluation each year to assess the outcomes of the Foundation’s funding and provide evidence-based recommendations for future improvement.
Results
The partnership between Bean and St. James’s Place Charitable Foundation has led to significant advancements in understanding and demonstrating impact. Including an updated theory of change with this year’s impact report, which outlines the focus and how the Foundation brings together both funding and a broader holistic support offering to grantees, to help strengthen and build capacity for the charity and support long-term positive change for those they support. That broader support is facilitated through the St. James’s Place community, who volunteer their time and skills, and through gift-in-kind support from St. James’s Place, which helps to deliver an even bigger impact, capturing the following impact:
- 4.82 million people directly supported since 1992.
- 896 charities supported.
- 79% of people supported reported substantive or transformative change.
The Charitable Foundation creates meaningful change at the local level. This year, Bean has mapped all place-based activities, with the locations of the St. James’s Place offices, the recipients of the funding, and areas showing social deprivation. This mapping illustrates how the needs of society are being addressed through local programmes. These maps help to understand better the local impact of grant-funded initiatives across the United Kingdom.
“Bean have taken the time to really understand the Foundation, and the business, and how we want to progress our funding. Their strategic approach and learnings have really helped us focus, refine our strategy, and support grantees to share their insights.”
Catherine Ind, Head of Foundation, St James’s Place Charitable Foundation
“Bean Research has supported St. James’s Place to develop, review and report its social impact over the last five years. They have worked proactively alongside our team, delivering a robust approach to social value assessment – and was a key part of us achieving accreditation for excellence for impact measuring”. Understanding the whole business and understanding where/ how we want to progress our M&E.”
Alex Davies, Head of Societal Impact, St James’s Place Charitable Foundation
“Bean Research provided a detailed evaluation and impact assessment of the Foundation over 25 years, communicating concisely and clearly.”
Mark Longbottom, Director, St James’s Place Charitable Foundation
