Bean is the learning and evaluation partner for The Goldsmiths’ Company Charity Landmark Fund.

The Goldsmiths’ Company Charity is a grant funder, founded in the late nineteenth century. The Goldsmiths’ Company Charity focuses on improving people’s and communities’ life chances. Today, it does this by awarding grants across four priority areas – support for the goldsmith trade and craft; support for the development of technical and vocational skills; support for activities in the City of London and at national institutions; support for activities that improve life chances, currently in the criminal justice sector, and through literacy, numeracy and oracy interventions at early years and primary age.

The Landmark Grants Programme will award £10 million from The Goldsmiths’ Company Charity in three tranches between 2023 and 2035, aiming to maximise the Charity’s impact by supporting projects that alleviate poverty, create opportunities, and make a lasting impact through skills development. The programme – and its evaluation – will form part of the Company’s 700th anniversary celebrations in 2027. As part of its ambitious programme to mark this occasion, including a gallery in the new London Museum, the Company aims to support projects that enhance its charitable impact.

The first four recipients of £500,000 grants were awarded to Aston University Engineering Academy (developing a new Goldsmiths’ Centre for Jewellery Skills at AUEA in Birmingham), the National Literary Trust Goldsmiths’ 500 Writers programme in Bradford, St. Paul’s Cathedral in London and St. Giles’ Trust working across ten prisons in the UK.

Bean is now working with these four organisations over the next three years to evaluate the difference made to people, long-term practice and places. The learnings are being shared with partners, as well as the Goldsmiths’ Company, to help refine the programmes and maximise their potential for social change.