CIPD Trust | City & Guilds Foundation

The return on belonging: Investing in refugee talent and skills, unlocking potential

Last week Refugee Week shone a light on the experiences, contributions and resilience of people seeking sanctuary in the UK. As we reflect on last week, it feels like an appropriate time to look back on the City & Guilds Foundation’s long-standing commitment to supporting refugees and asylum seekers into skills, employment and training and the impact our funding has had through our charity partners. Over the five years to 2025, the Foundation invested over £316,000 through its Displaced...

Big Idea Fund: Five new projects awarded funding to unlock potential and support rehabilitation

Back in June we announced that we were inviting expressions of interest for the second round of our Big Idea Fund. The £1m Big Idea Fund was established in 2019 as the first major initiative of our Foundation, to support prisoners with upskilling to aid their rehabilitation on release. Following an initial shortlist, 11 projects out of 37 applications were invited to submit a full application which was scored by our Commissioner Panel which includes City & Guilds Chief Executive, Kirstie...