Fundraising and evaluation support for Oasis Play
Who are Oasis Play?
Oasis Play (Oasis) provides inclusive outdoor play and learning opportunities that enable disabled and non-disabled children and young people to lead happy, fulfilled lives and play positive roles in the community. Based in Stockwell, London, it runs three distinct facilities: a children’s nature garden, a youth-led go-karting project, and an adventure playground. All projects are open access and available for local children to attend after school, on Saturdays and during school holidays, and are supported by a team of experienced play and youth workers.
The need and A5cend’s involvement
Oasis was established in 1973, and has steadily grown over the years. For many years it only had one member of management staff, so found it difficult to deliver consistent services.
A5cend’s first involvement with Oasis was supporting it with a fundraising application to the Walcot Foundation. The application was successful and provided core funding for a project coordinator, helping to build the capacity of the organisation and doubling the number of people who could work on fundraising. A5cend subsequently worked with the project coordinator on lots of fundraising applications, including three Big Lottery Reaching Community bids, as well as applications to Sport England, City Bridge Trust, Children in Need and Comic Relief. The funding which Oasis secured through these has really helped it to grow as an organisation.
The ongoing development
Oasis’ fundraising success went hand-in-hand with the development of more sophisticated evaluation methodologies. When Oasis received its first Reaching Communities grant, it was clear that it needed to introduce more robust evaluation techniques. This was the first time Oasis had done any in-depth evaluation of its adventure playground. A5cend provided guidance on how to measure impact effectively and helped to develop and implement effective monitoring and data collection systems, as well as analysing the data and writing the evaluation report.
Working with A5cend on funding bids and evaluations has helped Oasis staff to develop their own skills, to the point that Oasis now has the skills and knowledge to carry out evaluations and write funding bids in-house.
Services delivered:
Policy review
Budgeting support
Fundraising strategy
Funding bids revenue and core
Funding bids capital development and feasibility
Fundraising training
Evaluation
Theory of change
