How the Chemists’ Community Fund helped members in 2023

What is the Chemists’ Community Fund?

The Chemists’ Community Fund’s (CCF) primary charitable purpose is the relief and prevention of poverty for members or past members of the RSC, as well as support for their partners, children, and other dependents.

If the funds are not all needed for this primary purpose, then support can be directed to meet the needs of a wider community, to support those wider members of our community facing hardship and for other charitable work, under its secondary purpose.

As of January 2024, the CCF stands in a robust financial position with reserves totalling £15 million. The generosity of our community, demonstrating the ethos of members supporting members, and subsequent investment growth have been pivotal in achieving this financial strength.

Delivering the CCF strategy

For our Primary Purpose, this strategy is to:

• provide timely, relevant, and meaningful support to eligible beneficiaries – to minimise and prevent the impacts of hardship and poverty with a focus on holistic support and overall wellbeing.

And for as long as funds and resources allow our Secondary Purpose strategy is to:

• scale our support for the chemistry community, prioritising those in need where we can have the most impact.

The current CCF strategy was written against the backdrop of the ongoing impact of the pandemic, the war in Ukraine, the rising costs of living and global inflation - all of which have continued to impact RSC members during 2023.

We continued to focus on delivering against the aims of being agile in our response, increasing our relevance and continuing to raise awareness of the holistic and timely support available to individuals.

Key Achievements and Impact: Primary Purpose

For each of the 431 new approaches to CCF in 2023, a Caseworker took time to understand their personal situation and help them access both the financial and non-financial support and expertise they need. Alongside this, we provided ongoing support to those members already in touch with the Fund.

Financial Support: CCF provided direct grants or paid-for service referrals to 115 individuals facing financial hardships, including those impacted by cost-of-living challenges, global inflation, unemployment, war, or those with long-term health concerns or disability. 

This represents an increase in the number of new enquiries as well as the number who were awarded direct financial support compared to the previous year.

Wellbeing Services: We introduced online chat functionality to complement the phone line, with the aim of improving the accessibility of our Wellbeing & Listening services.

The wellbeing services received 196 calls and onward referrals for 141 confidential counselling sessions.

73 people accessed our online platform which helps address addiction and addictive behaviors.

Holistic Assistance: We extended the relevance of our support beyond direct financial support by providing legal advice referrals, specialist debt support, expert assistance to fully access state benefits, paid referrals for autism support and our online career tools. We enhanced this by signposting individuals to other specialist external organisations and services.

The value of this holistic support is best demonstrated via examples of feedback we receive:

Workshops: We hosted 7 live CCF online workshops with 519 participants, with topics ranging from managing debt, retirement planning, and managing anxiety to transforming sleep. We made all workshops available as a recording, which 1404 people viewed. Attendees shared positive feedback on their experiences:

In conjunction with the RSC Careers team, we also held a series of 5 workshops on mental health and careers, attended by 428 people.

Raising Awareness: We launched a new visual identity for the CCF, which enables us to continue to raise awareness of the CCF amongst members which is a key focus in our strategy.

Utilising our Secondary Purpose

We have again this year been in the fortunate position to be able to extend our CCF charitable support to a wider cohort of the community under our Secondary Purpose. Areas that we support align with ideas and feedback from our members and Trustees, on how the CCF should be developed.

We have continually evolved our grant programmes to proactively respond to more recent events, such as students impacted by the rising cost of living, as well as the war in Ukraine and other conflicts impacting chemists.

We often amplify our impact by funding partnerships with other specialist organisations and work with experts in the RSC across education, diversity, and careers. This enables us to scale overall impact most effectively without adversely impacting the ongoing casework under primary purpose.

New initiatives funded in 2023 include:

• Financial and wellbeing support for refugee chemists and their families, in conjunction with the Council for at-Risk Academics (Cara).
• Commonwealth Chemistry Congress Early Career Researcher Travel Grants, for those representing nations with a GDP per capita of less than $30,000.
• Inclusion & Diversity Fund Grants to enable direct delivery of support to underserved groups.

These initiatives run alongside those described in previous years’ reports such as funding a mentoring partnership programme for Black and Minority Ethnic students, providing Grants for Carers and Assistance Grants, funding for the RSC Bullying & Harassment line, Outreach grants targeted to enable direct delivery to underserved groups, and grants to facilitate returners to work following a career break.

Summary

The Chemists' Community Fund has delivered on its strategic mission, providing crucial and timely support to the RSC members, their families and the wider chemistry community. The 2023 Annual Report reflects our ongoing commitment to provide financial and wellbeing assistance via individual holistic support, to make a positive impact on the lives of our members and their families. 

The Chemists’ Community Fund (CCF), the working name of the Royal Society of Chemistry’s Benevolent Fund, is a linked charity to the RSC.

The CCF in numbers

• £811,975 total grant spend primary & secondary
• 431 new enquiries to CCF
• 100 individuals receiving direct financial 
• 141 number of counselling sessions funded
• 947 live workshop attendees
• 1169 online Career Tool Users
• 17 number of volunteer visits
• 196 wellbeing & listening service calls
• 73 users of our online Addiction information
• 5 dedicated CCF caseworkers    
• £1.4 million total CCF Expenditure in 2023