The Lipman-Miliband Trust continues to play a vital role as one of the very few charities able to respond to the needs of those engaged in socialist education. We encourage new work within this broad field, taking into consideration new areas of cultural and political work in institutions of learning but also in community organisations and among NGOs.
To find out more about our history, purpose and funded projects, please follow this link.
Having benefited from a significant increase in resources in recent years, we are seeking several active and committed Trustees to join with us and our part-time Co-ordinator to expand our outreach, fundraising and grant-giving activities.
To become involved in LMT, you will share our values and participate actively in our affairs. This will require you to attend each of our four Trustee meetings a year. Although we are based in different locations around the country and most of our work is conducted online, we aim to meet in-person at least twice a year. The experience of Trustees suggests that overall, involvement in Trustee business accounts for between 6 and 10 hours of our time each month.
You will also be asked to join at least one of our Working Groups, undertake tasks and projects needed for the good management and operation of the Trust, review and approve documents and proposals as required, and take part in decisions about grant giving awards. Grant giving is one of the most rewarding things we do. We love seeing the difference our investment and support can make to socialist education.
We are particularly seeking applications for the position of Trustee Treasurer who will work with the Trust Co-ordinator, external advisors and accountants, to ensure our finances are properly administered. Our finances are vitally important to us in ensuring that we continue our charitable activities and socialist educational work. Experience or understanding of financial management and accounting would be helpful. We will be happy to support appropriate training.
The Trust is seeking to increase the diversity of its Trustees.
There will be two online drop-in sessions for anyone who might be interested in becoming a Trustee. You will be able to ask us about what we do and how we work and ask any questions. Please see below for dates and times.
Trustee Treasurer
Trustee × 3
Trustee and Trustee Treasurer role description
6 – 10 hours per month
3 board meetings per year
Online drop-in session 1: Tue 19th November, 11.30am – 12.30pm
Zoom link: https://us06web.zoom.us/j/82657986248
Online drop-in session 2: Tue 26th November, 4.00 – 4.30pm
Zoom link: https://us06web.zoom.us/j/87097715290
Application deadline: 5.00pm on Friday 29th November
Interviews: early December
Please send your CV and a covering letter/email to info@lipman-miliband.org.uk
Your covering letter should include answers to the following questions:
Why do you want to be a Trustee at the Lipman-Miliband Trust?
What skills, knowledge and experience will you bring to the role?
We’re delighted to announce the upcoming launch of a new large grants programme! Running alongside our long-standing small grants programme, the large grants programme will give organisations the opportunity to apply for a larger, multi-year grant, to support socialist political education work.
For 50 years, the Trust has fostered socialist research and political education in movements for human rights, peace and social justice through small project grants to individuals and organisations. Recognising the particular value of work that happens over years rather than months, the large grants programme aims to provide support to organisations taking a long-term approach to creating transformative change.
The Lipman-Miliband Trust large grants programme is open to organisations with an income of £5,000 – £500,000 and that have been established for at least two years. All applications must further the Trust’s aims of supporting study and research into socialist ideas and practice and educational activities that increase public understanding of struggles for peace, human rights and democracy.
Applications will open on Monday 14th October and close on 16th December.
At the Trust’s March 2023 grants meeting, we offered financial awards to ten valuable projects from all over the UK. These comprised:
A library of radical children’s literature in Glasgow.
An accessible booklet documenting the struggle for grassroots democracy and female liberation in Kurdistan (produced in Bristol).
A conference in Manchester which will enable workers to learn from each other about workplace exploitation.
A podcast produced in Dorset that helps people understand how UK agrarian workers organise themselves and how this relates to other global workers’ movements.
A South London theatre production co-created with 15-25 year olds that explores the lowering of the voting age in order to generate youth engagement.
Three community education days in Belfast, which focus on the history of capitalism and trade union organisation within the specific context of Northern Ireland.
A multi-media, anti-racist and feminist live performance in Bexhill on Sea’s De La Warr Pavilion, which also incorporates workshops and an exhibition.
A new website to accompany a quarterly newspaper, currently distributed and sold by rough sleepers and asylum seekers across Britain.
A weekly podcast produced in North London offering a socialist lens on contemporary economic issues.
A festival of radical ideas in Devon, organised by regional participants in The World Transformed.
At their July meeting, the Trustees decided that, following our current round of applications (due to be decided in November), we will be raising our maximum grant to £3000. We know that inflation and rising costs are making it harder than ever to get socialist education projects off the ground and we want to help.
We are always delighted to hear from you about how our grants have been spent from the national to the local. In the North East of England we helped fund a project on local radical history with innovative online route maps that enable people to explore, individually or collectively, sites of campaigns for social justice.