Cerebral Palsy United FC is part of the Steve Morgan Foundation family of charities and this year marks their 10^th anniversary.

2024 is certainly a year worth celebrating for the charity following their success at our 2024 Awards event where Ben Meadows, who has been with the charity since it began, won Volunteer of the Year for his dedication and outstanding contributions to its programmes.

10 years of Cerebral Palsy United FC

Since the beginning, Cerebral Palsy United FC has existed to respond to a need in the region which provides opportunities for people of all ages with CP to play football. That need grew and the charity now operates six centres across the North West. The club currently has 168 players registered, with over 150 of them active every week.

A combination of the charity’s youth committee, trustees, club committee and players will be steering the 10^th anniversary celebrations over the next 12 months. Plans so far include a big party (of course!), a Santa Run, a family day and various celebratory events for different age groups.

Today, Cerebral Palsy United FC is more than just a football club and its activities span beyond the pitch. It has become a community hub for people with CP and their families. Due to the need for CP specific football opportunities, people travel from around the region to be a part of it. As a direct response to the needs of this community, Cerebral Palsy United FC runs additional support programmes with the aim of removing the barriers for people with CP to access football and help them to become the best they can be.

Support programmes

Community engagement programme – Cerebral Palsy United FC provides support and links in with other organisations to promote inclusive opportunities. They also work with universities to give students a platform to gain practical experience of working with people with CP, covering things like sports physiotherapy, sports and exercise sciences and coaching. Working with universities also helps the sustainability within their volunteer workforce and is a beneficial model all round.

Futures programme – This centres around educating and mentoring young people and providing opportunities for them to develop life skills. It is for young adults with or without  CP who want to learn about and be involved with other aspects of football, such as refereeing, coaching, media and marketing and just generally helping out and offering their time to support the running of the club. The programme provides wider education opportunities and mentoring experience for players and other young leaders aged 14+, who initially assist with developing younger members. Often they go on to become volunteer coaches for the charity.

Family engagement programme – An informal programme which brings families together. Every Saturday the charity runs an all-day breakfast club (supported by Warburtons) in its community room, which provides an organic network of peer support for parents/carers of children with CP where they can share experiences and get advice from older players with CP who have experienced the challenges themselves.

The charity also has informal arrangements in place with local leisure centres so that parents and families can use the facilities while their child with CP trains/plays football, offering a little respite. More formal projects within this programme have included the promotion of healthy lifestyles and inclusive football camps for family and friends to attend alongside CP United players.

Emotional & social development programme (AKA Extras) – The Extras programme addresses an area of need due to lack of access, opportunities and some societal barriers:

Physical development support provides access to sports therapists and student physios, but also the charity works with MMU and the Institute of Sport as part of their outreach programme to engage young people with CP who are considering a university pathway. This work educates players about their bodies and their physical capabilities and is really helping to foster a life-long appreciation for looking after themselves and their bodies.

Emotional/social development provides off-the-pitch support through therapeutic approaches and trauma-informed practices to help develop the ‘wider person’ and support mental health and wellbeing. The charity signposts people to the right places, where needed, as well as hold their own outdoor trips/activities and wilderness therapeutic practices delivered by outdoor wellbeing specialists. Not only does this offer a bit of respite, but also provides the opportunity for children and adults to socialise outside of football and develop their friendship and social circles.

Steve Morgan Foundation support

SMF initially provided funding for elements of the Extras programme to get members out and about during Covid times (when the charity couldn’t deliver impact through football). This emergency funding helped players to stay connected and connect with nature (when it was possible to go out) to help with emotional/social wellbeing and development.

SMF funding over the last four years, along with the most recent £10,000 prize received as a result of the SMF award win, has helped the club to survive and maintain its provision, despite the challenges its faced during that time. The funding also now helps with the charity’s running costs and provides a safety net to move forwards and sustain itself.

Ben Meadows – Volunteer of the Year

Ben has been with Cerebral Palsy United FC from the beginning, initially as a player and then part of first Futures Group at age 14. 10 years later, he is an integral part of the charity and sits on the committee as well as runs the Liverpool Centre as Lead Coach, coaches on Saturdays in Manchester and continues to play.

He is also involved in the delivery of several of the support programmes and leads the community engagement programme in Liverpool, looking after, organising and mentoring the student physios from Liverpool University who support the centre he runs.

A very well-deserved winner of this award category!

The future of Cerebral Palsy United FC

Michelle Wilcock, Head Coach and Programmes Manager, said:

“It’s been a difficult time since Covid hit and this continues with the cost of living crises – without the funding from the Steve Morgan Foundation, I’m not sure the charity would have survived, and for that we are truly grateful.

Over the next five years we hope to not only survive this difficult climate, but also to grow our volunteer workforce, build upon our links with universities and provide more opportunities for everyone across the region and beyond who want to play football. We’d love to keep developing our fixture program too for our players who it is appropriate for to play competitively.”

To find out more about Cerebral Palsy United FC or to get involved, visit their website here.

The Type 1 Diabetes Grand Challenge has announced funding of more than £2.7 million through the novel insulins challenge to transform type 1 diabetes treatment. This vital funding will accelerate the development of insulins that more closely mimic how a healthy pancreas works, which could improve the lives of people living with type 1 diabetes.

Developing novel insulins

Today’s announcement grants over £2.7 million to six new international research projects focused on developing next-generation insulins, also known as novel insulins. This crucial research aims to design insulins that act faster and more precisely, relieving some of the burden of managing type 1 diabetes and reducing the risk of long-term complications.

People with type 1 diabetes can’t make their own insulin, so they must give themselves synthetic insulin several times each day to survive. But insulin is far from a cure for type 1 diabetes, and new forms of insulin are urgently needed.

Why do we need new insulins?

Blood glucose levels are affected by many factors including food intake, exercise, stress, other hormones, and even the weather. This complexity means that even with the most advanced technology available, many people with type 1 diabetes fluctuate between high and low glucose levels, resulting in short and long-term physical health issues. The relentless struggle to stabilise blood glucose with existing insulins can also be a significant mental burden for people living with type 1 diabetes.

Glucose-responsive ‘smart’ insulins

Four of these newly funded projects involve scientists creating and testing novel insulin formulations that can respond to changing blood glucose levels, known as glucose responsive insulins (GRIs). The concept of glucose responsive insulins is that the drug only becomes active when there is a certain amount of glucose in the blood to prevent hyperglycaemia (high blood glucose) and becomes inactive again when levels drop below a certain point, avoiding hypoglycaemia (low blood glucose).

Ultrafast acting insulin

Researchers running a fifth research project are developing a new ultrafast, short-acting insulin. Even with the fastest insulins that are currently available, there is still a delay between the drug being administered and the point it starts to act on glucose in the blood. This can result in blood glucose rising to unsafe levels before insulin can act to lower it. Faster insulins are also needed to improve the function of insulin pumps and hybrid closed loop technology, a system that relies on the stored insulin responding in real-time to changing blood glucose levels.

Combining insulin and glucagon

The final research project is focused on designing a protein that combines insulin with another hormone, glucagon. Unlike insulin, which helps remove glucose from the blood, glucagon stimulates the liver to release more glucose when levels in the blood run low. Having both hormones included in one formulation could keep blood glucose levels stable by working to prevent high and low blood glucose levels.

Dr Tim Heise, Vice Chair of the Grand Challenge Novel Insulins Scientific Advisory Panel, said:

“Even with the currently available modern insulins, people living with type 1 diabetes have to put lots of effort into managing their diabetes every day to find a good balance between acceptable glycaemic control on the one hand and avoiding hypoglycaemia on the other. The funded six new research projects address major shortcomings in insulin therapy.

Glucose-responsive (so-called ‘smart’) insulins are regarded as the holy grail of insulin as they would come as close to a cure for type 1 diabetes as any drug therapy could. A truly rapid short-acting insulin might make it finally possible to progress from hybrid to fully closed loop systems, allowing a technological ‘cure’ for insulin-treated people with diabetes. Potentially minimising the risk of hypoglycaemia through an insulin-glucagon combination would ease one of the major concerns associated with insulin therapy today. Therefore, these research projects, if successful might do no less than heralding a new era in insulin therapy.”

Professor Simon Heller, Chair of the Scientific Advisory Panel, said:

“This unique funding is transforming the ability of global scientists to join forces to tackle type 1 diabetes. It enables researchers to set up new collaborations and to test innovative ideas which may lead to a step change in finding a cure for type 1 diabetes.”

Rachel Connor, Director of Research Partnerships at JDRF UK, said:

“With this funding programme we have challenged scientists around the world to drive forward new ideas in insulin design to combat the relentless burden of managing type 1 diabetes.

While insulin has been saving lives for over a hundred years now, and previous research has driven important changes for people with type 1, it is still not good enough – managing glucose levels with insulin is really tough, and it’s time for science to find ways to lift that burden.

By imagining a world where insulins can respond to changing glucose levels in real-time, we hope these six projects will help to create that new reality, relieving people with type 1 of the relentless demands that living with this condition places on them today.”

Dr Elizabeth Robertson, Director of Research at Diabetes UK, said:

“This much needed funding boost has the potential to revolutionise type 1 diabetes treatment. By supporting these groundbreaking research projects, we are aiming to develop new insulins that more closely mimic the body’s natural responses to changing blood sugar levels. This could significantly reduce the daily challenges of managing type 1 diabetes, and improve both the physical and mental health of those living with the condition. We are hopeful that this research will lead to life-changing advancements in type 1 diabetes care.”

The exciting development has had widespread media coverage across the BBC, Sky News, and in the national press. Listen to the clip on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme here, at 49 minutes, or watch a clip from BBC News below:

Commenting on the news, Steve and Sally Morgan said:

‘Our aim with the Type 1 Diabetes Grand Challenge is to bring together the best scientists and provide them with the financial support to help accelerate the development of new treatments and, ultimately, a cure for type 1 diabetes. We are excited about the potential of these six new research projects and look forward to following their development as they work towards making life easier for people living with type 1.’

About the Type 1 Diabetes Grand Challenge

More than 400,000 people in the UK have type 1 diabetes and this number is rising year on year, yet medical research remains consistently and woefully underfunded. Insulin, 100 years after its discovery, remains the only available treatment for type 1 diabetes.

Recognising the desperate need to improve the lives of people living with this relentless condition, the Steve Morgan Foundation brought together the two major UK diabetes charities to super-charge the research towards a cure for type 1 diabetes.

Working in partnership with Diabetes UK and JDRF UK, in 2022 the Foundation invested an unprecedented £50 million into the ‘Grand Challenge’, a five-year programme to accelerate medical research into type 1 diabetes.

Read more here.

We share a recent report from the Centre for Social Justice Foundation, underlining the funding and power imbalance facing small and medium-sized charities, together with some important recommendations for change.

As a charitable foundation that works with hundreds of poverty-fighting grassroots charities we are acutely aware of the pressures and challenges that many of them face. The need for their support is rising, while funding opportunities are disappearing.

The report highlights the widening post-pandemic funding gap between small and large charities, with income for the small charity sector declining by £4.6 billion, compared with an overall £4.5 billion rise for larger charitable organisations. And these smaller charities are increasingly being forced to close – the CSJ Foundation’s report notes that of the 921 charities that have closed so far in 2024, almost all of these (904) have an annual income of less than £1 million.

Read Underfunded and Overlooked, the report from the CSJ Foundation in full here.

A focus on philanthropy

The report also highlights the opportunity to improve the mechanism for philanthropic investments and private donations, stating:

“Much can be done to improve the way philanthropic investments and private donations work, for both donors and charities. Philanthropists and people seeking to donate, are often unaware of the most effective grassroots organisations (sometimes right on their doorstep) and so are not in a position to invest in high-impact grassroots poverty-fighting organisations.”

The report recommends making it easier for potential donors to access the very best small charities and organisations.

Finding those excellent small charities is a real challenge for philanthropists, as we are acutely aware at the Steve Morgan Foundation, as they rarely have the time nor resources for self-promotion. We raise awareness by attending funding events and using social media (and articles such as this) to ensure we can attract funding applications from the widest possible cohort in our regions, but there is always so much more to be done.

Recommendations for addressing the imbalance in the charity sector

The report sets out four key recommendations, which we summarise here:

#1 Local and national government should give due consideration to small and medium-sized charities when making contracting decisions for the provision of social services.

#2 The Government should ringfence a proportion of its charitable grant-making for grassroots charitable organisations.

#3 To stimulate hilanthropic giving , the Government should commit to match funding charitable initiatives. A model for this could be the DCMS Community Match Fund initiative, rolled out during the pandemic. We were involved in this scheme, distributing a total of £20 million to organisations at the forefront of essential service delivery to the most severely impacted communities.

#4 The Government should give an equal voice to smaller charities when it engages with the sector for research and policy making.

Supporting grassroots charities

We know that local, grassroots charities are often the ones best placed to support the most vulnerable in our communities. It is time for policymakers, philanthropists and the charity sector to come together and ensure we can protect these excellent local organisations.

The Steve Morgan Foundation provides a range of grants for organisations that make a positive difference to those in need. Areas of support include poverty, homelessness, health and wellbeing, education and training. We also provide smaller grants to people requiring specialised disability equipment. Find out more about our grants and how to apply.

About the CSJ Foundation

The CSJ Foundation was established by the Centre for Social Justice, an independent think-tank that studies the root causes of Britain’s social problems and addresses them by recommending practical, workable policy interventions.  

Sitting in a unique position between frontline charities, philanthropists, and policymakers, the CSJ Foundation describes its mission as being to ‘put social justice at the heart of British philanthropy’ and to ‘revolutionise the way local grass roots charities are seen and funded’.

Visit the Centre for Social Justice here.

The Foundation’s Chairman, Steve Morgan CBE, has been honoured for his outstanding contributions to North Wales communities alongside Wrexham’s Hollywood owners Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney. The three have each received Community Foundation Wales Philanthropy Awards.

The awards recognise and highlight the work of individuals going above and beyond for their local communities and aims to inspire and encourage others to start their philanthropic journey.

The awards were made to mark the charity’s 25^th year.

The Steve Morgan Foundation supports the most vulnerable across North Wales, Cheshire and Merseyside helping to make a positive difference to those in need. We have worked alongside Community Foundation Wales, supporting their Our Communities Together – a cost of living crisis appeal with £25,000 of match funding.

Steve Morgan said: “What a great honour to receive this award from Community Foundation Wales. It’s a special award that is unexpected. Our foundation does tremendous work in north Wales and has done for many, many years, distributing millions of pounds in just the last few years alone. This is all done without looking to be recognised, so when you get something like this, it really means something.”

Upon receiving his award, Steve recorded this video:

Since becoming Co-Chairmen of Wrexham Football Club, Rob McElhenney and Ryan Reynolds have supported a number of community projects in local area. When they took over the club in 2020, they pledged to make a positive difference to the local community as well as the football club.

From donating to a charity who provide free caravan holidays to families who may never have had a holiday before due to financial crisis to funding an adapted bathroom for a Wrexham Football Club fan, Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney continue to support and give back to the Wrexham area.

Richard Williams, Chief Executive of Community Foundation Wales said:

“We are delighted to recognise Ryan Reynolds, Rob McElhenney and Steve Morgan for their amazing generosity and commitment to communities in North Wales. They, like us, recognise the wider role of philanthropy in building and strengthening Welsh communities.

These philanthropy awards are part of our 25th birthday celebrations which also sees the relaunch of our Fund for Wales, which provides grants to local, grassroots organisations and charities who are embedded in their local communities.

We hope that people will be inspired by Ryan Reynolds, Rob McElhenney and Steve Morgan to give back to their local communities and a donation to Fund for Wales would be a great way to start.”

Since 1999, Community Foundation Wales have awarded over £40m in grants across Wales, playing a key role in matching philanthropy to grassroots community groups and charities making a difference in their local communities.

Their Fund for Wales supports small, volunteer-driven community organisations with grants of between £500 – £2,000 towards the following areas:

• Improving people’s chances in life
• Building stronger communities
• Improving rural and urban environments
• Encouraging healthier and more active people and communities
• Preserving heritage and culture

Everton in the Community and the Steve Morgan Foundation are delighted to announce that their collaborative initiative, the ‘Steve Morgan Community Impact Model’ has been recognised as the ‘Best Corporate Social Responsibility Scheme’ at this year’s prestigious Football Business Awards.

EitC has been working with the Steve Morgan Foundation since 2020, delivering the Impact Model in Speke-Garston to protect young people from exploitation and inspire them to reach their full potential, and it is thanks to the success of the charity’s delivery in South Liverpool as to why the early intervention programmes were also rolled out across Liverpool 4 and South Sefton last July.

The Club’s official charity and the Steve Morgan Foundation fought off strong competition to win the Best CSR Scheme, which is open to clubs and organisations involved in football who can demonstrate the positive impact their CSR activities have had on local communities and key stakeholders. The judges remarked the Impact Model as “a vibrant, impressive and far-reaching community scheme” and that they “were amazed at the scale of what EitC and the Steve Morgan Foundation does.”

£35.6 million of total social value

Reflecting on its impact, EitC’s delivery of the Impact Model in Speke-Garston alone has generated a remarkable £35.6million of total social value in the last three years from March 2020 to December 2023. Additionally, the charity has contributed to wider school changes within the area including improved Ofsted ratings in two of the three high schools it works in, where 40% of young people aged 16+ have no qualifications.

What’s more, EitC’s impact in Speke-Garston subsequently enabled the charity to secure additional multi-million-pound funding from the Steve Morgan Foundation to extend the Impact Model across L4 and South Sefton almost a year ago, with EitC having made a tangible difference to the lives of more than 27,000 young people in the four deprived areas across Liverpool City Region to date.

Sue Gregory, CEO at EitC said:

“It’s a huge honour to win the Best Corporate Social Responsibility Scheme with our long-term partner, the Steve Morgan Foundation at this year’s Football Business Awards. It’s an accolade that is testament to the value of the Impact Model and recognises the beneficial impact it has had and continues to have on the lives of so many young people in the most deprived communities across the city. We look forward to seeing what the strategic partnership will achieve a year from now.”

Liam Eaglestone, CEO at Steve Morgan Foundation added:

“Originally inspired by Steve Morgan’s desire to give back to the community where he was born, we are delighted that the Steve Morgan Foundation Community Impact Model has already changed the trajectories of so many young people and we are thrilled on behalf of the entire EitC team to see it rewarded with this accolade. Our partnership sets a real gold standard for what can be achieved with a committed and passionate delivery team backed up by long-term and secure funding.”

EitC also scooped up silver for the ‘Best Football Community Scheme’ during the awards ceremony, reaffirming its place as one of the UK’s Premier League community schemes due to the quality and reach of its life-changing work, with the charity having supported tens of thousands of individuals through its delivery in the past year and expanded its provision to more than 60 programmes.

Elsewhere, significant highlights in the last 12 months include the official opening of the charity’s mental health and wellbeing hub, The People’s Place, which completed a £13 million Goodison Campus and the regeneration of a key part of Liverpool 4. EitC also unveiled Trinity Project, an ambitious five-year strategic plan which set out its bold vision to create stronger communities and brighter futures across the city.

Launched in 2012, the Football Business Awards celebrate the elite in football business at The Brewery in London each year. The judging panel is made up of Chief Executives of football clubs, Professional Football Associations and Grassroots Football Organisations. Designed to recognise the organisations, teams and individuals who excel in a variety of business, CSR and football governance disciplines – with 25 award categories from ‘CEO of the Year – Premier League’ right through to ‘Commemorative Team Award’.

Read more about our partnership with Everton in the Community here.