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2025-03-31-accounts

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~ The Advocacy Academy’s ~

State of the Movement 2024/25

Building Power with Young People to
Create a More Fair, Just, and Equal Society.
INTRODUCTION 2
WELCOME TO THE ADVOCACY ACADEMY 4
OUR STRATEGIC FRAMEWORK 6
FINANCE AND FUNDRAISING 9
FINANCE REVIEW 10
FUNDRAISING REVIEW 10
KEY RISKS AND UNCERTAINTIES 10
PART ONE: WHAT WE ACHIEVED IN 2024-25 12
STEERING OUR SHIP TOWARDS A MORE FAIR, JUST AND EQUAL FUTURE 13
STRENGTHENING OUR THEORY OF CHANGE 13
BUILDING A VALUES-LED CULTURE 13
LOOKING AHEAD 14
CAMPAIGNING FOR CHANGE 16
CAMPAIGNS & MEMBERSHIP DEPARTMENTAL STRATEGY UPDATE 16
CAMPAIGN UPDATES: THE TAA COMMUNITY CAMPAIGN - LOST LESSONS 17
CAMPAIGN UPDATES: UPDATING OUR ORGANISING EDUCATION OFFER 18
CAMPAIGN UPDATES: HOST PROGRAMME 18
MEMBERSHIP UPDATES: DEVELOPMENT AND SUPPORT 22
MEMBER-LED GOVERNANCE: FOUNDATION BUILDING 23
CHALLENGES AND POTENTIAL RISKS 23
LOOKING AHEAD 24
DEVELOPING LEADERS WITH LIVED EXPERIENCE OF INJUSTICE 25
PROGRAMMES REIMAGINED: A NEW ERA 25
OUTREACH: A MOVEMENT FOR ALL YOUNG PEOPLE 28
PROGRAMME SPOTLIGHT: JUST US! 29
OUR FIRST IGNITE PROGRAMME 30
INVESTING IN CYCLICAL LEADERSHIP: CMDP 31
LOOKING AHEAD: OUR SAFEGUARDING ROADMAP 33
ORGANISING OUR COMMUNITY 34

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2024/25 - A YEAR OF NEW BEGINNINGS 34
SPOTLIGHT: THE LIBERATION CENTRE IN NUMBERS 35
DEVELOPING COMMUNITY SAFETY 37
PROGRAMME SPOTLIGHT: HOW TO MAKE CHANGE 38
CHALLENGES AND POTENTIAL RISKS 39
LOOKING AHEAD: WHAT'S IN STORE 39
ACTIVATING NEW ALLIES 40
MEASURING OUR IMPACT THIS YEAR 40
LOOKING AHEAD 41
PART TWO: GOVERNANCE AND TEAM 43
OUR CURRENT STAFF 44
OUR PATRON AND TRUSTEES 47
GOVERNANCE 49
STATEMENT OF TRUSTEES RESPONSIBILITIES 51
PART THREE: AUDITOR’S OPINION & ACCRUAL ACCOUNTS 53

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INTRODUCTION

Daniel Taylor MBE FRSA, Chair of the Board of Trustees

Reflecting on the past year at The Advocacy Academy, I am proud of the growth and impact we have achieved together. This has been a pivotal year in which we have strengthened our programmes, clarified our Theory of Change, and expanded opportunities for young people to lead campaigns that challenge injustice and shape their communities.

Our reimagined programme offer, including Ignite, Just-Us, and Leadership Bingo, has created more accessible pathways for young people to develop leadership skills, take action, and build lasting connections. This year, we welcomed over 30 new members through Ignite, engaged 1989 visitors at The Liberation Centre, and supported 816 young people under 30 in accessing open access activities. The Changemaker Development Programme trained 14 Changemakers, with 12 delivering internal or external placements, embedding cyclical leadership across the organisation.

Campaigns delivered this year, including the Lost Lessons institutional campaign, involved over 50 one-to-one conversations with members and engaged 58 members in shaping campaign priorities. These initiatives have amplified young people’s voices, strengthened their collective power, and enhanced the organisation’s capacity to support member-led campaigns sustainably.

The opening of The Liberation Centre has been transformative, providing a purpose-built, vibrant space for learning, collaboration, and community action. From workshops and mutual aid initiatives to cultural events and strategic gatherings, the Centre has quickly become a hub for engagement and intergenerational exchange.

I extend my heartfelt gratitude to my fellow trustees for their expertise, insight, and unwavering support. Your guidance has been invaluable in steering the organisation through this pivotal year. I am confident that The Advocacy Academy will continue to build power with young people, strengthen our impact across the UK, and cultivate a youth organising movement capable of addressing the most pressing issues of our times.

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Saba Shafi, CEO

This year marks ten years since The Advocacy Academy was founded. Over the past decade we have seen what is possible when young people with lived experience of injustice come together to take collective action. As we look ahead to our second decade, we are focused on supporting the wider movement with a model of youth organising that enables more young people to lead change and confront the most pressing issues of our time.

In FY 2024/25, we redeveloped our Theory of Change to bring sharper focus and stronger alignment with our vision and mission. The five pillars remain the same: Campaigning for Change, Developing Young Leaders, Organising the Community, Activating New Allies, and Steering the Ship, but we have refined how they work together.

This has meant: shifting from fixed programmes to flexible leadership pathways, moving from programme delivery to organisation-wide movement building, growing our vision from a locally rooted model to one with national reach and embedding shared accountability across staff, members, and governance so we can maintain our high quality standards in our approach to youth organising.

This refreshed Theory of Change strengthens our ability to measure impact, support young leaders, and communicate a clear, unified direction for the decade ahead. Alongside this, we will be investing in stronger Monitoring, Evaluation, Accountability and Learning frameworks to better share the strategic and joyful impact of our members, their campaigns, and our staff team.

Our programmatic work has also transformed. With the conclusion of our Fellowship model, we have introduced new pathways that widen access and lower barriers to participation, including seasonal Ignite inductions, the open-access Just-Us youth space, and a Leadership Bingo framework. The Changemaker Development Programme continues to embed leadership skills, while hosted campaigns and Member-Led Governance strengthen ownership and member responsibility across the movement.

The opening of The Liberation Centre in Brixton has already welcomed nearly 2,000 visitors and created a vibrant hub for political education, organising, and intergenerational exchange. Rooted in South London, it is fast becoming a model for what youth organising spaces could look like across the UK, with deliberate support from the wider movement.

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Looking ahead, we know young people face growing political, social, and economic barriers. Yet the will to lead is there. As we step into our second decade, we remain committed to building power with our members, so they can lead change on the most pressing issues of our time, and drive towards a national youth organising movement capable of shaping a fairer, more equal society.

WELCOME TO THE ADVOCACY ACADEMY

The Advocacy Academy (TAA) is a home for youth organising in the UK. For us, this means we build the power of young people with lived experience of injustice to develop their own political identity, build a community rooted in joy and solidarity, and take action to address the most pressing issues of our time.

The Advocacy Academy is not a lone voice in this work. Youth workers, organisers and practitioners in the UK and across the world have gifted their ideas, hard-won lessons, and heartbreaks. We are not the first to walk the path towards something we believe is better. Every day, we learn from the extraordinary acts of bravery by young people, both near and far, who have shaped our world for the better.

THE PROBLEM WE ARE SOLVING

Young people today are inheriting a world shaped by the harms of excessive consumption and injustice, with 30% of UK children living below the poverty line (Joseph Rowntree Foundation, 2024), and only 7% of young people believing the Government will make the right decisions for their future (Young Minds, 2023). Against a backdrop of spiralling mental health decline, feelings of disempowerment are growing, as are levels of radicalisation across many axes, as young people seek answers on social media.

Despite their anger, passion, and readiness to create change, young people with lived experiences of injustice (LEoI) are often left unsupported, without the tools or networks they need to take action on the issues that affect them and their communities.

OUR WORK TO DATE:

Over 11 years at The Advocacy Academy (TAA) has reached over 15,000 young people. We have taken the slow road, building a deep understanding of what’s needed to achieve our vision for youth organising. That’s why we don’t speak on behalf of young people. Instead, we organise to shift power to young people furthest from it - especially those marginalised by race, class, disability, migration, gender or sexuality - across three axes:

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Together, we are nourishing the soil for the networks and movements young people will go on to build and win change - and doing it in a way that makes organising real, relevant and accessible to all young people in the UK, whether they grew up in a village in East Anglia, flats in Glasgow, or down the road from us in Brixton.

OUR VISION FOR A MORE FAIR JUST AN EQUAL WORLD

WHAT WE’VE CHANGED:

The Advocacy Academy envisions a world where young people, with lived experience of injustice (LEofI), use their collective power to shape a more fair, just and equal society.

OUR MISSION

WHAT WE’VE CHANGED:

We organise young people with LEofI to build their collective power to drive systemic change to address the most pressing issues of our time.

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PREVIOUS: Our mission is to champion a youth organising movement, where young people with LEofI, work across lines of difference, build their collective power to take action and drive systemic change in their communities and beyond.

Young people with lived experience of injustice are already taking action, not just for themselves, but for all of us. They are building campaigns, challenging broken systems, and leading their communities towards something better. This isn’t about potential, it’s about what’s already happening. Building young people’s capacity to organise is how we all win.

OUR STRATEGIC FRAMEWORK

We have a clear view of our destination. But with no precedent in the UK, we’re navigating through uncharted waters to reach it. When we started out, we had a sense of the guiding principles to achieve the change we wanted to seek. But we didn’t want to lead with hubris - ultimately we would have to learn along the way. There was no map or easily produced ten-point plan to follow - so instead, in 2020 we created Our Compass for Change to guide us. It kept us focused on the “known-knowns” of our work, giving us the freedom to iterate, experiment and get things wrong.

Achieving our vision and delivering on our mission requires investment in these four quadrants, and in our north star.

WHAT ARE OUR AIMS AND HOW ARE WE WORKING TOWARDS THESE?

We bring together both the tried and tested potential of community organising with the heart and soul of youth work and the strategic decision-making of civic leaders to build a youth organising movement that empowers young people with LEofI to make systemic change.

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OUR NORTH STAR

  1. Campaigning For Change: We build the power of our young people with LEofI to increase our collective ability to realise change.

  2. a. Build a nationwide movement of young people with the skills, knowledge and the confidence to win lasting change on issues that they care about, in coalition with individuals and institutions who share this vision for an empowered younger generation

SUPPORTING NAVIGATION

  1. Developing Young Leaders: Channel young people's anger about the world as it is today to envision a world for tomorrow and realise it today. Anger + Action = Hope.

  2. a. Support young people through organising, coaching, and youth work to lead campaigns which shake the nation, and build a more fair, just and equal society driven by young people’s vision for their future.

3. Organising The Community: Realise a vision for youth-led interg enerational community spaces.

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OUR PHASED APPROACH TO YOUTH ORGANISING

HOW WE’VE USED THE COMPASS TO NAVIGATE OURSELVES:

YEARS 2014 - 2020

Phase 1: Developing Leaders

To build the minimum scale for organising, investing in this initial activation point was necessary, but at a certain scale it is no longer sufficient. Increasing the number of young people entering our movement doesn’t help if they aren’t supported once they’re in!

YEARS 2020 - 2024

Phase 2: Organising the Community & Campaigning for Change

With enough numbers in membership, it is critical to invest in building institutional power with local (geographic, sector, values) communities, and to focus on our membership and campaigns. Focus here allows us to rapidly scale our national impact.

YEARS 2024 - ONWARDS

Phase 3: Activating new Allies and bringing it all together

At some point our impact and power will be limited unless we bring in new partnerships, allies, and expansions. This can come through online materials, hosting for non-membership groups, etc. expansion of our activation programmes.

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FINANCE AND FUNDRAISING

FINANCE REVIEW

New income secured for 2024-25 amounts to £1.076m, with a further £881k brought forward from 2023-24 (£363k restricted, £321k unrestricted, and £196k free reserves). This gives total available funds of £1.957m for 2024-25 (2023-24: £2,091,819), reflecting expected drawdowns on multi-year contracts.

We are deeply grateful to all those who continue to make our work possible, from major trusts and foundations to individuals, community partners, and small donors who give what they can to support young leaders building a fairer world. Every contribution matters.

Total expenditure for the year was £1,189,340 (2023-24: £1,406,609), reflecting continued investment in programme delivery and capacity building. The Senior Leadership Team and Board of Trustees continue to work closely to ensure that resources are allocated efficiently and that all financial decisions align with our strategic priorities.

At the end of the financial year, total funds stood at £768,945 (2023-24: £881,547), comprising:

This balanced financial position enables us to continue building youth power while planning confidently for the future.

Full details of our financial performance are presented in the Statement of Financial Activities.

Reserves Overview

TAA reviews its reserves policy at least annually to ensure that funds are sufficient to sustain operations, manage risk, and respond quickly to change.

At the end of FY2024-25, total charity funds were £768,945, of which £196,337 represent free reserves - equivalent to roughly three months of operating costs, which we consider an appropriate level for resilience and flexibility.

We also hold designated reserves of £38,466 (from multi-year unrestricted grants to be drawn down during 2025-26) and restricted reserves of £534,142 for specific funded programmes.

This reserves policy is reviewed annually as part of our budget and risk-management process to ensure reserves remain proportionate to our operational scale and risk exposure.

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FUNDRAISING REVIEW

Over the past year, we have continued to face the impact of rising costs which put pressure on our operational budget, as well as the funders and supporters we rely on. We continue to be grateful to all those who have made it possible for us to secure our income for this year. Of our total income, 94% ( £1,011,081 ) came from Trusts and Foundations, with 6% (£ 65,351 ) from corporate partners, individual donations and earned income.

Diversifying our income base remains a key focus. The Liberation Centre has opened new opportunities to connect with supporters and generate unrestricted income. This year we:

While diversification takes time, these steps are already strengthening our long-term sustainability. Every supporter - whether contributing £5 or £500,000 - plays a vital role in building a national movement of young people with lived experience of injustice.

We remain extremely grateful to all our donors for supporting this work. Your contributions ensure we can continue to lay the foundations for our work and build a more fair, just and equal world.

KEY RISKS AND UNCERTAINTIES

Increased political instability and growing national scrutiny

The last year has seen rising political instability, including the growing influence of parties like Reform UK and increased far-right activity across the UK. This has contributed to a more polarised political environment, where youth-led campaigns for justice and equality will likely face heightened scrutiny and backlash. As The Advocacy Academy scales and we step up onto the national stage, we will likely experience increased visibility in the media, which can expose our staff, Members and organisation to greater reputational and political risks.

To mitigate this, we will:

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Scale of growth and reputational risk

As we scale and our national visibility increases, so too does the complexity of our operational model, and the expectations that different stakeholders have of us. Developing a sustainable model of growth is critical and requires thoughtful investment in building a pipeline of diverse income sources, a clear strategy for recruiting talented staff particularly at senior levels, and a focus on structures, systems and process. As we grow and work with more varied stakeholders whether a funder, community champion, corporate ally or a TAA-hosted campaign we will also have to navigate new contexts, governance models and reputational considerations. Misalignment of interests could undermine our collective impact and create reputational or operational risk.

Additionally, our growth introduces new demands around reporting, safeguarding and compliance, with greater scrutiny from funders, regulators and the public.

To mitigate this, we are:

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PART ONE: WHAT WE ACHIEVED IN 2024-25

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STEERING OUR SHIP TOWARDS A MORE FAIR, JUST AND EQUAL FUTURE

STRENGTHENING OUR THEORY OF CHANGE

This year we took an important step in clarifying our Theory of Change, so that it better reflects our vision and mission. At The Advocacy Academy, we are committed to building power with young people and supporting them to turn their anger about injustice in the world into meaningful action.

Previously, our focus was centred on set programmes such as the Fellowship. While these gave young people valuable skills and confidence, they did not fully reflect the scale of our work, or the new possibilities that came with having The Liberation Centre - two-floor purpose-built space for young people and community partners.

Our new Theory of Change sets out a broader, more flexible model that strengthens our role as a youth organising movement. The key shifts are:

Alongside this shift, we are deliberately investing in stronger Monitoring, Evaluation, Accountability and Learning (MEAL) frameworks. This will enable us to capture, evidence, and share more effectively the impact of our members, their campaigns, and the work of our staff team.

BUILDING A VALUES-LED CULTURE

We believe that our culture should not be a fixed point but rather a set of values that will guide us as we reimagine our Movement. We have since updated these values internally to deliberately incorporate the values and standards we practice within our departments. We will be sharing them more widely within our next report.

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Our values within the timeframe of this report are:

We will be continuously working on how we evolve these into a set of behaviours, in areas including how we prioritise, line manage, address conflict, communicate, hold meetings, and how we take responsibility.

The journey - for ourselves as a Movement, and for our wider communities towards a more fair, just and equal society - has not been, and was never going to be, a smooth one. By acknowledging this and placing focus on how we can heal and keep going, we can feel confident in setting a course for change.

LOOKING AHEAD

We are well into our 2nd phase of growth with an eye on the third. Our campaigns are gaining momentum and visibility, the size of our membership growing steadily, and the power of our institution now tangible. TAA is now not only stabilised but also better aligned to deliver on our mission and see through our strategic framework. In the next three years, we must invest in critical infrastructure which enables us, prepares, and protects us for national visibility and widespread systemic impact. The key areas of investment are:

Campaigning and activism has its risks, but all risk is manageable with the right preparation and investment - and of course with no risk there is no reward!

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Below you will find our starting point for our three-year strategy. These represent critical areas of growth, in place of a comprehensive set of annual objectives.

Investing in our Governance, Finance, HR and Operations:

Over the next three years, the main thrust of our work will centre on five critical areas of growth. Our strategic plan is designed to prioritise the following key objectives:

Financial Stability and Control: We aim to continue strengthening the framework that supports the charity’s financial resilience and long-term security.

To achieve this, we will:

Governance: Our governance goals focus on ensuring effective oversight, addressing any skills gaps among trustees, and maintaining compliance with legal and regulatory requirements.

To support this, we will:

Proactive Risk Management: We are building on existing risk management practices to move toward a more proactive and integrated approach across the organisation.

To achieve, we will:

Supportive People Management: Our goal is to foster an environment where staff are supported, developed, and empowered to contribute fully to TAA’s mission.

We will:

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Investing in our Fundraising:

CAMPAIGNING FOR CHANGE

CAMPAIGNS & MEMBERSHIP DEPARTMENTAL STRATEGY UPDATE

During 2024-25, the campaigns department worked to shift the organisation towards wider member led organising through our hosted campaigns, the Member-led Governance (MLG) work and through the launch of an annual membership-wide institutional campaign - a project that builds on the work of MLG and staff support - with lots of success and learnings!

In addition to this, we’ve been further building our model of organising and campaigning education that works for the young people we work with, with trials set for autumn 2025 and building on a lot of what we’ve learned this year on organising education. In addition, we’ve been levelling up our skills internally too: we’ve worked on building a reflective practice around Organising & Campaigns, to improve and upskill in 1-1s, public action and tactics, collective reflection and leadership development.

This has been facilitated by hiring a new Director of Organising and Campaigns - Calum Green - in February 2025.

CAMPAIGN UPDATES: THE TAA COMMUNITY CAMPAIGN - LOST LESSONS

The Lost Lessons (LL) campaign (previously called the Decolonise the Curriculum campaign) has been developed since Summer 2024 and has grown our power, leaders and our campaigning muscle.

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The Structure Test:

In the summer of 2024, after a staff and member cohort of 14 people did the 6-week organising for power course, we devised our first structure test for developing our TAA-wide campaign. We will build on our learning from this approach with The Big Listen and Vote we apply next year, which will be multi-phase and sit collaboratively across the staff team and members.

Through the structure test (where we held a series of 121 conversations), we heard about our members' campaign priorities and deliberatively decided on housing, migration and decolonising the curriculum as the top 3 priorities.

The Structure Test achieved:

Developing the campaign:

We then proposed to the membership that the campaign is decolonising the curriculum and had a group of 34 people that wanted to take the campaign forward.

We started campaign meetings in early 2025, developing our community norms, structures, working processes and campaign strategy - now we have a core team of 20 people, with 72 people that contribute to the campaign, who have taken or been a part of Lost Lesson campaign actions.

In a LL campaign members’ words, “our team structure we condense it to three main groups; telling our stories, building our power and finessing our asks”.

The goals of the campaign

From Lost Lesson campaigners, “Our first goal is to embed race, migration and anti-racism into mandatory curriculum content across subjects, so learning diverse British history is not optional. Second is to demand mandatory racial literacy training for teachers. And finally we want the opportunity for young people to be active members of their community embedded into the curriculum, teaching how to organise locally on issues that matter to them.”

These current demands target the upcoming Curriculum and Assessment Review lead

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Professor Becky Francis and Bridgit Phillipson, the Secretary of State for Education.

Developing the strategy

This has been an ongoing process because as Ganz says, strategy is something you do!

By understanding the system and the target, by deciding their demands (as above!), and devising creative tactics, they’ve grown their power.

Strategic actions they’ve taken:

Looking ahead:

In summer 2025, our campaigners plan to organise a meeting with the Chair of the Education Select Committee, TAA Patron Helen Hayes to ask her to support the campaign demands and get the APPG on Race Equality in Education to write formally to the Curriculum and Assessment Review, to demand a fundamentally anti-racist curriculum.

CAMPAIGN UPDATES: UPDATING OUR ORGANISING EDUCATION OFFER

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CAMPAIGN UPDATES: HOST PROGRAMME

ABOUT THE HOST PROGRAMME:

HOST is the name of our campaign’s infrastructure offer for youth led campaigns. This means that we will act as the legal entity responsible for the campaign or project and provide support for groups to manage their money, develop effective systems to self organise and provide strategic and pastoral support as needed. We see this as an important piece of infrastructure currently missing in the youth campaigning space.

We’re currently working on a review of Host to make it the best it can be and launch it publicly so we’ll keep the board updated on this.

CURRENT HOSTED CAMPAIGNS:

Halo: The Halo campaign works to end hair discrimination. There are currently more than 1000 organisations who have signed up to the Halo code. HALO received £20K for three years to further develop their work. We’ve supported the Halo team and the Halo coordinator to:

SLLAF (The South London Latin American Forum) works to build community solidarity and collective action for and by the Latin American community, dismantling hostile environments and tackling the root cause of injustice to shift power ‘to our people’. Valentina secured over £20k of funding to continue SLLAF and she has worked hard to:

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SLLAF have used this energy to develop momentum and get several organisations to commit to a campaign to get ‘Latin American’ added as a category in the 2031 UK census.

Working towards a community event in October with the support of Brixton Bid and Lambeth council, aim to bring the Latinx and surrounding communities together as well as creating space for organisations to collaborate and further support each other on the journey to visibility.

Collective Punishment: This is a campaign being led by Jemmar Samuels to tackle the issues children and families of incarcerated people face when parents are imprisoned.

Jemmar has fundraised over £30k in total this year (with £20k from Paul Hamlyn plus generous support from Firebird, Synergy, the United Friends and Family Campaign, and AB Charitable trust) and has developed her organising practice to

MORE CAMPAIGNS & ACTIVIST PROJECTS AT TAA - Impact Wrap-Up

The VoicesProject is an anti-racist educational resource and community engagement project. As they say ‘using a decolonial framework we build critical, inclusive and anti-racist lessons for secondary school humanities subjects. We use oral histories/ geographies at the core of our project to learn from lived experiences and create resources that platform marginalised cultural voices.’

The mission of the VoicesProject is to:

  1. Promote learning which responds to structurally marginalised voices in society and classrooms

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  1. Facilitate critical conversations on power and societal structures suitable for KS2 to KS5 learners

  2. Give teachers agency and support to discuss sensitive topics like racism and colonialism

  3. Actively challenge colonial legacies in schools from teaching to curriculum

The VoicesProject in 2024-5 trialled hiring 3 YoungVoices to work on the project and inject current students’ ideas into the project. They fundraised £2000 from Heritage England and with the money, created a three-part zine collection exploring black feminist role models, global decolonial thinkers and Brixton Blue Plaque Activists. The launch party was a collaboration with The Black Curriculum, the Black Cultural Archives, and Nubian Jak, included a digital tour around Brixton exploring the rich histories of the area and the lives of Brixton’s Blue Plaque Activists.

Through being part of the project, the 3 Young Voices gained social media, negotiation, logistics, and base building experience.

The project is on hiatus currently however their resources can be found on their website, though they are transitioning from wix to wordpress as part of a commitment to freedom for Palestine.

Action for Palestine : Action for Palestine is collective of young people from TAA community who stand in solidarity and mobilise in unity with the people of Palestine in their ongoing struggle against genocide and apartheid, set up in November 2023.

They came together to organise action against those complicit in this ongoing suffering, organising a delegation to the Abolish BAE systems festival in Southwark, to an arms factory picket, and organising postering sessions targeting MPs across London, demanding they take action for Palestine. The campaign group went on pause in early 2025 due to capacity reasons.

Under the Umbrella: Under The Umbrella believes in equal access to healthcare for everyone.

Set up in 2022 fighting for the faster implementation of the Woman’s Health Strategy 2022 at a Lambeth Council level, presenting our idea to MPs in Parliament. While they were building relationships and a strategy around reducing Black maternal mortality rates, the campaign wrapped up due to a lack of capacity and momentum.

Queer Organising Forum

Queer Organising Forum came together for 6 months and trialled training sessions for membership to be in active solidarity with queer people. The group decided not to campaign together but we supported them to organise an event for trans day of remembrance.

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Overall learnings:

It is through our experiences in working with the above (brilliant!) groups that we learned that it would be a more effective use of capacity to focus energies on fewer organising fronts in order to have more impact!

MEMBERSHIP UPDATES: DEVELOPMENT AND SUPPORT

(Picture from our soon-to-be TAA members attending IGNITE)

MEMBER-LED GOVERNANCE: FOUNDATION BUILDING

The Member Led Governance (MLG) launched as a pilot this year. After a co-production foundational state, where the members designed a Youth

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Governance Structure for TAA, we are now putting this into practice.

The aim is to ensure that there are formalised ways within The Academy where young people can raise ideas, suggestions, concerns. For the members to have influence and impact over decisions and the strategy of the organisation and for the members to have the opportunities to create peer-led spaces. This is an attempt to create supportive systems that allow the Membership and TAA to thrive.

This project came from part of TAA’s commitment to routes for cyclical leadership + TAA listening to members who said they want more power, peer representation, transparency and understanding, and involvement in TAA’s strategy and decision making.

Please see here for all the information that they created for the pilot and the accessible version.

The MLG are now collaborating directly on the Big Listen and Vote, having decided this is the best way to build their relational power with the members and staff. They will also be leading on designing and delivering the democratic decision, which will inform what is the next TAA wide campaign.

CHALLENGES AND POTENTIAL RISKS

LOOKING AHEAD

Developing our Membership Model

Our membership model transformation began in early 2024, and we projected that it would take 18 months to transition across to it.

The previous iteration of the Fellowship used campaigning as a pedagogical tool that required Advocates to identify an individual interest to pursue from an early stage. What we’ve heard is that in practice, many young people feel under pressure to find a cause, and once they graduate from the Fellowship there is a lack of clearly defined staff support to help them continue. Then, when young people do not continue their campaign beyond the framework of the Fellowship, they can feel that they have ‘failed’.

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Responding to this, we are planning to move towards a membership model at TAA, repositioning the Fellowship as one of two entry points to the movement (the other being Spark).

In FY24/25 we aimed to boost our membership engagement by clearly communicating and integrating our membership model with pathways for involvement. These pathways include internal paid opportunities, activist employment support, and training programs, along with a focus on transitioning "Developing Leaders" participants into Campaign membership. We are also redesigning our internal governance structures to include member integration, piloting some initiatives currently.

Membership Engagement Goals

We are proud that currently around 67% of our members are considered “active”, meaning they are regularly engaging in our community and activities. Looking ahead, we want to build on this by deepening the level of engagement.

Once the work is completed, we envision a Movement that builds power as a youth organising movement, supported by our local partners and getting our wider communities behind our member campaigns so they can lead change on the most pressing issues of our times.

Extending Host

While we develop the Membership model, we are testing ways to support our young people’s campaigns in the immediate term. This year, we piloted ‘HOST’ with two of our campaigns, Halo and ChokedUp and we will be extending the HOST offer to all member-led campaigns and projects in the following years.

Our goal by the end of three years is to have standardised our campaign hosting framework, defined what campaigns can and cannot be hosted by TAA, have finalised the HOST agreement structure, while setting up beta infrastructure around automating financial and governance requirements, allowing for easy induction process. We also envision having M & E structures set up across all of the campaigns.

In three years’ time we aim to have the HOST framework matured and tested, with the infrastructure embedded and iterated. We aim to explore potential pilots around non-member campaign HOSTing, while having our around 15 hosted campaigns hosted

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through single-issue entry points, in contrast to our current general approach. By the end of these three years, we aim to have a better understanding of coalition campaigns, knowing when a campaign outgrows TAA, as well as having on hand a committee of legal, financial, comms, and reputational advisors to support TAA and the campaigns.

HOST will provide a range of support and benefits for groups seeking to make change. These include: fiscal hosting, technical support, strategic guidance & mentoring, startup funding, fundraising & budget support, media & press support, access to TAA’s wider networks and community relationships, free meeting and workspace, and HOST organiser training where we will deep-dive into campaigns management, skills development, press work and effective communications with masterclasses from social justice experts across the UK.

HOST groups will remain the ultimate decision makers about the direction of their campaign. Some groups may, in time, want to set up as established organisations in their own right, while others may not. We are committed to supporting groups to set up independently as and when this becomes appropriate for them.

DEVELOPING LEADERS WITH LIVED EXPERIENCE OF INJUSTICE

PROGRAMMES REIMAGINED: A NEW ERA

Over the past decade, the Programmes Team has been a key compass point of The Advocacy Academy, known best for delivering some of the UK’s most radical and impactful political education and leadership development programmes for young people, including our flagship Fellowship and SPARK. These were spaces where young people with lived experience sharpened their skillsets for organising and community building, developed their capacity for critical root cause analysis of social justice issues, built lifelong relationships, and launched powerful campaigns for justice. Critical to achieving our ambitions is the hire of a new Director of Programmes (and Teen Smith-Robinson joined us in late 2025).

Pre-2024: The Fellowship Era

From 2016–2023, the Fellowship, our flagship programme defined our approach to developing leaders: intensive, immersive, and highly curated social justice leadership development. It offered young people unparalleled access to political education, campaign skills building, and relationship building. We have graduated 200+ young people who continue to work within the movement, lead change, and hold power to account across the UK.

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Following the completion of the last Fellowship programme in 2024, the Head of Fellowship assessed the accessibility, sustainability and efficacy of the programme in meeting the organisation's strategic goals. The main takeaway was that the Fellowship (in its current design) could better support young people to build more sustainable campaigns. Coupled with the fact that the young people we work with are under more pressure than ever before - participants are 16-18 years old and doing their A Levels - we found the capacity to continue campaigning after the programme is taken up by revision and exams, and then the reintegration back into campaigning is more challenging.

From these learnings, we realised that we had to reimagine our programmatic offer in order to make sure that we were building the skills, tools and drive in young people to develop campaigns that are sustainable and winnable, alongside a consistent opportunity within the Membership to take action.

2024: Reimagining the Work

In 2024, we stepped back to ask bold questions: who gets access to our leadership programmes? Who is left out by the barriers our programmes uphold? What are the skills and tools that young people need to win campaigns? What kind of infrastructure do we need to grow and scale nationally?

This reimagining sparked a year of experimentation, testing new formats, shifting away from exclusivity, and deepening our work on lowering the barrier to access, inclusion, co-creation and quality of programming. We decided not to continue offering The Fellowship as a programme. We moved from programmes as standalone offerings to programmes as a launchpad for systems change and leadership development, integrated in all our community and young people facing work across the organisation.

This reimagining work alongside our 3 year programmatic strategy refocused the team’s deliverables, outputs and methods of working. We moved from delivering three core programmes to delivering:

An overview of main programmatic delivery offer:

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Inducted members have an opportunity to develop a 1:1 leadership development plan with a member of staff where they identify the skills they’d like to develop and we work with them to gain experience in these buckets.

2025: Streamlining the TAA Experience across the Organisation

In 2025, the Programmes Team began building infrastructure for programmatic delivery across the whole organisation. Rather than seeing programme delivery as a siloed function, we focused on embedding shared tools, principles, and experiences cross-departmentally.

Key developments include:

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This shift reflects the Programmes Team’s evolution: from holding a single arm of the work to becoming a backbone for the organisation’s growth, not just developing leaders, but developing the systems that develop leaders. As we look ahead, we’re focused on stewarding this new phase: modeling and maintaining quality of programming and youth work across the organisation, setting the standards of the signature TAA experiences we have become known for and ensuring our political education and community organising curriculum prepares young leaders to build power and achieve change in their communities.

OUTREACH: A MOVEMENT FOR ALL YOUNG PEOPLE

The Advocacy Academy has been known for its ability to speak to young people in a way that calls them to action: for many years, our recruitment process served us well enough to be able to populate our two core programmes with young people who are angry about injustice and want to do something about it. But we have always known that a more ambitious theory of change would require a significant shift in not only how we prepare young people for Membership through our programmes, but also how we find them in the first place.

In previous years, our recruitment process was almost entirely reliant on one brief burst of school engagement. The process that followed was selective, labour-intensive and unsustainable, as well as inaccessible and lengthy for young people; crucially, it would take an average of 8 months from a young person applying to tell us what they’re angry about to them actually being able to do something about their anger.

A New Outreach Strategy:

In January 2025, we launched a new outreach strategy, designed to support our theory of change and enable more young people from our local area to access opportunities for action.

In a short period of time, we built an outreach model to:

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This shift into a different kind of induction to the Movement has also allowed us to expand the age range for prospective Members from 16-19 to 14-24, with a view to creating a dedicated pathway for 25-30 year olds.

PROGRAMME SPOTLIGHT: JUST US!

For many years at The Advocacy Academy, it has been an ambition and priority to create an open access, free youth space for young people to gather, build community and begin their journey into organising, outside of the context of our formal programming. With the opening of the Liberation Center, we had the perfect opportunity to open our doors to all young people in South London.

In building our open access youth space, it was essential that this was built by and for young people in our community, and that it was co-designed and created by those who would be accessing the space. By giving ownership, agency and creative decision making opportunities to those who will use and access the space, it not only builds the power of young people in our communities, but provides essential leadership and development opportunities.

With this in mind, we recruited 8 Changemakers in November 2024 into the open access co-design spaces to begin imagining, designing and planning what would become ‘Just-Us’. Within these spaces, alongside Maddy Leftwich (Head of CMDP), we built the broader infrastructure for Just-Us. This included, the timings, the logistics, our programming, staffing, safety planning, and the cultural components that would make this space unmistakably a TAA community,

With those key decisions made, we opened our doors to all young people (14-24) across South London, in January 2025. We have been consistently running Just-Us every single Wednesday from 3pm - 7:30pm, with 2 Changemakers, Maddy and Isaiah. The purpose of Just-Us is two fold. Just-Us provides an open access youth space for young people to have somewhere to gather, build community and to decide on the sessions and programming that would be of interest to them. It enables young people who may not have otherwise been able to access our residential programmes to join our community, and it transfers power and builds the power of the group through providing consistent decision making

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opportunities. At the same time, Just-Us is in itself an outreach opportunity, as we have now seen every single regular attendee join our membership.

Since opening the doors in January, we have seen the following:

Each week, the young people who join us have intentional space to discuss political issues that they care about during our ‘News of the Week’ segment, whilst also having allocated time to make key decisions. Such decisions have included: content of programming (they collectively decided on weekly tutoring in the lead up to exams), cultural practices within the space, i.e. how to welcome new comers, deciding to plan a cultural community meal, wherein they all bring in dishes from their cultures, and more.

We are continuing to welcome new young people every week, and those who are our regulars have taken on a real sense of ownership and belonging of the space, with one member describing it as ‘their second home’, and another sharing ‘there’s nowhere else where we get to make decisions like this’. As we look forward to the year ahead, we hope to welcome more young people to Just-Us and in time, to our membership. We will continue to build in partnership programmes, tutoring, employability sessions, and provide an accessible, free open access space for young people across South London to build community and build their power.

OUR FIRST IGNITE PROGRAMME:

(Photo from our first Ignite celebration and certificate ceremony!)

In Spring 2025, we held an Ignite induction that enabled prospective Members to become a part of TAA’s Membership - this resulted in:

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What is the impact of Ignite?

With an ambitious strategy for FY 25/26 that includes four Ignite programmes, we hope to induct 50 new Members and steward them on journeys into a powerful Movement of young people with the skills, knowledge and the confidence to win lasting change.

INVESTING IN CYCLICAL LEADERSHIP: THE CHANGEMAKER DEVELOPMENT PROGRAMME (CMDP)

Overview

The Changemaker Development Programme (CMDP) is a leadership development training programme, which recruits and trains graduates of our programmes, to be able to deliver our programmatic offers to future cohorts. Changemakers are trained over 6 months, and roughly 145 hours in youth work and facilitation skills. Split across 8 ‘hats’ or skill areas, ranging from pastoral care to group dynamics and educator, the programme focuses on the skills, leadership styles and approaches to doing youth work and facilitating complex social justice content. At the heart of the programme is the principle of cyclical leadership wherein Changemakers have the opportunity to deliver the same programmes they were participants on, and inversely, participants are being led by those who have experiential knowledge of these programmes.

24/25

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Whilst this current CMDP model has worked well, aligning closely with our strategic aims, and consistently retaining strong numbers, several challenges have emerged. Crucially, the decision to step back from our current programmatic offer and reimagine the Fellowship, meant that there was a significant reduction in the availability of placement opportunities for Changemakers.

Additionally, financial sustainability and high staff capacity remained key issues. The absence of a structured exit point for experienced, returning Changemakers and high-cost residential delivery meant that we needed to reimagine the methods of training, and also the available placements.

What happened:

Outcomes:

Participant Feedback Summary:

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We have learnt through several iterations and delivery cycles of CMDP, that the cyclical leadership offer for members is a driving force in building engagement, leadership development opportunities, and employability pathways for our membership. As such, the upcoming year will focus on broadening and building out our placement offers for Changemakers, and exploring partnership placement opportunities that both meet our strategic aims as an organisation, and create ongoing leadership development opportunities for returning Changemakers.

LOOKING AHEAD: OUR SAFEGUARDING ROADMAP

We are continuing to strengthen our safeguarding practice with a two-year strategy that builds on our efforts from last year. This action plan consists of six strands:

  1. Strengthening our governance and accountability processes

  2. Improving case management, data storage and GDPR practices

  3. Further improving safer recruitment practices

  4. Rewriting our safeguarding policy to reflect our justice-informed and holistic safeguarding practice

  5. Expanding our training offer and increasing staff confidence

  6. Further improving communication, transparency

Mid-way through our implementation timeline, we have established effective and consistent processes for ensuring strong residential safeguarding practice, including a safeguarding checklist with detailed guidance and standardised risk assessments. We have also standardised our Trustee induction process and are offering more support for Trustees to align with our justice-informed approach to safeguarding. The appointment of Mark Straw to the role of Lead Trustee for Safeguarding has strengthened the Safeguarding team’s capacity to further pursue this strategy into the upcoming year. We have further integrated safeguarding into our HR work and standardised induction. We recently conducted a needs survey with three departments, which will complement the existing strategy, and we are also integrating the support needs of hosted campaigns into this strategy.

We still aim to use these stronger foundations to develop a more comprehensive, long-term safeguarding, well-being, and pastoral care initiative through a justice lens. This perspective will continue to guide our ongoing efforts in creating a supportive and

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equitable environment for young people, aligned with our core mission. These endeavours underscore our commitment to ensuring safeguarding and pastoral care throughout the journey that our members and alumni take with us.

ORGANISING OUR COMMUNITY

2024/2025: A YEAR OF NEW BEGINNINGS

An old saying goes - there are decades where nothing happens; and there are weeks where decades happen. Last year was one of those for The Advocacy Academy, a year so full with activity it feels impossible to summarise.

In early 2024, we said goodbye to Vining Street (lovingly referred to as either The Campus or The Community Hub) and spent a few months as South London nomads while our new headquarters, The Liberation Centre, was in the works. We entered the building in August 2024, had an opening party in October 2024 - and hit the ground running immediately. In the following months, we started two programmes, opened up for bookings, and set out to make the space as accessible and cosy as it can be.

(Photos from our Opening Night in October 2024 and from the Summer Gathering in August 2024. Make note of just how empty the space was!)

Team-wise, there was a lot of change too. In the summer of 2024, we said goodbye to Vanessa Castro, our Community Organiser since 2021, and welcomed two and a half new members to the Community Team. Betty Mayo, our brilliant alum turned staffer, joined as our brand new Lead Community Organiser in May 2024. Betty has been a driving force behind our intergenerational work over the 2024, and has worked wonders in building a

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new programme while getting our community work off the ground. Maddy Leftwich, our amazing Head of the Changemaker Programme, joined the team on a part-time secondment to help us build our open access practice - now lovingly known as Just-Us. And finally, we recruited Isaiah Springer as our brand new Community Organiser in November 2024. Isaiah co-facilitates our open access work and also helps organise our beautiful new building.

Hiba Ahmad, our Community Director since 2022, together with the team we worked up a new Community strategy which combines youth-led intergenerational organising, radical place-building at The Liberation Centre, and careful process-building which we are calling ‘blueprinting the work’ to create a new Community Department where autonomous, youth-led community work is at the heart of the work.

SPOTLIGHT: THE LIBERATION CENTRE IN NUMBERS

(As of 31/07/2025)

The dream for The Liberation Centre is that it becomes a home for youth organising in the UK. Recognised as an accessible, values-led space - groups from across London are already beginning to use The Liberation Centre to host many of their organising moments, big and small.

We started our first step in this journey in October 2024, when we opened The Liberation Centre for bookings. It was in no real state for bookings, we had barely moved in ourselves but, the community made it very clear that the space did not have to look like much, it just had to be warm, accessible and affordable.

So far, we have only soft-launched The Liberation Centre as a hirable venue across our social media (through a monthly calendar event post on Instagram, and in our community newsletter) and on our website (connected to the microsite we developed last year), and so we were expecting a slow and intimate year of community groups that already knew and trusted us. Thus, we have been blown away by the demand and subsequent usage of the space. It is a real demonstration of just how much of our third spaces have been reduced, we cannot meet in public without buying a coffee or sharing space with half of the local community (which is joyful but not always practical when needing to hold a conference, a report launch, or healing spaces). It is also a testament to the culture of the space - it has been a joy hearing peoples’ reactions to the space as feeling like ‘home’ and ‘safe’ and knowing that groups mostly hear about us by word-of-mouth and our Instagram page.

We have continued our solidarity scale payment system - asking those that can afford to pay for the use of the space, to do so generously so that groups that are un-funded can use the space for free.

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(The Politics Project leading a session on votes at 16 with young people in The Liberation Centre)

Since October 2024 we have hosted:

(Left: The Umoja Project presenting a community event centred on Black British identity. Right: A community film screening fundraising for mutual aid groups in Palestine)

These groups have used the space to:

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From October 2024 to March 2025, we have raised a total of £8,059 through booking fees and have welcomed a total of 1989 visitors through The Liberation Centre’s doors, with 816 being under 30.

We have broken this down month on month in the graphs below:

The Liberation Centre has a projected income of £20,000 by October 2025, blowing our initial prediction of £4000 in the first year out of the water and proving the potential to be self-sustaining for the next couple of years.

DEVELOPING COMMUNITY SAFETY

Community safety work continues to be at the heart of our work and approach to space-making. Last year, the Community Team and the Operations lead embarked on an extensive training on community safety principles run by our wonderful allies Vision Change Win from across the pond. For 9 months, we got to know some amazing

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organisers and campaigners from all over North America, and learned about community safety principles from inspiring, knowledgeable movement leaders.

We also created the first iteration of our housekeeping and safety rules at The Liberation Centre, many of which will be key to our safety work further down the line.

Externally, we have been working on a partnership with Citizens UK and local Brixton-based peace-keeping charity CHIPs on community safety - and in the summer of 2025 we hope to start holding regular space for thinking, dreaming, and organising on all things community safety.

The coming year will see us move to work more closely with Brixton’s many wonderful market traders who are key to achieving a more sustainable approach to community safety. We will also be developing our approach to community safety with the membership through a series of open conversations in autumn/winter 2025/26 and activities with potential partners in South London.

PROGRAMME SPOTLIGHT: HOW TO MAKE CHANGE

In November 2024, we had the extreme pleasure of launching our first intergenerational community organising programme in partnership with InCommon. It was made possible by Vanessa and Serena from InCommon, after a conversation on their Civic Futures Fellowship around combining our community organising training with their intergenerational practise to pilot intergenerational organising spaces at The Advocacy Academy. Vanessa and Sarena secured eight thousand pounds from the Civic Futures Fellowship to deliver the programme and with that we were off.

Betty took the lead on the content design and delivery after Vanessa moved on but it has been an intra-departmental effort with Isaiah supporting logistics and Hiba leading on facilitation in a few of the sessions.

The programme started in November with two taster sessions to garner interest and sessions have run every month since on the second Tuesday of the month from 5-8pm. It is important to us that we are able to start the sessions with as many of our needs met as possible so we kick off with a delicious meal and then launch into workshops. Over the ten months we have covered power, positionality, what community organising is, self-interest, 121s, starting a campaign, conflict and resolution and holding good meetings.

We have had around fifty individuals attend the workshops, with a consistent attendance of around twenty-one people. Around forty percent of the attendees are under thirty, with our youngest attendee being eight years old and the oldest eighty-seven. There is also a real mix of community organising experience in the room, some of the attendees are organising moguls, having organised in Brixton for much of their lives and others would have never called themselves organisers.

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The workshops are very joyful spaces - attendees have called the programme ‘the best community they have ever been a part of’ and frequently comment on how warm and engaging sessions are. We have managed to move through and beyond the predictable dynamics of elders taking up more space and young people hesitating to lead by having a fruitful discussion as a group. A group from HTMC will be supporting us with our listening campaign, The Big Listen, later on in the year by running a listening stall at our Summer Market, and putting their new 121 skills to use.

There have been many learnings in how we push for more youth leadership and action through How to Make Change which we are excited to take through to the next iteration in November 2025.

(Some photos of HTMC members, ranging from 8-87 years old)

CHALLENGES AND POTENTIAL RISKS

While the move to The Liberation Centre has been a resounding success in helping us meet our mission, amplify our impact, and realise our dreams - it has not been without challenges! Soaring construction costs, paired with a dwindling desire to invest in capital building projects across the sector, has meant the work to finalise our space has been agonisingly slow. We furnished the space slowly, with the amazing Farah Elemara of the Development Team pulling miraculous feats by sourcing furniture from different commercial partners. We have also had to pause building much-needed extra rooms in the space to mitigate cash flow, meaning our space has been more open plan than what is advisable for a truly accessible workspace.

We are working hard to rectify this and to build out additional space in autumn 2025, but balancing rising operational costs with a consistent cash flow remains a challenge to be tackled by the Community and Finance and Operations Director.

LOOKING AHEAD: WHAT'S IN STORE

The next year will see us moving to deliberately and intentionally start handing more operational and programmatic responsibility to our membership.

This could look like:

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ACTIVATING NEW ALLIES

Frankie, former Head of Fellowship, transitioned into a Head of Partnerships role to operationalise the Activating New Allies arm of the strategy. In early 2025, we said our warm goodbyes to Shoomi Chowdhury, and we will be hiring a new Director of Programmes & Partnerships, to steer our partnerships approach in this arm of the strategy.

There has been a lot of work done to define our partnership strategy, the development of a cost calculator to accurately cost our programmes for income generation, and development of a Partnership Curriculum, including Funder+ models.

Most excitingly, with the opening of The Liberation Centre, we are making great strides towards realising our national strategy. We have an appetite to build on this pivotal point of progress and are looking to work with more organisations nationally on housing, migration & gender.

Frankie will spend 2025 delivering training for numerous partnerships, including the EY Foundation, National Youth Agency and Children in Need, with RSPB and more in the pipeline. These partnerships are designed to advance our goals for FY 25/26 showcasing our compelling case for a national strategy through concrete case studies and impactful collaborations.

MEASURING OUR IMPACT THIS YEAR

We take impact evaluation at The Advocacy Academy extremely seriously and are continuously

assessing our impact-measurement process to draw on what we learn, compare them against our KPIs, and improve our programming for the next cohort of young people. We evaluate our success through three lenses: the impact of our pedagogy; the strength of our community; and the lasting change we create in the world.

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The impact of our pedagogy:

We want each young person to join as members and learn the skills and networks to become passionate and effective leaders. Each of our activities work together to bring about our 65 learning outcomes which sit across five categories: knowledge and insight, skills, character, networks and access, and active citizenship. We use pre- and postprogramme impact surveys, alongside one-to-one feedback sessions to monitor individual progress and allow for self-evaluation.

The strength of our community:

Fostering community and building networks is critical to achieving change. The more members, the bigger and stronger our movement. Each cohort learns and grows together and is encouraged to guide and inspire future generations. We track data on the number of participants at our alumni events, and on those who re-join the programme to become Changemakers.

Lasting change in the world:

We track the real world impact our members deliver during and after their time with us. We are beginning to see the ripples of change our members and alumni are creating, however, we currently don’t hold KPIs for this area. More info on our member’s campaigns can be found earlier in the document.

LOOKING AHEAD

Over the past eleven years, we have gained a strong and passionate supporter base who want to follow our young people’s campaigns and turn out for their actions, because they share our belief that the future is not fixed and that young people, working together, can shape it for the better. We also know there are other movements like ours across the UK who can benefit from our learnings (warts and all!), for whom we want to share our thought leadership in the field of youth organising.

For us to genuinely build the power of young people we need to foster an ecosystem that can sustain itself and nourish us in return. As we move into our third phase of growth this area becomes ever more important. For the time being our priorities will be across three areas:

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training content distribution methods, such as piloting online courses for trainers and creating how-to guides for young activists.

By achieving these strategic milestones, we will build a robust network of allies and supporters to advance our mission over the next three years.

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GOVERNANCE AND TEAM

OUR CURRENT STAFF

Saba Shafi Managing Director, CEO

Saba has an MBA from Wharton and eight years of management consultancy experience. She kicked off her career leading healthcare initiatives in refugee camps and diversity and inclusion programmes in graduate schools in the US. Saba is passionate about growing The Advocacy Academy.

Toyin Onasanya, Director of Finance and Resources

Toyin is the Finance and Resources Director and is responsible for leading TAA’s Finance and Resources Strategy. She holds a CIMA qualification and has 15 years of experience in leading the finance and operations functions within non-profit organisations. Her previous roles include positions at The Children’s Society, Arthritis Care, the Microbiology Society, and the Nuffield Foundation (Ada Lovelace Institute), where she also led the institute-wide anti-oppression initiative.

Benjamin Linsley, Director of Development - until early 2025

Benjamin has 25 years of experience in fundraising, business development and public policy, working across the commercial and charity sectors both in the UK and United States. With several decades of activism experience in the Labour Party, including working as a Labour Councillor in the London Borough of Hackney, and in New York, where he helped grow the Center for Popular Democracy into the largest progressive community organising network in the US.

Shoomi Chowdhury Director of Programmes - until early 2025

Shoomi has extensive experience leading transformative programmes, joining us after seven years in human rights education at Amnesty UK and anti-oppression programmes in the arts and cultural sector. She has a track record of getting things done whilst centring the lived experience of people and communities impacted by oppressive structures.

Hiba Ahmad Director of Community

A Human Geography graduate & enthusiast, Hiba is passionate about building fair cities and creating lasting, inclusive spaces that bring people together. As a researcher she has focused on just transitions across the globe and as a campaigner and organiser she works in critical pedagogy, liberation work, anti-gentrification, and climate justice.

Lydia Rye, Director of Campaigns and Membership - until April 2024

Lydia was previously the Senior Organiser Citizens UK, Grantee Influencing Support Lloyds Bank Foundation.

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Calum Green, Director of Organising and Campaigns - joined early 2025

Calum has 15 years of organising, campaign and leadership experience. In his previous role, he was Director of Advocacy and Communications of Involve, having been CEO of London Community Land Trust and a Senior Organiser at Citizens UK before then. He’s been involved with The Advocacy Academy (TAA) for many years, having led the Community Land Trust campaign locally with members JP and Costa. He joined TAA as a Trustee in 2023, and stepped down in 2024 to take up this exciting new role.

Teean Smith-Robinson, Director of Programmes and Partnerships

Teean experience spans programme design and delivery, capacity building, impact measurement, and cross-sector partnerships grounded in equity, care, and community-led change. Over the past decade, Teen has led and supported a wide range of youth programmes across London, collaborating with grassroots organisations, local government, and national charities.

Imane Maghrani, Associate Director Spark Programmes

Imane is a social justice educator and youth programmer who runs The Advocacy Academy’s Spark programmes. She’s worked across sectors specialising in programme design and delivery, youth empowerment and social justice learning, and is most excited by reimagining education and embedding social justice in youth spaces.

Princess Ashilokun, Associate Director of Communications

With a three-year background in student campaigning, Princess has built her knowledge of strategic communications and brand strategy over the past working on global and grassroots projects within and across traditional advertising agencies, digital-first organisations and the non-profit sector . Her knowledge of strategic communications and with governments, civil society, foundations, academia, and NGOs, using social behaviour change communications (SBCC) to positively influence social impact, development and sustainability policies, and behaviour. With a background in student campaigning.

Darcey Williamson, Head of Membership Governance

Darcey is a youth worker and informal educator whose practice is informed by a radical youth work paradigm. She employs critical education methods and participatory action research, working with others to co-create projects that challenge epistemic and social injustices. Darcey leads our Younger Changemaker Apprenticeship programme, training and supporting our Alumni community to develop their leadership practice and social justice education methods to become Changemakers, who are central to our movement.

Frankie Garnons Williams, Head of Partnerships

Frankie has over eight years of experience working with young people and campaigners of all ages, designing and delivering transformative workshops and training across the UK, Canada and the USA.

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Maddy Leftwich, Head of Changemaker Development

Maddy has nearly a decade of experience in mentoring, facilitating and support work, and has worked for several years in community arts and through-the-gate support roles, within prisons and post-release settings, as well as alternative educational contexts with young people

Ivie Itoje, Head of Member Development and Support - until mid 2024

Ivie is committed to promoting radical self-acceptance and joyful communities. Outside of her part-time work with The Advocacy Academy, she runs The Body Respect Project. These intersectional workshops support students in fostering positive body image and increased self-esteem as a collective. She has also worked as an Anti-Racism Expert for Flair, and Legal Advisor for the London Black Women’s Project.

Dola Akinniranye, Head of People

Dola is a HR professional with about 7 years of experience in generalist HR. She has worked across various sectors like education, charity, management consulting, health care and real estate. Dola has an MA in Human Resources and is currently doing a PHD on “the effect of culture on employees’ workplace decision making and behaviour”.

Amarah Khan, Operations Lead (until May 2025)

Amarah has a master’s degree in environmental psychology. Starting her career in qualitative research, she uses evidence and insight to create fairer spaces. She is passionate about creating social and physical spaces that dare to have chutzpah and be unapologetically beautiful.

Betty Mayo, Community Engagement Lead (until mid 2024), currently Lead Community Organiser

Initially an alumni of The Advocacy Academy Class of 2017, Betty has organised campaigns such as Influencers and Education Not Exclusion and was heavily involved in the documentary Excluded. She was President of Feminists’ Society at Nottingham where she studied Politics and IR and is currently part of the Involving Young People Collective for Esmée Fairbairn. She has been a core part of the Community team over the years.

Farah Elemara, Partnership and Events Lead

My background is in education, having trained and qualified with TeachFirst in 2016. I went on to teach secondary school Mathematics in the UK and Turkey for six years before leaving mainstream teaching, dreaming of a more inspiring and fairer kind of learning environment for young people. I then pursued third sector work in Istanbul, and later anti-racism facilitation and resource development with Intersect Madrid. I also work with Isla Foundation where I’ve had the opportunity to support and offer grants to creative education-focussed social impact projects. I’ve joined the development team at TAA whilst completing my part-time MA in Social Justice and Education at UCL.

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Naran Singh Bahra (he/him), Data and Prospect Lead, September 2023 - April 2024

Simultaneous to completing his Master’s degree in International Relations at the University of Nottingham, Naran gained extensive experience in funding and development within the charity sector. This included prospect researching, proposal writing, managing a bid writing team and also developing new organisational programmes and income strategies. Before joining the Advocacy Academy, he worked for a number of charities that supported disadvantaged youth and disabled people.

Faiza Ameer, People Lead, November 2023 - until April 2024

I am a HR professional with a decade of experience in Recruitment & Selection along with other HR functions. I have been part of Healthcare and Information Technology Industries throughout my career. I have a master degree in Project Management. I am passionate about bringing a change in our society that creates a safe haven for all.

Vanessa Castro, Community Organiser - until November 2024

Vanessa graduated from TAA in 2016 and then completed a BA in Politics and International Relations. As a Changemaker she has participated in many fun, radical campaign actions whilst empowering and supporting young Advocates. She is co-organiser of Latinxcluded, a collective that fights for the representation of the Latinx community in the UK.

Ella Asheri, Programmes Administrator - until April 2024

After being part of anti-racist activist spaces at university, I was elected as Undergraduate Education Officer at Sussex Students’ Union. In this role, I co-created a pilot programme for students and staff to collaboratively redesign their curriculum, informed by feminist, decolonial and critical pedagogy.I have a Master’s in Cultural Studies, where I wrote about liberatory education, feeling and abolition. I did this alongside working at Goldsmiths College as an Alumni Relations Assistant, supporting communications, events and fundraising.

OUR CURRENT PATRON AND TRUSTEES

PATRON Helen Hayes MP

Helen has been Patron of The Advocacy Academy since before she was elected as Labour MP for Dulwich and West Norwood! She is a staunch affordable housing advocate in Parliament, where she sits on the Communities and Local Government Select Committee.

CHAIR Daniel Taylor MBE

Daniel Taylor is the Founder and CEO of MDC Group, a highly respected design agency with a reputation for designing and building bespoke interiors for public and private sector clients. Daniel is a founding trustee for the Creative & Cultural Skills Council, a Fellow of the RSA, a trustee for the Aleto Foundation and Ambassador for the Black Health Collaborative Organisation.

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TREASURER: Thishani Nadesan COO | Cleo AI - March 2025

Thish’s start-up Cleo AI works to radically improve our relationship with money. She is a passionate believer that business and tech can be a force for positive social and economic change and brings board experience in business strategy and scaling companies.

Abimbola Wingate-Saul Barrister | 25 Bedford Row Chambers - June 2025

Alongside her professional work and trusteeship of Advocacy, Abimbola is currently Chair of the Independent Scrutiny and Oversight Board on the Police Plan of Action on Inclusion and Race. She is also a founder and co-host of The Manifesto Read Podcast which breaks down the manifesto pledges of the big three parties.

Michelle King Director of Transformation | Allvue Systems

Having spent over 20 years in Finance, Michelle setup Silent Way Partners to promote economic opportunity based on merit, not on race, gender, or class. She went on to create the Silent Way Foundation to promote equality of opportunity for marginalised communities and invest in minority women founders, before moving to Allvue Systems.

SAFEGUARDING Mark Christopher Straw

Mark’s background of 25 years is in Youth and Community work, an expert in Informal Learning and Critical Theory. Mark graduated from Canterbury Christ Church University and builds his practice through a method of Praxis…. a commitment to supporting people to name their world, recognising the need for enquiry and equity to underpin all work to develop trust and meaning to the work. Mark works locally, regionally, nationally and internationally where he presents himself as the nexus between frontline practitioner and strategist. Mark has worked across the statutory, voluntary and the social enterprise sector.

TRUSTEE Jack Van Cooten, Research Team Manager at Management Consultancy Oliver Wyman, specialising in technology.

He is also currently undertaking a master’s at Oxford University in Social Science of the Internet. Jack truly believes that empowering young people and reducing inequality are the best ways that we can improve our society.

TRUSTEE Calum Green, Director of Advocacy & Communications, Involve - until Nov 2024

As Director of Advocacy & Communications at Involve, he builds political and public support for ensuring people from all walks of life are part of decisions that affect their lives. Before this, he was Chief Executive of London CLT and a Senior Organiser at Citizens UK. Calum brings 15 years' experience in organising, campaigns, strategy and governance.

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GOVERNANCE

Governing Documents

The Advocacy Academy operates as a registered Charitable Incorporated Organisation (CIO). It is governed by a constitution, which was passed, and last amended, on 1 January 2015. The official charity registration number is 1161785. The Advocacy Academy does not formally use any name other than its registered name.

Charitable Objects

Advance the education of the public, particularly but not exclusively people under the age of 25, in such ways as the charity trustees think fit, including but not limited to in the subject of politics.

To develop the skills, capacities, and capabilities of young people in such a way that they are better able to identify and help meet their needs and enable them to participate in society as mature and responsible adults.

Key Activities

We train young people to engage in collective action to improve their communities and tackle social issues which directly affect them.

Public Benefits Disclosure

The Trustees have given due consideration to the Charity Commission’s published guidance on the Public Benefit Requirement under the Charities Act 2011.

Founded

20 February 2014: The United Nations World Day of Social Justice

Registered

21 May 2015

Trustees

Abimbola Wingate-Saul (May 2021 to June 2025) Daniel Taylor MBE FRSA, CHAIR (Jul 2022 to present) Michelle King (May 2020 to present) Thish Nadesan (Dec 2018 to March 2025) Mark Christopher Straw (16/01/23 - present) Jack Van Cooten (16/01/23 - present) Calum David Green (1/09/23 - Nov 2024)

The Trustees have ultimate responsibility for The Advocacy Academy, work to ensure good governance, sign off on the overall strategic direction and are the highest decision-making body. The Board works with the executive team (see staff bios in the previous section) which is responsible for the day-to-day running of the charity. Trustees maintain a good working knowledge of charity law and best practice.

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The Board has the power to appoint Trustees as it considers appropriate, with particular reference to enriching skills and increasing representation from communities reflected in our Alumni community. There are informal procedures in place for their induction. New Trustees are provided with one year’s worth of Board minutes, financial reports, and TAA constitution.

The Board meets quarterly to review TAA’s fundraising, financial performance, opportunities, and to monitor any significant issues affecting the charity’s work. Four full Board meetings took place in FY25. In addition to these, the Chair of the Board and the Chief Executive meet regularly between Board meetings. We have also established a Finance and Risk Committee, where the Treasurer and Director of Finance meet quarterly to monitor financial performance in detail.

Risk Management

A comprehensive risk framework is in place. Trustees review the major risks to the organisation on a quarterly basis during Board meetings. Systems are established to monitor and control identified risks, mitigating the impact they may have on the charity. The Senior Leadership Team reviews both operational and strategic risks on an ongoing basis, ensuring they are standing agenda items in their weekly meetings. This process ensures that current and emerging risks are regularly considered and, if necessary, escalated to the Board.

Pay & Remuneration

Employee salaries are set at a specific scale and level which is reflective of similar organisations pay. An incremental rise is considered every April following the completion of TAA financial health. Any substantial changes to remuneration are approved by the board as part of the annual budget setting.

Registered Office

Unit 1, 2 Beehive Place, London, SW9 7QR.

Bank

HSBC, 421 Brixton Rd, London SW9 8HE RBS, London Cavendish Square, W1M 0BD

Auditors

Knox Cropper Chartered Accountant, 65 LeaderHall Street, London EC3A 2AD

Pro Bono Solicitors

Allen & Overy, One Bishops Square, London E1 6AD

Socials

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The Trustees have read and reviewed the State Of The Movement Report, and approved it at the Board meeting 17 October 2025.

Statement of Trustees Responsibilities

The trustees are responsible for preparing the trustees' report and the accounts in accordance with applicable law and United Kingdom Accounting Standards (United Kingdom Generally Accepted Accounting Practice). The law applicable to charities in England and Wales requires the trustees to prepare accounts for each financial year which give a true and fair view of the state of affairs of the Charity and of the income and expenditure of the Charity for that period. In preparing these accounts, the trustees are required to:

The trustees are responsible for keeping accounting records that disclose with reasonable accuracy at any time the financial position of the Charity and enable them to ensure that the accounts comply with the Charities Act 2011, the applicable Charity (Accounts and Reports) Regulations 2008 and the provisions of the governing document. They are also responsible for safeguarding the assets of the Charity and hence for taking reasonable steps for the prevention and detection of fraud and other irregularities.

The trustees are responsible for the maintenance and integrity of the corporate and financial information included on the Charity’s website. Legislation in the United Kingdom governing the preparation and dissemination of financial statements may differ from legislation in other jurisdictions.

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In so far as the Trustees are aware

This report was approved and authorised for issue by the Board of Trustees and signed on its behalf by:

Name: Daniel Taylor

Role: Chair, Board of Trustees

Signature:

Date 05/12/2025

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PART THREE: AUDITOR’S OPINION

& ACCOUNTS

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Independent Auditors' Report to the Trustees of The Advocacy Academy For the year ended 31 March 2025

Opinion

We have audited the financial statements of Advocacy Academy (the ‘charity’) for the year ended 31 March 2025 which comprise the Statement of Financial Activities, the Balance Sheet, Statement of Cash Flows and notes to the financial statements, including a summary of significant accounting policies. The financial reporting framework that has been applied in their preparation is applicable law and United Kingdom Accounting Standards, including Financial Reporting Standard 102 The Financial Reporting Standard applicable in the UK and Republic of Ireland (United Kingdom Generally Accepted Accounting Practice).

In our opinion the financial statements:

Basis for opinion

We conducted our audit in accordance with International Standards on Auditing (UK) (ISAs (UK)) and applicable law. Our responsibilities under those standards are further described in the Auditor’s responsibilities for the audit of the financial statements section of our report. We are independent of the charity in accordance with the ethical requirements that are relevant to our audit of the financial statements in the UK, including the FRC’s Ethical Standard, and we have fulfilled our other ethical responsibilities in accordance with these requirements. We believe that the audit evidence we have obtained is sufficient and appropriate to provide a basis for our opinion.

Conclusions relating to going concern

In auditing the financial statements, we have concluded that the trustees’ use of the going concern basis of accounting in the preparation of the financial statements is appropriate.

Based on the work we have performed, we have not identified any material uncertainties relating to events or conditions that, individually or collectively, may cast significant doubt on the charity’s ability to continue as a going concern for a period of at least twelve months from when the financial statements are authorised for issue.

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Our responsibilities and the responsibilities of the trustees with respect to going concern are described in the relevant sections of this report.

Other information

The trustees are responsible for the other information. The other information comprises the information included in the trustees’ report, other than the financial statements and our auditor’s report thereon. Our opinion on the financial statements does not cover the other information and, except to the extent otherwise explicitly stated in our report, we do not express any form of assurance conclusion thereon.

In connection with our audit of the financial statements, our responsibility is to read the other information and, in doing so, consider whether the other information is materially inconsistent with the financial statements or our knowledge obtained in the audit or otherwise appears to be materially misstated. If we identify such material inconsistencies or apparent material misstatements, we are required to determine whether there is a material misstatement in the financial statements or a material misstatement of the other information. If, based on the work we have performed, we conclude that there is a material misstatement of this other information, we are required to report that fact.

We have nothing to report in this regard.

Matters on which we are required to report by exception

We have nothing to report in respect of the following matters in relation to which the Charities (Accounts and Reports) Regulations 2008 require us to report to you if, in our opinion:

Responsibilities of trustees

As explained more fully in the trustees’ responsibilities statement in trustees’ report, the trustees are responsible for the preparation of financial statements which give a true and fair view, and for such internal control as the trustees determine is necessary to enable the preparation of financial statements that are free from material misstatement, whether due to fraud or error.

In preparing the financial statements, the trustees are responsible for assessing the charity’s ability to continue as a going concern, disclosing, as applicable, matters related to going concern and using the going concern basis of accounting unless the trustees either intend to liquidate the charity or to cease operations, or have no realistic alternative but to do so.

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Auditor’s responsibilities for the audit of the financial statements

We have been appointed as auditor under section 144 of the Charities Act 2011 and report in accordance with regulations made under section 154 of that Act.

Our objectives are to obtain reasonable assurance about whether the financial statements as a whole are free from material misstatement, whether due to fraud or error, and to issue an auditor’s report that includes our opinion. Reasonable assurance is a high level of assurance, but is not a guarantee that an audit conducted in accordance with ISAs (UK) will always detect a material misstatement when it exists. Misstatements can arise from fraud or error and are considered material if, individually or in the aggregate, they could reasonably be expected to influence the economic decisions of users taken on the basis of these financial statements.

Irregularities, including fraud, are instances of non-compliance with laws and regulations. We design procedures in line with our responsibilities, outlined above, to detect material misstatements in respect of irregularities, including fraud. The extent to which our procedures are capable of detecting irregularities, including fraud is detailed below:

A further description of our responsibilities for the audit of the financial statements is located on the Financial Reporting Council’s website at:

www.frc.org.uk/auditorsresponsibilities. This description forms part of our auditor’s report.

Use of our report

This report is made solely to the charity’s trustees, as a body, in accordance with Part 4 of the Charities (Accounts and Reports) Regulations 2008. Our audit work has been undertaken so that we might state to the charity’s trustees those matters we are required to state to them in an auditor’s report and for no other purpose. To the fullest extent permitted by law, we do not accept or assume responsibility to anyone other than the

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charity and the charity’s trustees as a body, for our audit work, for this report, or for the opinions we have formed.

Knox Cropper LLP

Chartered Accountants and Registered Auditor

65 Leadenhall Street

London EC3A 2AD

Date 10 December 2025

Knox Cropper LLP is eligible for appointment as auditor of the charity by virtue of its eligibility for appointment as auditor of a company under section 1212 of the Companies Act 2006.

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The Advocacy Academy

Statement of financial activities (incorporating an income and expenditure account)

For the year ended 31 March 2025

General
Note
£
Income from:
2
283,713
3
Other income
22,649
Other trading income - Space Contribution
9,328
315,690
4
192,022
4
272,396
4
464,418
(148,728)
148,728
-
Reconciliation of funds:
196,337
13
196,337
Charitable activities
Grants, donations and legacies
Total income
Expenditure on:
Total expenditure
Charitable activities
Raising funds
Total funds carried forward
Transfers between funds
Net movement in funds
Unrestricted
Total funds brought forward
Net income / (expenditure) for the year		 Unrestricted
Designated
£
-
-
-
-
-
136,238
136,238
(136,238)
(146,875)
(283,113)
321,579
38,466		 Restricted
£
760,742
-
-
760,742
-
588,378
588,378
172,364
(1,853)
170,511
363,631
534,142		 2025
Total
£
1,044,455
22,649
9,328
1,076,432
192,022
997,012
1,189,034
(112,602)
-
(112,602)
881,547
768,945		 General
£
1,151,949
13,330
3,800
1,169,079
184,507
662,973
847,480
321,599
(321,599)
-
196,337
196,337
Unrestricted		 Unrestricted
Designated
£
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
321,579
321,579
-
321,579		 Restricted
£
922,740
-
-
922,740
-
559,129
559,129
363,611
20
363,631
-
363,631		 2024
Total
£
2,074,689
13,330
3,800
2,091,819
184,507
1,222,102
1,406,609
685,210
-
685,210
196,337
881,547

All of the above results are derived from continuing activities. There were no other recognised gains or losses other than those stated above. Movements in funds are disclosed in Note 14 to the financial statements.

The notes on pages 61 to 69 form part of these financial statements

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The Advocacy Academy

Balance sheet

As at 31 March 2025

2025
Note
£
£
Fixed assets:
8
8,969
8,969
Current assets:
9
829,164
213,819
1,042,983
Liabilities:
10
183,007
859,976
868,945
11
100,000
12
768,945
13
534,142
38,466
196,337
Total unrestricted funds
234,803
768,945
General funds
Approved by the trustees on and signed on their behalf by
Total charity funds
Cash at bank and in hand
Tangible assets
The funds of the charity:
Creditors: amounts falling due within one year
Net current assets / (liabilities)
Total net assets / (liabilities)
Creditors: amounts falling due after one year
Unrestricted income funds:
Designated funds
Total assets less current liabilities
Debtors
Restricted income funds		 2025
£
8,969		 £
896,741
194,241		 2024
£
17,065
8,969
859,976		 17,065
964,482
1,090,982
126,500
321,579
196,337
868,945
100,000		 981,547
100,000
768,945 881,547
534,142
234,803		 363,631
517,916
768,945 881,547

…………………………….. - Trustee

----- Start of picture text -----
05/12/2025
----- End of picture text -----

The notes on pages 61 to 69 form part of these financial statements

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The Advocacy Academy

Statement of cash flows

For the year ended 31 March 2025

Note
Net income / (expenditure) for the reporting period
Depreciation charges
(Increase)/decrease in debtors
Increase/(decrease) in creditors
Net cash from/(used in) operating activities
Analysis of cash and cash equivalents
Cash in hand and at bank
Total cash and cash equivalents
Cash and cash equivalents at the beginning of the year
Cash and cash equivalents at the end of the year
Net cash provided by / (used in) financing activities
Change in cash and cash equivalents in the year
Cash inflows from new borrowing
Cash flows from financing activities:
Net cash provided by / (used in) investing activities
Cash flows from investing activities:
Purchase of fixed assets		 £
(972)		 £
(112,602)
9,068
67,577
56,507
2025		 £
(6,785)		 £
685,210
17,825
(880,121)
54,587
2024
20,550
(972)
-		 (122,499)
(6,785)
100,000
- 100,000
19,579
194,241		 (29,284)
223,525
213,819 194,241
At 31 March
2025
£
213,819		 At 31
March 2024
£
194,241
213,819 194,241
-

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The Advocacy Academy

Notes to the financial statements

For the year ended 31 March 2025

The Advocacy Academy is a charity registered in England with registration number 1161785. Its registered office address is 7 Vining Street, London SW9 9QS.

b) Basis of preparation

The financial statements have been prepared in accordance with Accounting and Reporting by Charities: Statement of Recommended Practice applicable to charities preparing their accounts in accordance with the Financial Reporting Standard applicable in the UK and Republic of Ireland (FRS 102) (effective 1 January 2019); the Financial Reporting Standard applicable in the United Kingdom and Republic of Ireland (FRS 102); and the Charities Act 2011. The accounts are presented in GBP rounded to £1, which is the functional currency of the charity.

Assets and liabilities are initially recognised at historical cost or transaction value unless otherwise stated in the relevant accounting policy or note.

c) Public benefit entity

The charitable company meets the definition of a public benefit entity under FRS 102.

Every year, the charity conducts a review to evaluate its ability to continue as a going concern. We undertake the assessment as part of the budget-setting process for the following year, taking into account the forecast financial statements for the current year. The assessment takes into account key forecasts for income generation, expenditure, risk register, cash flow, external factors, and contingencies required to secure the charity's future business operations.

Trustees believe that, having reviewed the assessments, The Advocacy Academy can be considered a going concern for the foreseeable future, and that suitable risk mitigations and contingencies are in place.

The Trustees are satisfied that there are no material uncertainties in relation to going concern in the foreseeable future

Income, including from Government and other grants and donations, whether 'capital' or 'income', is recognised when the charity has entitlement to the funds, any performance conditions attached to the income have been met, it is probable that the income will be received and that the amount can be measured reliably.

Grants with performance-related conditions, commissioning and other earned incomes are only included in the SoFA under income from Charitable Activities once the charity has provided the related goods or services or met the performance related conditions.

Gift Aid receivable is included in income when there is a valid declaration from the donor. Any Gift Aid amount recovered on a donation is allocated to a separate fund unless the donor or terms of the appeal has specified otherwise and instead is treated as an addition to the same fund as the initial donation.

f) Donations of gifts, services and facilities

Donated services (including the time given to the organisation by volunteers) and facilities are included in the SOFA when received at the value of the gift to the charity, provided the value can be measured reliably. Where appropriate, donated services and facilities are recognised as income with an equivalent amount recognised as an expense under the appropriate heading in the SOFA.

In accordance with the Charities SORP (FRS 102), volunteer time is not recognised so refer to the trustees’ annual report for more information about their contribution.

Interest on funds held on deposit is included when receivable.

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The Advocacy Academy

Notes to the financial statements

For the year ended 31 March 2025

1 Accounting policies (continued)

h) Fund accounting

Restricted funds are to be used for specific purposes as laid down by the donor. Expenditure which meets these criteria is charged to the fund.

Unrestricted funds are donations and other incoming resources received or generated for the charitable purposes.

Designated funds are unrestricted funds earmarked by the trustees for particular for a particular future project or commitment.

i) Expenditure and irrecoverable VAT Expenditure is recognised once there is a legal or constructive obligation to make a payment to a third party, it is probable that settlement will be required and the amount of the obligation can be measured reliably. Expenditure is classified under the following activity headings:

Irrecoverable VAT is charged as a cost against the activity for which the expenditure was incurred.

j) Allocation of support costs Resources expended are allocated to the particular activity where the cost relates directly to that activity. However, the cost of overall direction and administration of each activity (support costs), comprising the salary and overhead costs of the central function, is apportioned on the following basis which are an estimate, based on staff time, of the amount attributable to each activity.

Where such information about the aims, objectives and projects of the charity is also provided to potential donors, activity costs are apportioned between fundraising and charitable activities on the basis of area of literature occupied by each activity.

˜ Fundraising 0%
˜ Social Justice Leadership Fellowship 19%
˜ Alumni and campaigns 34%
˜ Commissioning (Spark Programme) 13%
˜ Leadership Programme 7%
˜ Community Programmes 27%

Where information about the aims, objectives and projects of the charity is provided to potential beneficiaries, the costs associated with this publicity are allocated to charitable expenditure. Pension costs are allocated to various activties and restricted funds on the same basis as salaries.

Governance costs, which are considered a category of support costs, are the costs associated with the governance arrangements of the charity. These costs are associated with constitutional and statutory requirements and include any costs associated with the strategic management of the charity’s activities.

Items of equipment are capitalised where the purchase price exceeds £250. Depreciation costs are allocated to activities on the basis of the use of the related assets in those activities. Assets are reviewed for impairment if circumstances indicate their carrying value may exceed their net realisable value and value in use.

Depreciation is provided at rates calculated to write down the cost of each asset to its estimated residual value over its expected useful life. The depreciation rates in use are as follows:

˜ Buildings 5 years
˜ Fixtures and fittings 5 years
˜ Office equipment 5 years

l) Financial Instruments

The charity only has financial assets and financial liabilities of a kind that qualify as basic financial instruments. Basic financial instruments are initially recognised at transaction value and subsequently measured at their settlement value.

62

Docusign Envelope ID: 95AB384B-E13B-49BF-9323-D28F4D30377E

The Advocacy Academy

Notes to the financial statements

For the year ended 31 March 2025

Trade and other debtors are recognised at the settlement amount due after any trade discount offered. Prepayments are valued at the amount prepaid net of any trade discounts due.

Creditors and provisions are recognised where the charity has a present obligation resulting from a past event that will probably result in the transfer of funds to a third party and the amount due to settle the obligation can be measured or estimated reliably. Creditors and provisions are normally recognised at their settlement amount after allowing for any trade discounts due.

Cash at bank and cash in hand includes cash and short term highly liquid investments with a short maturity of three months or less from the date of acquisition or opening of the deposit or similar account. Cash balances exclude any funds held on behalf of service users.

In the application of the company’s accounting policies, the charity is required to make judgements, estimates and assumptions about the carrying amount of assets and liabilities that are not readily apparent from other sources. The estimates and associated assumptions are based on historical experience and other factors that are considered to be relevant. Actual results may differ from these estimates.

There are no estimates and assumptions that are considered to have a significant risk of causing a material adjustment to the financial statements in a future period.

Redundancy and termination costs are recognised as an expense in the Statement of Financial Activities and a liability on the Balance Sheet immediately at the point the Charity is demonstrably committed to either: terminate the employment of an employee or group of employees before normal retirement date; or provide termination benefits as a result of an offer made in order to encourage voluntary redundancy. The Charity is considered to be demonstrably committed only when it has a detailed formal plan for the termination and is without realistic possibility of withdrawal from the plan.

p) Holiday pay accruals

The charity makes a provision for annual leave accrued by employees as a result of services rendered in the current period and which employees are entitled to carry forward and use.

Income from donations
Donated Facilities (note 15)
Grant Funding
Donations and gift aid		 Unrestricted
£
266,450
-
17,263		 £
760,742
-
-
Restricted		 2025 total
Total
£
1,027,192
-
17,263		 2024
Total
£
1,995,011
65,425
14,253
283,713 760,742 1,044,455 2,074,689

Income in 2024 comprised of unrestricted income of £1,151,949 and restricted income of £922,740

3 Income from charitable activities

Income from charitable activities
Other earned income
Total income from charitable activities		 Unrestricted
£
22,649		 £
-
Restricted		 2025
Total
£
22,649		 2024
Total
£
13,330
22,649 - 22,649 13,330

63

Docusign Envelope ID: 95AB384B-E13B-49BF-9323-D28F4D30377E

The Advocacy Academy

Notes to the financial statements

For the year ended 31 March 2025

Analysis of expenditure
Staff costs (Note 5)
Accommodation and venue hire
Campus for Young Activists (note 14)
Communication and marketing
Community Culture and Wellbeing
Premise & General Office
Programme delivery costs
Staff recruitment, travel and
wellbeing
Temporary staff and contractors
Depreciation
Support costs
Total expenditure 2025
Total expenditure 2024		 Cost of
raising
funds
£
179,918
-
-
-
112
552
233
11,207
-		 Charitable activities Total
Charitable
activities
536,186
3,984
2,472
-
182,003
30,471
(2,239)
7,383
-
760,260
236,752
997,012		 Support
costs
£
147,542
240
8
1,400
48,409
(3,348)
6,667
26,766
9,068		 2025 Total
£
863,646
4,224
2,480
1,400
230,524
27,675
4,661
45,356
9,068		 2024
Total
£
950,258
52,470
65,425
4,661
26,168
63,218
115,886
35,326
75,373
17,824
Social Justice
Leadership
Fellowship
£
103,382
-
-
-
4
100
-
-
-		 Alumni and
campaigns
£
182,167
-
2,145
-
7,539
13,551
(4,440)
32
-		 £
67,953
4,260
-
-
-
385
1,269
3,045
-
Commissioning
(Spark
Programme)		 Leadership
Programme
36,757
(276)
-
-
105
10,928
657
2,261
-
 Community
Programmes
£
145,927
-
327
-
174,355
5,507
275
2,045
-
192,022
-		 103,486
45,648		 200,994
80,436		 76,912
30,005		 50,432
16,230		 328,436
64,434		 236,752 1,189,034
1,189,034		 1,406,609
1,406,609
192,022 149,134 281,430 106,917 66,662 392,870
184,507 185,386 800,859 185,874 - 49,983 1,406,609

Of the total expenditure, £600,656 was unrestricted (2024: £847,480) and £588,378 was restricted (2024: £559,129). Fees in respect of audit were £6,804 (2024: £6,000)

Supports costs for 2024 consist of the following.

Staff costs
Accommodation and venue hire
Campus for Young Activists (note 14)
Communication and marketing
Community Culture and wellbeing
Premise & General Office
Programme delivery costs
Temporary staff and contractors
Trustees
Depreciation		 2024
Total
£
267,357
-
65,425
190
26,168
59,969
4,144
9,023
37,489
17,824
487,589

64

Docusign Envelope ID: 95AB384B-E13B-49BF-9323-D28F4D30377E

The Advocacy Academy

Notes to the financial statements

For the year ended 31 March 2025

Staff costs were as follows:

Staff costs were as follows:
HMRC interest chrarges
Salaries and wages (including termination payments)
Social security costs
Employer’s contribution to defined contribution pension schemes		 2025
£
755,290
77,860
16,576
13,920		 2024
£
847,615
84,117
18,526
-
863,646 950,258

The following number of employees received employee benefits (excluding employer pension costs) during the year in bandings of costs greater than £60,000:

2025 2024
No. No.
£60,000 - £69,999 1 4
£70,000 - £79,999 2 -
£80,000 - £89,999 - 1

The total employee benefits including pension contributions of the key management personnel, made up of Benjamin Linsley (Commercial Director), Saba Safi (CEO), Hiba Ahmed (Community Director), Lydia Rye (Campaigns & Organising Director), Rohima Chowdhury (Programmes Director) and Toyin Onasanya (Finance Director) were £352,421 (2024: £392,476).

6 Staff numbers

The average number of employees (head count based on number of staff employed) during the year was as follows:

year was as follows:
Leadership Programme
Commissioning (Spark
Cost of raising funds
Social Justice Leadership
Alumni and campaigns
Governance and support
Community Programmes		 2025
No.
3.7
2.1
3.8
1.4
0.8
3.0
2.8		 2024
No.
3.7
0.5
8.7
2.0
-
0.3
6.0
17.6 21.2

7 Related party transactions

The Chair of Trustees' company, MDC completed the fit-out works for our new Liberation site during the year. The value of these works amounted to £168,000. The Chair of Trustee declared his interest and took no part in any decision relating to the contract. The works were procured on normal procurement terms, and the trustees were satisfied that the contract represented value for money and was in the best interests of the charity.

No trustees were reimbursed for expenses of travel or subsistence during the year (2024: nil).

No charity trustees were paid or received any other benefits from employment with the charity in the year (2024: £nil). No other charity trustee received payment for professional or other services supplied to the charity (2024: £nil).

There are no other related party transactions to disclose for 2025 (2024: none).

65

Docusign Envelope ID: 95AB384B-E13B-49BF-9323-D28F4D30377E

The Advocacy Academy

Notes to the financial statements

For the year ended 31 March 2025

8
Fixtures
and fittings
£
12,850
-
12,850
9,271
2,570
11,841
1,009
3,579
All of the above assets are used for charitable purposes.
9
10
11
Loans
Taxation and social security
Other creditors
Accruals
Tangible fixed assets
Trade creditors
Cost
Depreciation
Net book value
Creditors: amounts falling due after one year
Grant debtors
Other debtors
Prepayments and accrued income
At the end of the year
At the start of the year
At the start of the year
Additions in year
At the end of the year
At the end of the year
At the start of the year
Charge for the year
Debtors
Creditors: amounts falling due within one year		 Fixtures
and fittings
£
12,850
-		 Office
equipment
£
31,520
972		 Total
£
44,370
972
12,850 32,492 45,342
9,271
2,570		 18,034
6,498		 27,305
9,068
11,841 24,532 36,373
1,009 7,960 8,969
3,579 13,486 17,065
2025
£
7,432
10,000
811,732		 2024
£
2,100
-
894,641
829,164 896,741
2025
£
5,185
106,711
54,705
16,406		 2024
£
3,335
91,610
12,389
19,166
183,007 126,500
2025
£
100,000		 2024
£
100,000
100,000 100,000

During the previous year, the charity secured a loan of £250k towards building works. Of the total loan, £100k has been drawn down. The loan is unrestricted with zero percent interest rate. The charity has flexibility over the repayment time frame. Total amount to be repaid will be 105% of the amount withdrawn.

66

Docusign Envelope ID: 95AB384B-E13B-49BF-9323-D28F4D30377E

The Advocacy Academy

Notes to the financial statements

For the year ended 31 March 2025

12 Analysis of net assets between funds

Analysis of net assets between funds
Long term liabilities
Net current assets
Net assets at the end of the year
Tangible fixed assets
Net assets at the start of the year
Long term liabilities
Net current assets
Tangible fixed assets		 General
unrestricted
£
8,969
287,368
(100,000)		 £
-
38,466
-
Designated		 Restricted
£
-
534,142
-		 Total funds
2025
£
8,969
859,976
(100,000)
196,337 38,466 534,142 768,945
General
unrestricted
£
17,065
279,272
(100,000)		 £
-
321,579
-
Designated		 Restricted
£
-
363,631
-		 Total funds
2024
£
17,065
964,482
(100,000)
196,337 321,579 363,631 881,547

13 Movements in funds

Movements in funds
City Bridge Trust
Ellis Campbell
GreenPeace
Impact for Urban Health
John Ellerman Foundation
Lipman Milibanlmt
National Lottery
Postcode Society
Joseph Rowntree
Rangoonwala Foundation
Walcott Foundation
Clothworkers
The Blagrave Trust
Joseph Levy
United St. Saviours
Alan & Babette Sainsbury
Total restricted funds
Total designated funds
General funds
Total unrestricted funds
Total funds
Designated funds:
Unrestricted funds:
Restricted funds:
Core strategy and operations		 At 1
April
2024
£
45,015
41,001
5,000
1,310
40,253
82
230,875
95
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-		 Incoming
resources &
gains
£
-
-
500,000
-
-
19,742
-
40,000
50,000
30,000
30,000
15,000
15,000
50,000
11,000		 Outgoing
resources &
losses
£
(30,807)
(19,768)
(440)
(158,013)
(39,772)
-
(119,280)
-
(39,537)
(44,090)
(29,789)
(29,948)
(15,000)
(15,000)
(36,403)
(10,531)		 Transfers
£
-
-
-
-
(481)
(82)
-
(95)
(463)
-
(211)
(52)
-
-
-
(469)		 At 31 March
2025
£
14,208
21,233
4,560
343,297
-
-
131,337
-
-
5,910
-
-
-
-
13,597
-
363,631 760,742 (588,378) (1,853) 534,142
321,579 (136,238) (146,875) 38,466
321,579 - (136,238) (146,875) 38,466
196,337 315,690 (464,418) 148,728 196,337
517,916 315,690 (600,656) 1,853 234,803
881,547 1,076,432 (1,189,034) - 768,945

67

Docusign Envelope ID: 95AB384B-E13B-49BF-9323-D28F4D30377E

The Advocacy Academy

Notes to the financial statements

For the year ended 31 March 2025

13 Movements in funds (continued)

City Bridge Trust
CrowdFunder
Ellis Campbell
GreenPeace
Gucci
Impact for Urban Health
John Ellerman Foundation
Lipman Milibanlmt
National Lottery
Paul Hamlyn Foundation
Postcode Society
Donated facilities
Total restricted funds
Total designated funds
General funds
Unrestricted funds:
Designated funds:
Total funds
Core strategy and operations
Total unrestricted funds
Restricted funds:		 At 1
April
2023
£
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-		 Incoming
resources &
gains
£
82,500
3,351
60,000
5,000
8,390
205,084
80,000
3,000
334,990
50,000
25,000
65,425		 Outgoing
resources &
losses
£
(37,485)
(3,371)
(18,999)
-
(8,390)
(203,774)
(39,747)
(2,918)
(104,115)
(50,000)
(24,905)
(65,425)		 Transfers
£
-
20
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-		 At 31 March
2024
£
45,015
-
41,001
5,000
-
1,310
40,253
82
230,875
-
95
-
- 922,740 (559,129) 20 363,631
- - 321,579 321,579
- - - 321,579 321,579
196,337 1,169,079 (847,480) (321,599) 196,337
196,337 1,169,079 (847,480) (20) 517,916
196,337 2,091,819 (1,406,609) - 881,547

Transfer between funds

During the year, restricted funds were applied in accordance with the purposes for which they were provided. A total of £1,853 of funds was reallocated during the year to cover activities consistent with the original funding purposes, with funders’ agreement.

Purposes of restricted funds

Impact on Urban Health – To support our work with our alumni City Bridge Trust – Delivery of leadership programmes to marginalised communities Gucci –To support marginalised young people from South London National Lottery - To support young people’s skills development for employment. Post Code Society – To support our Sparks Programme Ellis Campbell – To support TAA expansion work Lipman Miliband – To deliver one week Spark Programme John Ellerman – To support executive salaries Paul Hamlyn Foundation – To support our building investment Crowd Funder – To support our building investment GreenPeace - Towards our Liberation Centre Joseph Rowntree - support our fiscal host strategy Rangoowala Foundation - Towards The Liberation Centre, our new youth and community centre in Brixton.

Walcott Foundation - Towards The Liberation Centre, our new youth and community centre in Brixton.

ClothWorkers - Towards The Liberation Centre, our new youth and community centre in Brixton.

68

Docusign Envelope ID: 95AB384B-E13B-49BF-9323-D28F4D30377E

The Advocacy Academy

Notes to the financial statements

For the year ended 31 March 2025

The Blagrave Trust - Towards The Liberation Centre, our new youth and community centre in Brixton.

Joseph Levy - Towards The Liberation Centre, our new youth and community centre in Brixton. Alan & Barbette Sainsbury - To support TAA core activities.

Purposes of designated funds

In 2023-24, the trustees designated £321,579 from various unrestricted funds, including contributions from Esmée Fairbairn and Paul Hamlyn. These funds were awarded to support TAA’s core strategy and operations across 2024-25 and 2025-26, as needed. A portion of the funds has been drawn down for this financial year, with the remaining balance to be spent in 2025–26.

14 Funds received as agent

The charity has acted as an agent for the following third-party , whose aims and objectives are consistent with those of the charity. Funds, held in cash, are administered on the instruction of the principal and recorded within a separate general ledger sub-code and adjusted in financial statements. The movement in funds during the year was:

Latinx Community/SLLAF
Choked Up
Charity So White/HS Charity
Voice project
Blagrave Trust Halo
Collective Punishment		 Balance at 1
April 2024
1,689
4,621
-		 Funds
received
£
18,500
-
-
3,650
41,019
13,789		 Funds paid
out
£
(11,501)
-
(4,621)
(3,560)
(16,403)
(3,273)		 Balance at 31
March 2025
6,999
1,689
-
90
24,616
10,516
6,310 76,958 (39,358) 43,910

Choked up: Teenagers campaigning for clean air Charity So white: Tackling institutional racism within the charity sector. Latinx Community/SLLAF: Fiscal Host/Campaigns Project Voice project: Fiscal Host/Campaigns Project Blagrave Trust Halo: Fiscal Host/Campaigns Project Collective Punishment: Fiscal Host/Campaigns Project

15 Pension Commitments

The charity operates a defined contribution pension scheme. The assets of the scheme are held separately in an independently administered multi-employer fund. During the year, £16,576 was charged to SOFA (2024: £18,526) and at the balance sheet date there is a outstanding balance of £3,257 (2024: £3,811).

16 Legal status of the charity

The charity is a company limited by guarantee and has no share capital. The liability of each member in the event of winding up is limited to £1.

17 Taxation

The charitable company is exempt from corporation tax to the extent that all its income is charitable and is applied for charitable purposes.

69