Learning through the Lottery

The Big Lottery Fund's offices are in an area of London undergoing much change. Farringdon, with its new station just completed in preparation for the arrival of Crossrail in 2018, is a short stroll to the east, while to the west, legal firms in shiny new offices now occupy an area once synonymous with newspapers and publishing. The smell of regeneration is everywhere. Perhaps imbued by this air of renewal, the organisation (which calls itself BIG for short) is about to embark on its own journey of change with the development of a new six-year strategic framework.

Dawn Austwick, chief executive since last November, will be central to this process. In fact, Austwick is due to host the first brainstorming session on the strategy the day after our interview. It marks the start of the lengthy process of deciding the organisation's priorities from 2015-21. When you consider that in 2012/13 it handed out £303m to projects that benefited children and young people (44 per cent of the overall funding pot), any changes in focus or emphasis could have far reaching consequences for many of the charities that receive funding.