A new strategy for Money and Mental Health

Given all that the Money and Mental Health Policy Institute has achieved over the last three years, it’s easy to forget that the charity is so new. It has become the go-to organisation for high quality research and practical solutions to the toxic link between financial difficulty and mental health problems. It has secured changes in the financial services industry, in regulation, national policy and in the health system – changes that are taking us closer every day to our vision of a world where the link between financial difficulty and mental health problems is broken.

What the charity is doing is working, so this strategy document is not a bold vision for a radical new approach. But nor is it a statement of ‘more of the same’. At Money and Mental Health we are single-minded about where we want to get to, but we’re flexible about how we get there – and ambitious about how fast. This strategy sets a clear direction for our work, doing more of what’s working, but also committing to exploring new and different ways of creating real-world impact with our research. As well as campaigning, we’ll do more to work in partnership on the delivery of the changes we want to see. As well as high-quality research and policy, we’ll also build our focus on practical implementation, on developing and sharing best practice. The engine at the heart of Money and Mental Health is its research, and this strategy begins to explore other ways that we can use the power it generates.

The strategy sets out what we want to achieve, how we’ll do it, and how we’ll know if it’s working. It includes three clear goals focused on the change we want to see in the world over the next six years. It also sets out how we plan to build a strong and sustainable future for the charity, including making sure it is a brilliant place to work for our outstanding team, and challenge ourselves to consider how we can create a positive social impact not just in the work that we do, but also how we do it.

As ever, at the heart of this vision is our Research Community, a 5,000-strong group of people (as of April 2021) with personal experience of mental health problems. We’re proud that they are embedded throughout every level of the organisation, and plan to focus over the next six years on ensuring that the Community is more diverse and truly representative of the population of people with mental health problems in the UK. We are grateful to them for their input into this strategy, as well as that of our advisory board, staff team and the newly expanded board of trustees.

The above text features as the foreword to our new strategy for 2019-2024. Read the full strategy here.