About the Lightning Reach Portal

Lightning Reach is a tech for good start up founded during the covid-19 pandemic to enable people in financial hardship to access vital support from different sources quickly, easily and securely.

 

Our one-stop online portal connects people in financial hardship with charities and local authorities which can help, while streamlining administration and outreach for organisations providing support. Read our one-pager for more information about how the portal works.

 

The portal launched at the end of 2021, and has so far been used by over 30,000 people and facilitated over £3m in grants to individuals, with 94% satisfaction rates from users. 

 

Some of our support partners administering grants through the portal include the Royal British Legion, RAF Benevolent Fund, Teaching Staff Trust, Racing Welfare, ABTA LifeLine and Lambeth Council.

 

Key benefits 

  • Streamlines administration for support providers. Our portal screens for eligibility across a range of profile questions, while also receiving all evidence and information needed to process an application in one place – saving approximately 1.5 hours processing each application.

 

  • Innovative technology with flexibility to meet your organisation’s needs. We offer the option to use modern technology such as open banking and ID verification to speed up the application process and reduce risk of fraud. The portal’s modular structure allows it to be customised to requirements, and bespoke questions can be added to get all the details you need. 

 

  • Increase awareness of the support you offer amongst potential service users. Individuals who connect with you through the the portal may not have been previously aware of the support you offer – allowing you to reach a broader and more diverse range of eligible new service users.

 

  • Simplifies the individual’s user journey of finding and applying for financial support. Individuals can find and apply for multiple forms of support through the portal without needing to repeat their details, and easily and securely provide all supporting evidence through the portal on any device.

 

Co-designed for the sector, by the sector

The portal has been co-designed by the Social Innovation Council, an initiative bringing together a key group of organisations that provide support to individuals, who feed into the development and improvement of the portal. A big thank you to ACO who is a Founding Partner of the Social Innovation Council.

 

We design with a human-centric and inclusive approach, regularly incorporating feedback from service users with lived experience of financial hardship into the design and ongoing development of the portal.

 

How to get involved

We would love to work with a broad range of charities providing grants and welfare support to individuals. If you are interested in featuring the support you offer on the portal, please contact Hannah Canner (Marketing & Partnerships Manager at Lightning Reach)

 

You can also sign up here to receive Lightning Reach’s newsletter to get updates about the project’s progress, insights and upcoming events. 

 

Feedback from our support partners

“It’s been revolutionary…Application volumes have gone up, but our admin time/costs have decreased.” – Becky, Deputy Head of Welfare at Racing Welfare

 

“The financial checks usually take 45 mins to half a day…with open banking it’s literally a few clicks. We save an average of 70% of time processing each application.” – Claire, Head of Support Services at Ben.

 

“What we do normally takes c. 4 weeks…now we can pick up an email and get a grant decision within 2-3 days” – Edward, Grants Manager at the Royal British Legion.

 

More information

Visit www.lightningreach.org or contact Hannah Canner to find out more about Lightning Reach.