National Memorial Family Fund 10 years on and our annual reports

The National Memorial Family Fund 10 years on, making a difference

image credit: Michelle Kelly from www.afcscic.org

source: National Memorial Family Fund | published: 2 August 2025

In September 2025 the National Mikey Powell Memorial Family Fund (NMPMFF) will be proudly marking 10 years since its inception. On 7 September 2015, the twelfth anniversary of the death of Mikey Powell who was killed in the custody of West Midlands Police, campaigning news group 4WardEverUK, launched the National Family Fund Appeal.

The Fund was developed and constituted in conjunction with the Friends of Mikey Powell Campaign, The United Families & Friends Campaign (UFFC) and Migrant Media.

In May and June 2020, triggered by the controversial police killing of George Floyd, subsequent international protests, a tweet from Oonagh Ryder and further follow-up tweets by Lucy Brisbane McKay (@lucybrisbane) and others, we received over 900 single donations, and our monthly donors increased from a few dozen to over 100.

What have we been up to!

In June 2020 we announced that after 5 years of fundraising, the first ever NMPMFF grant round opened for applications from affected families. Since then we have administered well over £64,000 in grants across the Family and Holiday, Crisis and UFFC Legacy Fund grant programmes.

From July 2020 we became formally incubated by West Midlands based social enterprise Catalyst 4 Change, thereby taking on its legal identity but maintaining our operational independence.

We have also been financially supported by The Edge Fund, Black Lives Matter UK, INQUEST and a number of smaller donors (Timespan, LV Insurance Services, Sony Music, Naphtali Associates etc), to fund our staffing and media costs, organisational development, and delivery of family social/support and awards events that were held in several cities across the United Kingdom.

For more details see dedicated pages:

Historic Moments >

Featured Events >

We have produced two comprehensive annual reports demonstrating how our funding and donations were utilised and which also included short and long term development and fundraising strategies and challenges.

Annual Report for the period 2022-2023

We were proud to present our second full annual report of our activities between 2022 and 2023.

This was a particularly productive period for the NMPMFF, with two significant national events held.

But we also saw the sad loss of Benjamin Zephaniah who was a cousin of Mikey Powell.

Founder, Tippa Naphtali, said;

"This report covers the most significant of the positive, whilst also being realistic about some of the challenges and hurdles that are ahead of us. We are steadfast in our efforts to maintain this important work.”

Back in April 2021 we announced ambitious plans for the future. This report also provides details of what the Fund was able to achieve with the grant aid, donations and voluntary input we have received, as well as several significant developments over the preceding years, and our continued work against our 5-year plan.

See the Annual Report here >

Inaugural NMPMFF Annual Report for 2021-2022

We were very proud to present our first full annual report of our activities between 2021 and 2022.

The 1 September 2022 had marked 7 years since the National Mikey Powell Memorial Family Fund was founded, and just over 2 years since its first ever funding round.

Founder, Tippa Naphtali, said;

"We are currently the only organisation nationally that occupies this space, and are therefore absolutely unique and bespoke."

A key supporter of the NMPMFF, Ken Fero of award winning Migrant Media said;

"The public awareness and donor support after the 2020 killing of George Floyd in the US had strengthened this initiative which improves the lives of families impacted by state violence . We support this important grassroots initiative and urge others to join. When the state fails us, the people must act in unity."

See the Annual Report here >

In June 2025 we were pleased to announce that the National Lottery Community Fund (Awards for All) awarded £19,984 in grant funding to the NMPMFF to further the commitments from our Development Plans. The funding will be used to support NMPMFF's short-term sessional staffing costs, organising two national family support events over 12 months, and to offer personalised therapeutic interventions for families members before they enter crisis - this includes specific support for children, especially those who have lost one or more of their parents or carers.

However, we still face significant challenges!

Over the last 2+ years the NMPMFF has lost 80+ (60%) of our regular monthly donors leaving our grant reserves almost depleted. Also, in 2023 our core 2-year funding came to an end, seeing the loss of two of our key development and engagement staff members.

We are now being supported by Catalyst 4 Change to address this situation through a dedicated fundraiser, and will continue publicising the need to raise funds via our new MemberBASE and Easyfundraiser platforms.

We remain positive about the future development of our key programmes, and believe that the NMPMFF will only go from strength to strength.

One of the families we supported very recently said;

"I have been deeply touched by the support and generosity of you all. The grant really helped us to have a place of safety to retreat to at times when the inquest process became too much.

"On behalf of all of our family we thank you all sincerely. Please know that in the memory of Mikey Powell you are touching lives."

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