Development Trusts NI’s Post

I’ll be leaving Local Trust in April next year, after eight brilliant years spent working with and learning from the most incredible and inspiring community of places and people that make up the Big Locals programme. https://lnkd.in/eut8f2Py Big Local is an astonishing, energising, often surprising and always utterly captivating funding programme. It’s been a privilege to be a part of it, and to be able to share in the stories, achievements, challenges and triumphs (often against all the odds) of thousands of passionate community change makers across England, determined to make their neighbourhoods better places to live. I’m going to be around for another six months, contributing to Local Trust’s legacy activity as we seek to share learning from over a decade enabling hyperlocal community-led change. It’s been great as a part of that to be able to build new partnerships with local government, heath service and housing providers to further develop and share some of the work we’ve done. And to strengthen the strong links with national government that helped secure dormant assets funding for communities as part of the cross-sectoral Community Wealth Fund campaign. Finally, I’ll be putting a lot of time into supporting the Independent Commission on Neighbourhoods launched last week https://lnkd.in/e8SXTNCT - helping build the case for neighbourhoods as a critical policy and delivery lens for our new mission-led government. Neighbourhoods have been missing from the policy debate for a long time. But Big Local demonstrates just how much can be achieved at that scale when you trust local people with time, resources, support and the ability to make decisions as to how to make their areas for the better.

A side effect of the #ukelection is the closure of a number of #UKGovernment funds. For example, the Community Ownership Fund Round 5 (Round 4 window 2) will not go ahead as was planned. No decisions on what happens next with COF will be taken until after the election. Then it will be up to the new government to decide what happens with the programme. #community #land #socialenterprise #scotland https://lnkd.in/e7g8GB8J.

In July 2023, we launched The UK Fund – one of our bold commitments as part our new strategy to tackle some of the big social issues facing UK communities. One year on from its launch, The UK Fund has helped to bring diverse communities together and build new relationships between people with different life experiences. 👫 Thanks to #NationalLottery players, communities from Belfast and Glasgow to Cardiff and Kent have benefitted from over £17 million of funding awarded to 12 projects. While we continue to support organisations that make us a better connected society, we're now also looking to fund projects that focus on creating lasting change by helping children and young people to thrive. We want to hear from ambitious organisations that prioritise the meaningful involvement of children and young people in decisions that affect them and their communities; particularly those who have fewer opportunities to have their voices heard or acted on. 📢 We’re also interested in groups that help other organisations build capacity or infrastructure to involve and listen to more children and young people. The projects we’re looking to fund must: • benefit communities across the UK • scale up their impact by expanding their work • support people experiencing poverty, disadvantage and discrimination • create significant changes to systems that affect people’s everyday lives. For more information about The UK Fund, visit: https://ow.ly/eAZr50SIgBR

For seven years Building Communities Trust has supported thirteen communities to deliver the Invest Local programme https://lnkd.in/eq4eaxc7 which enables communities to develop their areas according to their own priorities. One of the features common across all of the communities has been the desire to develop and retain their own community spaces; places where people can access emergency support when they need it, find advice, socialise and get involved in leisure activities. And, of course, these community spaces are even more important in areas where people struggle on low incomes and find travel to more central urban areas difficult for reasons of distance, cost or accessibility. Taking these lessons on board last year we decided to start a programme explicitly aimed at strengthening these community spaces and in June 2023 we launched the Community Anchor Development Programme  - https://www.bct.wales/cadp The programme offers successful bidders £150,000 over four years to strengthen their organisations according to the priorities that they identify themselves. For BCT, which normally funds designated communities rather than organisations, it has been a new approach and we have had a lot of help from Rachel Marshall at the Lloyds Bank Foundation in developing our systems and approaches, which has been utterly invaluable. Over the last six months we have been working with some 43 organisations to support them to put bids together, although sadly we will only be able to fund 11 of them. These bids will then be assessed by BCT staff and Trustees not directly involved in supporting the application process. Unsurprisingly, the offer of unrestricted funding has been well received. Although it’s an approach that is growing in popularity among independent funders, its benefits are not widely acknowledged, despite it being an especially appropriate funding mechanism for place-based community work which needs to remain agile and responsive to local need. All of the organisations we are working with are doing amazing work in challenging times, in places which have limited job opportunities and have experienced a dramatic decline in public services over the last decade. What is truly scary however, is that almost all of them are seeing social conditions and deep poverty worsen in their communities while both they and the public sector organisations they often work alongside are seeing resources significantly decline. Our intention is to support the community anchor development organisations that become part of our programme to grow and to help them, in turn, make their own communities better places to live but the environment they are all working in could hardly be more challenging. Over the course of the programme we will be sharing stories of progress as well as the obstacles that these organisations face and hope to share some of our learning for the benefit of other groups facing similar obstacles in these difficult times.

A funding opportunity.

We're working with West Yorkshire Combined Authority to deliver ‘Community Grants’ – a programme designed to support people with more complex barriers to accessing work move towards employment and digital inclusion. The £2.8m programme offers funding pots of typically £20,000 to Voluntary, Community and Social Enterprise (VCSE) organisations across West Yorkshire. We are organising information events to find out more! *Spaces are limited so we can only reserve places for one person per organisation.* https://lnkd.in/eCNxsAnz Kirklees: 23rd April, 2-4pm Engaging Space, Brian Jackson House, 2 New North Parade, Huddersfield, HD1 5JP Calderdale: 24th April, 2-4pm Piece Hall Room, Elsie Whiteley Innovation Centre, Hopwood Lane, Halifax, HX1 5ER Leeds: 26th April, 10am-12pm Hunslet Room, Stringer House, 34 Lupton Street, Hunslet, LS10 2QW Bradford: 1st May, 2-4pm Scarborough Suite, Central Hall, Alice Street, Keighley, BD21 3JD Wakefield: 3rd May, 10am-12pm Conference Room, St Swithun's Community Centre, Arncliffe Road, Wakefield, WF1 4RR Refreshments will be available at all venues (except Calderdale where there is a café on site if people want to buy a drink.) Groundwork West Yorkshire Business and Skills Fresh Futures #ukspf #wyca #westyorkshirecombinedauthority #grant #communitygrant #ukgovernment #funding #employability #unemployment #employmentsupport #digital #inclusion #digitalinclusion #westyorkshire -------------------------------- The Community Grants project is being delivered by Groundwork UK and is funded by the UK Shared Prosperity Fund (UKSPF). In West Yorkshire the West Yorkshire Combined Authority leads the implementation of the Fund as part of the Mayor’s ambition to make West Yorkshire the best place to work, learn and live. The UK Shared Prosperity Fund is a central pillar of the UK government’s Levelling Up agenda and provides £2.6 billion of funding for local investment by March 2025. The Fund aims to improve pride in place and increase life chances across the UK investing in communities and place, supporting local business, and people and skills.

“The evidence is clear: scrapping rent convergence has sucked resources away from social housing providers being able to invest in customers’ homes. “With more than half of homes not meeting the formula rent, in the long run they become unsustainable for social housing charities to continue providing. We simply have to avoid this happening." Andy Hulme, our Chief Executive. Inside Housing reveals that the end of rent convergence and a lack of a long-term rent settlement is putting 300,000 social homes in London at risk of becoming financially unsustainable. The G15 #UKHousing #SocialHousing

🔹Hyperlocal Funding to support youth engagement and reduce anti-social activity🔹 📝Project: Community 3G MUGA with floodlights 🤝🏽Partner: Unique Community Hub As a community anchor, we’re working alongside Calderdale Council to support local investments into our communities & places, through the government’s UK Shared Prosperity Fund. ⚽ We’re really excited that Park ward will soon see an upgrade! We have supported local CIC, Unique Community Hub Community Hub, to access funds to develop a 3G pitch. 🤍This isn't just about sports – it's about bringing our community together. Young, old, and everyone in between. Whether it's a pickup game of football or community events, this pitch will be THE spot to hang out, get active and most importantly HAVE FUN ! 🎖This project is just one example of what can be achieved when local groups & people, councils, and government funding come together for the greater good We can't wait to see this proposal become a reality! This project is funded by the UK Government through the UK Shared Prosperity Fund. You can find out more about UKSPF here: UK Shared Prosperity Fund: prospectus - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk) #CommunityWins #ParkWardPride #GameChanger #UKSPF #Communities #StrengthenCommunities

Community wealth funds.(there is a survey on this now ) I’ve written to the council leader to consider being more strategic with funding pots. I wrote to the sutherland councillors few years back (nobody listens) There are many different sources of funding out there - but many groups do not have the time/word wizardry/capacity to source the funds. Solution- So we employ a team of funding finders - and they fill out the applications. Each county and village has its priority lists to achieve (bigger picture stuff) Windfarms- lottery - levelling up money - coastal community money - etc etc etc . £millions floating about for sutherland alone . Stop the postcode lottery - word wizards getting the cash … & no accountability - has the content of the application is delivered or not . Or checking are the applications- true & accurate.

🚨The next closing date for next round of Bolton's Fund Medium and Large grants is Sunday 5th May.🚨 🤩Bolton's Fund grants are for projects and activities that benefit people and communities across Bolton. 🧡Organisations with an income of over £100,000 in the last full year can apply for a Medium grant of up to £15,000. 💚Organisations with an income of over £1million in the last full year can apply for a Large Grant of up to £25,000. All funded projects must meet at least one of the six priorities of Bolton's Fund: 👶 Start Well - giving children the best start in life. 😀 Live Well - improving the happiness and wellbeing of Bolton residents. 👵🧓 Age Well - helping older people stay connected, active and healthy in their communities. 💰 Prosperous - supporting enterprise, inclusive employment and maximising social value in Bolton. 🌳 Clean and Green - protecting, improving and enjoying our environment. 😎 Safe, Strong and Distinctive - creating safe, stronger, cohesive and more confident communities. 🚀Find out more here - https://lnkd.in/dugkBhNy 🙌 The Bolton's Fund Micro and Small grants programmes are open for applications too - there's no deadline for these two.