Woodsmith Foundation’s Post

NCVO and ACEVO are working closely with the government to develop the Civil Society Covenant - a new framework that aims to reset how government engages with civil society, creating lasting positive changes for charities, community groups, and social enterprises.   Why does this matter? For too long, the relationship between civil society and government has been transactional. The Civil Society Covenant seeks to change this by establishing a shared commitment to work together on challenges facing our communities, creating a foundation for resilient, connected, and empowered communities across the UK.   The Covenant is built on four guiding principles: 🔹 Recognition of civil society’s independence and value 🔹 Partnership to enhance service delivery and inclusive decision-making 🔹 Participation to ensure communities have a voice in decisions that affect them 🔹 Transparency for open communication and data-sharing   How to get involved Civil society organisations and groups of all sizes, including charities, community groups, social enterprises, cooperatives and funders, are encouraged to share their views and experiences to shape the final framework.   Learn more about the Covenant and complete the feedback form by 12 December: https://lnkd.in/egrnCiuu

NCVO and ACEVO are working closely with the government to develop the Civil Society Covenant - a new framework that aims to reset how government engages with civil society, creating lasting positive changes for charities, community groups, and social enterprises. Why does this matter? For too long, the relationship between civil society and government has been transactional. The Civil Society Covenant seeks to change this by establishing a shared commitment to work together on challenges facing our communities, creating a foundation for resilient, connected, and empowered communities across the UK. The Covenant is built on four guiding principles: 🔹 Recognition of civil society’s independence and value 🔹 Partnership to enhance service delivery and inclusive decision-making 🔹 Participation to ensure communities have a voice in decisions that affect them 🔹 Transparency for open communication and data-sharing How to get involved Civil society organisations and groups of all sizes, including charities, community groups, social enterprises, cooperatives and funders, are encouraged to share their views and experiences to shape the final framework. Learn more about the Covenant and complete the feedback form by 12 December: https://hubs.ly/Q02ZGPX90

The Shire of Murray Council has endorsed five recipients for the 2024/25 Community Facility Fund. 🎉 The Community Facility Fund helps not-for-profit organisations upgrade, extend or construct well-planned sport, recreation and community facilities that contribute to a vibrant, inclusive and healthy Murray Read more 👉 https://bit.ly/3D5ZLzK

NCVO and ACEVO are working closely with the government to develop the Civil Society Covenant - a new framework that aims to reset how government engages with civil society, creating lasting positive changes for charities, community groups, and social enterprises.   Why does this matter? For too long, the relationship between civil society and government has been transactional. The Civil Society Covenant seeks to change this by establishing a shared commitment to work together on challenges facing our communities, creating a foundation for resilient, connected, and empowered communities across the UK.   The Covenant is built on four guiding principles: 🔹 Recognition of civil society’s independence and value 🔹 Partnership to enhance service delivery and inclusive decision-making 🔹 Participation to ensure communities have a voice in decisions that affect them 🔹 Transparency for open communication and data-sharing   How to get involved: Civil society organisations and groups of all sizes, including charities, community groups, social enterprises, cooperatives and funders, are encouraged to share their views and experiences to shape the final framework.   Learn more about the Covenant and complete the feedback form by 12 December: https://lnkd.in/egrnCiuu

The Prime Minister has made it a priority to reset the relationship with civil society and build a new partnership that can harness civil society’s full potential to rebuild our country and deliver against the government’s 5 missions. In a recent press release ➡ https://lnkd.in/e2kgb635 the government announced that the creation of a ‘Civil Society Covenant’ will usher in a new era of partnership between government and civil society and help tackle some of the country's biggest challenges. NCVO have announced that they are working closely with the government and ACEVO to develop the Civil Society Covenant, which follows on from the Voluntary Sector Manifesto they worked on earlier this year. In the announcement, NCVO said, “The decisions public bodies make have a huge impact on charities and communities. We know public bodies need a strong relationship with our sector to serve communities. While there have been some positive examples of collaboration, for too long our relationship has been transactional. Now we have an opportunity to reset it.” The Civil Society Covenant is currently in draft format and NCVO want to hear your thoughts on the Framework and the draft principles – whether you’ve had a positive or negative experience of engaging with local or national government. VONNE is looking into how the North East VCSE sector can make an effective contribution to this, and we’ll be working with local infrastructure organisations in the coming weeks to find the best way forward. In the meantime, if you would like to share your views on the draft framework, you can do so through the NCVO website here ➡ https://lnkd.in/eHDY7NrW #CivilSociety #VCSE

Access has just released the latest technical report into the construction of a flagship blended finance programme, the Growth Fund, which saw 17 social investor-led funds use £45m of finance from Better Society Capital and The National Lottery Community Fund to deploy £48.6m of loans and loan/grant products to 724 charities and social enterprises. #GrowthFund #BlendedFinance #SocialInvestment #SocialEnterprise The National Lottery Community Fund Better Society Capital 📄 Read the full report here: Use of Subsidy Report - Growth Fund https://lnkd.in/eQuc5FRx (Photo - IndiRock transformed an empty unit in Southend's Victoria Shopping Centre into a vibrant community hub, bouldering wall and coffee shop utilising funds via the Growth Fund Sporting Assets).

Citizens Advice is mostly thought of as a network of community-based local charities (formerly known as bureau). This is as true today as it was 85 years ago. What is perhaps less known is the changed role of the national membership organisation and how significant it has become in leading national contracts and grants for services that meet the needs of around 1.5m clients a year. The work of my team is now at an unprecedented breadth and scale in overseeing these multi-channel services, and in managing the complex stakeholder environment of each, whilst working in partnership with participating local Citizens Advice. There's... - Consumer service, meeting general and energy consumer advice needs - Help to Claim, supporting first time Universal Credit claimants and those migrating from legacy benefits - Witness Service, providing emotional support and practical information to adult and child witnesses attending criminal courts - Help through Hardship, our award-winning partnership with Trussell and Mind to assist those facing deprivation - Debt advice services working both at scale and in the community - Energy and income maximisation services These (and other services I haven't mentioned) make for a powerful combination in helping people to resolve their problems and to live better lives. We've grown in our nationally led delivery because we've shown we're a trusted brand that can achieve positive impact. And this all it gets even more powerful when this nationally enabled capacity is considered within the context of what our dynamic local Citizens Advice bring to our overall offering too, making us both national and local, and able to see the holistic needs of a client who needs our help.

…and we’re delighted to be one of those 93 organisations!! A big thank you to The Ireland Funds & their supporters for investing in our #socialenterprise Speedpak Group 👏 This investment will be used to install #solarpanels on our premises in Clonshaugh Business & Tech Park. It will improve our #sustainability while we continue to deliver commercial work experience & industry led training to long term unemployed people who need extra support (for lots of reasons like #health, #education, #disability etc) in securing & retaining a job. #SDG’s #ESG’s

Erm, any charities in our network looking to attain funding for big community work?? We are currently helping a national charity to get ready for a large lottery bid that will support them to develop a greater, more connected community across the UK. Are you a charity or non-profit looking to develop your community? Do you want to build deeper connections with your people? Do you want to enable supporting relationships between your beneficiaries ?  We are experts in this work. We collaborated with 60+ charities to created the award-winning Human Connection Framework during the pandemic, and since then we’ve built on this work to create organisation-wide transformation (One YMCA), develop tools for developing warm relationships with marginalised young people (Catch22) and train Google designers to weave human connection into their work (and teams). 🤝 We want to support others in creating impact by helping communities seed, develop and sustain. The National Lottery Community Fund is perfectly poised for this work, and we can help you to use this fund to help your community – both at a local and national scale: https://lnkd.in/g_SH8B7 Reach out to us for a chat about how we could do this work together: https://lnkd.in/edXNX5Ks #community #connection #charity #funding

By implementing a combination of approaches, a charity can help address both the immediate needs of those affected by the housing crisis and contribute to longer-term solutions in Ireland. https://lnkd.in/eP52dAaS