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Applications to BIG flagship fund up by nearly 60 per cent

Fundraising | Tania Mason | 11 Mar 2011

The number and value of applications to the Big Lottery Fund’s flagship Reaching Communities programme in England grew by around 60 per cent during 2010 as civil society groups turned to the lottery to shore up their income as public spending cuts started to bite.

There were 401 ‘outline proposal’ applications to the programme, totalling £101.9m, during the month of January 2010. In month of December 2010, the number had jumped to 636, up by 58 per cent, and the value of applications to £165.2m, up by 63 per cent.

Around a quarter of outline proposals to the fund proceed to full application.  Of these, during 2009/10 45 per cent were successful in being awarded a grant; for 2010/11 so far the success rate is 37 per cent.

In total the various parts of the Reaching Communities programme will be funded to the tune of at least £100m a year for each of the next five years. Grants will range from £10,000 to £500,000.

A spokeswoman for BIG did not want to attribute the increase in applications to the tightening public spending environment just yet; she said BIG would have a clearer picture by June as to how applications to the lottery fund are being influenced by the cuts.

She said the increase to Reaching Communities coincided with a significant refresh of the programme
that was designed to make it easier for organisations to apply for smaller awards, of around £40,000 a year.

“We are of course alert to the pressures the voluntary sector are reporting in the current economic climate and we will be closely monitoring the effects this has on take-up for our programmes and our approach to funding.”

However, applications to Awards for All (England) dropped, from 1,018 in January 2010 to 740 in December 2010. This is not unusual though; the spokeswoman said the nature of the Awards for All grants means that there is always a decline in applications around Christmas, but this is followed by a steep rise in January and February.  The programme is on course to meet its targets for the year, she said.

Additionality policy unchanged

The Big Lottery Fund has also decided not to alter its policy on additionality – the principle that lottery funding is additional to things that the government should fund – despite the expectation that government will stop funding plenty of activities in  future.

BIG’s former director of policy Gerald Oppenheim presented a paper to his last BIG board meeting asking the members to look at whether the current policy on additionality was robust enough. He said they would keep an eye on the situation over the next few months to monitor whether the number of applications increase and whether that appears to be because public funding sources have dried up.

The spokeswoman said this week: “Our policy position remains unchanged. BIG funding should be distinct from government funding and add value.”

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