The Big Lottery Fund (BIG) will open £50m of investment to the voluntary and community sector in England this week to help organisations cope with funding cuts.
Some £17m of the funding will provide support to an additional 650 charitable and community projects, while the remaining £33m will help existing projects within BIG’s portfolio.
The funding available to new projects will be distributed through BIG’s current Reaching Communities and Awards for All programmes. Reaching Communities currently provides grants of between £10,000 to £500,000 for new or existing community projects helping those in the most need. Awards for All offers small grants of between £300 and £10,000 to community projects.
Uniquely, grants of up to £10,000 will be made available to almost 1,000 existing grantholders within the last 18 months of their projects to allow them to review their projects, and a number of projects evidenced to be having a particularly significant impact will also receive an additional year’s funding.
Providing "breathing space"
Dharmendra Kanani, England director for BIG (pictured) told civilsociety.co.uk that this funding will provide a welcome opportunity for voluntary and community sector organisations to consider their futures:
“I think you’ll find that most voluntary and community sector organisations will welcome this funding as quite unique and distinct from funders across the board. I’m not sure I’ve come across this kind of opportunity being made available... and not just in these current circumstances, but I think historically.”
The new funding programme is something Kanani has been planning since he joined the lottery distributer last year, he said. Working with NCVO, Navca and other umbrella organisations, BIG has been using its regional structure to undertake a year’s worth of analysis of what is happening at ground level.
“Rather than jump in with cash and say, well here is some support, it’s actually trying to understand how we can add value as a lottery distributer to circumstances and experiences of the voluntary and community sector in England, in this very dynamically changing, turbulent circumstance that we find ourselves in,” he said.
“How do you support voluntary and community sector organisations to adapt and respond to the changing nature of the environment they find themselves in, and do that in a way that has no strings attached to it. To do that in a way that’s actually meaningful, and provide respite, breathing space. It’s giving organisations thinking time to the vortex of what they are doing, to think about how do I respond, do I need to change my business model, do I need to collaborate, do I need to think very differently about how I’m doing things, or, actually, is this the end of the road, and how can I safely, securely close down this operation without having a negative impact on those we serve?”
NCVO research estimates that voluntary and community groups will face a reduction in public funding of over £900m by 2016 and a total loss of £2.8bn in that period.
Sir Stuart Etherington, NCVO chief executive said: “This funding will provide some welcome relief for the sector during these challenging times, and help voluntary organisations to continue providing vital services.
The new funds will open for applications this week. Projects currently within the grants programme which are eligible to apply will receive an email, a BIG spokesperson advised.
