Cumbria Community Foundation won the Grantmaking and Funding category at the Charity Awards 2015 for its partnership delivering the Neighbourhood Care Independence Programme.  Liz Woodham reflects on the impact that winning has had.

“I now feel confident that support is out there for me.”

So said a recently bereaved gentleman in his 90s who was referred to the Neighbourhood Care Independence Programme (NCIP) by a hospital rehabilitation team. He received help from the NCIP with his finances and housework, enabling him to rejoin community activities and continue living independently in his own home.

The aim is for an individual’s needs to be met by the NCIP delivery partners working together. Partners provide practical hands-on help and community-based activities that improve people’s health, wellbeing and independence, thereby preventing, minimising or delaying their need to access more intensive statutory provision.

Cumbria Community Foundation is the managed service provider (MSP) of the NCIP on behalf of Cumbria County Council. The programme we have developed is a groundbreaking combination of statutory services with community assets - 33 funded delivery partners and more than 50 non-funded groups.

NCIP responds to massive financial and demographic challenges in Cumbria, a county facing a ‘perfect storm’ of unprecedented budget cuts impacting on acute services, with demand for those services increasing due to a super-aged population.

We entered NCIP for Civil Society Media’s Charity Awards to showcase work undertaken by our delivery partners, and the results which can be achieved though working collaboratively, not competitively:

• £1.47m additional value over the first two years through match funding, direct savings and volunteer hours. This uplifts health and social care spend such that every £1 spent via NCIP delivers £1.76 of value.
• maintained/regained independence for 46,282 vulnerable adults/older people, 32,113 of whom are over 65.
• single service access point for clients.

The Awards application process was clear and easy to follow, and we found the papers provided on the Hallmarks of Excellence essential reading (and thought-provoking - we have discussed what the definitions mean to us at team training sessions).

Cath Howard, our chief operating officer; Ellen Clements, our senior grants and donor services officer and Jane Humphries, chair of our main grants panel, attended the Awards evening in London. We had seen the calibre of the other shortlisted organisations, and had no expectation of winning. Cath had followed the brief from Civil Society Media to the letter, and a five-word acceptance speech was ready just in case.

The first person to be told (very late at night) that we had won was our chairman, James Carr, who had recently had to retire due to ill health. He was thrilled.

After we won, we took the Award on a tour of Cumbria so that all of our winning partners could be fully part of the success. Civil Society Media were incredibly supportive - in response to our “I don’t suppose you would be able to…” question, they designed and produced 33 winning partner certificates for each organisation involved (see photos of the certificate presentations by our trustees, which were reported in the local press). These certificates meant a lot – one provider asked if they could have one for each of their offices.

Jane Humphries attended the Carlisle and Eden NCIP partners’ presentation, which was over a month after the event (see picture below). She brought the evening to life as if it had just taken place, and said that for her it was genuinely a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Will Greenwood’s inspired compering was mentioned, but more than that (sorry Will!), the sense of community that came from being in one room with like-minded people representing organisations doing incredible work.  She gave the partners a strong sense of how prestigious the Award is, and one said: “If it hadn’t been for all the hard work Cumbria Community Foundation put into submitting the application we would not have won the Award, or even been nominated in the first place.”

The challenge going forward is for NCIP to further demonstrate and expand delivery of activities which enable people to stay safe and well in their own homes with no or limited paid for care services.

In the months since winning the Award we have convened the key stakeholders to identify ‘best in class’ from NCIP and other initiatives, and secured commitment in principle to integrate these into a county-wide solution.  There has been universal support in the above discussions from current (and future) partners for the MSP model, and we are currently in negotiation with Cumbria County Council to extend the NCIP contract for 18 months.

Liz Woodham is grants & donor services officer at Cumbria Community Foundation