FUNDING: £20m communities fund opens to applications Monday

Posted by Joe Gardham on September 29, 2011

[Source: NYFVO]

The Social Action Fund is a new grant Fund of over £20 million managed by the Social Investment Business on behalf of the Office for Civil Society.

The Fund will launch on 3 October 2011 and close at noon on 28 October 2011.

It aims to inspire organisations to create new social action opportunities through people giving what they have, be that their time, their money, or their assets, knowledge and skills.

Funding Criteria:

Preference will be given to large scale proposals, usually covering a region, or a number of regions as well as those that can offer match funding. Proposals should have evidence of impact that can be scaled and replicated.


Successful applications will address one of the three following themes -

1. Encourage people to come together in their locality to support each other. Some priority will be given to models that encourage those who do not traditionally get involved as volunteers. They are also particularly interested in models that offer people the opportunity to give time and / or money to activities which deliver a public benefit and complements the public sector.

2. Using the opportunity of the 2012 Olympic and Paralympics Games to capitalise on the momentum and enthusiasm generated to encourage a culture of giving and leave a legacy of social action. They are particularly interested in proposals in the sports volunteering area, such as community games and in funding existing local or regional programmes that are able to scale up to national level.

3. Focus on the different life stages of giving i.e. both volunteering and charitable giving. For theme three, programmes that target the following five groups will be favoured -

* building a culture of participation among school children

* encouraging (continued) social action among university graduates

* encouraging professionals who have retired or are at the point of retirement to use their experience and skills for community/public benefit. Priority will be given to those offering technical assistance and expertise to local charities and voluntary groups and training of volunteer that can assist organisations in providing and managing volunteer opportunities.

* Encouraging professional groups e.g. accountant, lawyers, media professionals, civil servants etc. to volunteer their skills through national scale programmes.

* Models to inspire and support NCS graduates who want to continue contributing to their communities through social action projects.


Look out for more details on this web page in the next two weeks http://www.thesocialinvestmentbusiness.org/our-funds/social-action-... where you can register your interest to receive updates.