FUNDING: £17m to fund 650 community projects

Posted by Joe Gardham on October 27, 2011

The Big Lottery Fund (BIG) has revealed it is to award an additional £50 million of grants to support England's voluntary and community sector through the impact of funding cuts. The funding will be allocated before the end of the financial year, strengthening the sector as it deals with the developing impact of budget cuts.

As part of the funding package, BIG has made £17 million available to fund an additional 650 charitable and community projects through its two main open grants programmes, Reaching Communities and Awards for All. The grants are designed to help the sector meet increased demand for support from communities and individuals most in need.

Additionally BIG will be offering grants of up to £10,000 to close to 1,000 existing BIG grant holders in the last 18 months of their projects to review the way they work and explore ways of becoming more sustainable. This can help the recipients develop a more effective operating model, partnership working, or finding new ways to deliver future projects.

Projects that are having a particularly significant impact will also receive an additional year's worth of funding to continue their project and carry out plans to make their projects more sustainable.

Nat Sloane, Chair of BIG's England Committee, said:

"We have listened to the sector who have made it very clear that the next few months are going to be a very difficult. There is likely to be a gradual and cumulative impact as services reduce or are withdrawn, and household income for some of the poorest and most vulnerable people and families in our society reduces further still.

"We have put a package together in response that allows us to support these services and projects to ensure they are getting the funding when they need it and to help them prepare for the increasingly difficult funding environment."

The full impact on the cutbacks is still to come according to the National Council for Voluntary Organisations (NCVO) which estimates that voluntary and community groups will face a reduction in public funding of over £900 million by 2016, losing a total of £2.8 billion in that period.

NCVO Chief Executive, Sir Stuart Etherington, welcomed the announcement:

"This funding will provide some welcome relief for the sector during these challenging times, and help voluntary organisations to continue providing vital services."

£5.2m to create positive futures for London’s most vulnerable teenagers

The Big Lottery Fund is investing over £5m to help create more positive futures for London’s young people who are leaving the care system, leaving young offender institutions or who are one of many hidden young carers in the capital.

It is part of an England-wide investment of £30 million announced today by the Big Lottery Fund’s Youth in Focus initiative. The projects have been co-developed and driven by the young people they are designed to help, ensuring that they are recognising and tackling the most pressing problems felt by these groups.

The New Horizon Centre, based in the King’s Cross area is being awarded over £900,000 to run the Creating Positive Futures Programme, which will support young ex-offenders and young people who have left the care system. It will help them with a range of issues that they can face such as housing, education and training needs, mental health and substance misuse.

Jon Snow, Chair of New Horizon Youth Centre, said:“Their Goal: Training, Literacy, independent living, a life beyond care, a life beyond youth offending. Our Goal: To enable positive futures, fulfilling outcomes.New Horizon is proud to lead this endeavour, with the support of the London Boroughs of Camden and Islington and funding from the Big Lottery Fund,which is both ambitious and achieving”.

Ben, a young man who has been helped by New Horizon Youth Centre explains the need for the support: “If it wasn’t for New Horizon I would have ended up in prison. When I started using the centre over a year ago now, I was getting into trouble with the police and out of control. They helped me get on the right track and always supported and encouraged me. I now have a future. I’ve got my own accommodation and they helped me to get onto an apprenticeship programme in football coaching. I’m moving on in my life to better things”.

The Creating Positive Futures Programme will be open seven days a week and will be available to young people in need of support to drop-in or they will be referred to the centre by youth offending or leaving care teams. It will be down to the individual young person and their needs as to how often and for how long they attend.
To read who the successful projects were, click here: http://news.biglotteryfund.org.uk/pr_190511_lon_yif_london_s_most_vulnerable_teenagers?regioncode=-uk&status=theProg&title=%C2%A35.2m