grantseeking

Due to the success of last year's ‘firmus energy 3K giveaway', the natural gas company has decided to once again offer charity, church and community groups in nine towns across Northern Ireland the chance to receive an early Christmas present and apply for a share of a £3000 giveaway.

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The Government’s groundbreaking £130million Grassroots Grants scheme declared itself open for business today and called on small local voluntary and community groups to come forward and get their hands on essential funding. Whether it’s helping local clubs get hold of new kit, coaching new volunteers or simply giving the village hall a fresh lick of paint, Grassroots Grants aim to make a real and immediate difference to the work of any small and local community groups with annual incomes below £20,000. The programme, funded by the Office of The Third Sector in the Cabinet Office and administered by the Community Development Foundation, offers grants of between £250 and £5,000 to support activities that lie right at the heart of our local communities.

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4 September 2008
© Cabinet Office

Fermanagh District Council is currently accepting applications for Grant Aid for community festivals.

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A new database of charities will enable people making wills to research which organisations they would like to leave money to. It is being developed by Certainty.co.uk, the company that has recently launched an online service for people to register their wills so they don’t get lost. According to its research, 67 per cent of people do not know where their parents’ wills are located.

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3 September 2008
© Third Sector

Venturesome, the social investment fund of the Charities Aid Foundation, has today released a report which calls for greater clarity and cooperation in the social investment market to help charities achieve their social aims. Financing Civil Society: A practitioner’s view of the social investment market examines the present state of the UK social investment market highlighting the recent rapid growth of the market and recommends ways that this early success can be built upon.
The report highlights barriers to and opportunities for future development. It says that financial risk aversion, a lack of understanding of charities’ financial needs and inefficiency in the marketplace have become barriers to achieving more social impact - they all mean that funding isn’t getting through to the places where it is needed. The report goes on to recommend more co-investment by funders, greater information sharing – including major market players working together to produce ongoing research data on investments – and a common language to help all parties understand each other.

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3 September 2008
© CAF

Would you like to see funding news automatically updated on your own website? You can take a news feed for free from the new Grant Tracker website.

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Welsh voluntary organisations, large and small, will find out about the funding future of their sector at a national conference next month. The 2008 third sector funding conference takes place on Wednesday 8 October at Venue Cymru in Llandudno. The conference will provide delegates with the opportunity to meet representatives of over 20 funders of the third sector in Wales, as well as hear keynote speeches and attend workshops on some of the most challenging issues facing voluntary organisations. WCVA Chief Executive Graham Benfield OBE will open the conference with his take on the situation facing voluntary organisations and some predictions for the future. Delegates will also hear first-hand about the future of European funding programmes from Gretel Leeb, a director at the Wales European Funding Office. In addition, there are also keynote sessions on the latest in fundraising, getting funding from business, grant making trusts and a choice of practical workshops. The conference is essential for anyone involved in the funding or fundraising future of their organisation and those responsible for strategic development and management in the third sector. Hard copies of programme/booking form can be requested from the WCVA Helpdesk on 0800 2888 329 or help@wcva.org.uk.

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1 September 2008
© WCVA

The Big Lottery Fund is pleased to announce the appointment of a new Northern Ireland Committee Member to make decisions on how National Lottery Good Cause funding is invested to improve the lives of local people.

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Charity shops have enjoyed a strong year with profits up by 7.4 per cent, according to the findings of the Charity Finance Charity Shops Survey 2008.

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Coaching and competition for all in main sports by 2012
£36million fund for non-traditional sports announced. Culture Secretary Andy Burnham set out his ambition to offer coaching and competition for all by 2012 as part of plans to offer young people five hours of sport a week. Speaking at the third UK School Games in Bath, Burnham said by 2012 high quality coaching and competition will be on offer to all school children in all the main sports like cricket, tennis and athletics. He also said that the £1.5 billion investment into school sport since 2002 - roughly five times the amount invested in developing medal winners in the same period - was beginning to reap the same rewards as those seen in elite sport. His comments came as Sport England announced the first phase of government plans to offer young people more sport outside of school. The £36 million ‘Sport Unlimited’ scheme is designed to attract into sport those young people who do not take part in sport regularly.

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29 August 2008
© Department for Culture, Media And Sport (National)

Transitional arrangements for revised guidance on the VAT Charity Fundraising Exemption.

A regional tendering process to support the delivery of the four Drugs and Alcohol Co-ordination Teams' Action Plans is now open.

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Belfast community festival organisers are being invited to a series of information sessions to hear about new funding arrangements in the city by Belfast City Council. The new fund opens on 2 September and closes on 19 September 2008.

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Hard to Heat homes is a new pilot initiative which has been developed by NIE Energy and DSD in an attempt to reduce the impact of fuel poverty by exploring energy efficiency and renewable energy options for approximately 60 ‘hard to heat’ properties throughout Northern Ireland. The pilot project is identifying alternative energy systems for ‘hard to heat’ homes in addition to a package of energy efficiency measures. The ‘hard to heat’ homes for the programme are expected to be rural, isolated or exposed homes but they will be selected in a way which helps us to ensure that those in most need get our assistance.

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© NICVA

26 August 2008

Barra and Vatersay today become the latest community to take on the challenge of reducing its carbon footprint. Environment Secretary Richard Lochhead will visit Barra this evening and announce a £62,000 grant to support the islands to:

• grow more local food to reduce the amount of produce shipped over from Oban
• plan for a community-owned wind turbine
• increase recycling facilities
• improve energy efficiency in homes

To mark the occasion, North Bay in Barra will play host to other remote Scottish communities who want to share ideas and future plans for tackling climate change through the Climate Challenge Fund.

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© Crown Copyright

28 August 2008

Office of the Third Sector is looking for a comprehensive and innovative approach to providing information about funding for the sector; South Yorkshire Funding Advice Bureau gets on with its own web service.

Voluntary sector umbrella NCVO has launched a web page specifically for smaller organisations.

The Northwest Regional Development Agency (NWDA) has announced that five universities in the region will receive funding through a new enterprise scheme. According to the NWDA, its Enterprise Champions funding will help to develop graduates and encourage them to be more enterprising entrepreneurs. In total, £930,000 worth of funding has been approved for the venture in order to help guide graduates and provide them with more business opportunities. “This exciting project will support fresh ideas at an early stage and encourage our graduates to take their entrepreneurial plans forward to profit making businesses,” Steven Broomhead, chief executive of the NWDA commented.

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22 August 2008
© Englands Northwest

In response to suggestions and feedback from users, NICVA has added new search functionality to Grant Tracker. Subscribers can now choose in which country the funding scheme is based when searching the funding database.

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A wide range of investors have backed a Cabinet Office proposal to set up a risk capital investment fund for the 55,000 social enterprise businesses in the UK.The proposal describes an equity-like investment scheme where Government funding will be matched by private investment. Although there are various schemes for start-up businesses, there is a funding gap when social enterprises move to a growth stage. The new fund will fill this gap by providing access to equity financing to allow businesses to expand.The fund will also be a demonstration project to show the viability of investment in social enterprise. It is expected that this will promote an increase in the flow of independent risk capital into the equity gap. The fund will also demonstrate that there are a meaningful number of investors interested in making a profit-maximising investment in the area of social enterprise and it will test the terms on which they are willing to invest.It is expected that a fund manager will be appointed in the autumn and the first investments will be made by the end of 2008.

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© 2008 Rise

22 August 2008