The fund will run until the end of June this year and will prioritise funding projects that can make the biggest difference to people that need it most.
Our Small Grants Programme can now give 50% larger awards to help communities get active after the maximum grant amount was increased to £15,000 for 2023.
The Small Grants Programme was put on hold for a year in 2022 as we launched the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee Activity Fund, which was designed to bring communities together through activity.
Now, Small Grants has returned and the award limit has been upped from £10,000 to £15,000 in order to provide sport and physical activities for people who may be less physically active.
Our maximum award is now 50% more.
We believe that communities that work together and share resources provide a stronger and more sustainable impact.
So, the programme will also prioritise projects that focus on environmental sustainability, can demonstrate how they connect with their communities, provide the biggest possible impact to those who need it most and are working with people living in areas of disadvantage.
Applications can be made for awards of between £300 and £15,000, with multiple applications permitted but organisations can only have awards totalling £15,000 or less in any 12-month period.
Only not-for-profit organisations are eligible for the programme and applications should explain the need for the project as well as how end users have been involved in its development.
In addition to this, submissions should consider how the project adds value to services currently available in their community, and show how the organisation will collaborate with other groups to maximise the project’s impact.
The closing date for applications to the programme is 30 June.
We want to write a new strategy that sets out what we will do to support people with learning disabilities, sensory impairment and physical disabilities over the next four years to help them to live the best life they can. This new strategy will cover:
adults over the age of 18
people with a learning disability
people with a sensory impairment. This means sight and/ or hearing loss
people with a physical disability including brain injury
At the moment it doesn’t include disabilities such as mental health and autism alone as we have separate strategies in these areas.
We want the strategy to tell us:
How things are being done now
How people feel about things now
What we need to do in the future to make things better
Why your views matter
We want to know what you think to help us to make sure we get things right for people with disabilities.
In this consultation we ask whether or not you agree that the proposed commitments are the right ones, and if there is anything else you would like to see included.
All feedback received will be reviewed and used to inform the final version of the Disability Strategy.
If you require this consultation in a large print hard copy or would like to answer the questions by telephone instead of online, please contact Disabilitystrategy@essex.gov.uk.
Essex County Council has teamed up with the University of Essex to lead a research project about women’s safety at night.
The online survey takes around 5-10 minutes to complete and responses will be used to inform future work of Essex County Council’s Safety Advisory Group (SAG).
The survey is open until Sunday 15th January, residents can take part here.
We know people are worried about rising costs and may be struggling. This document outlines a range of services, resources and additional information to help the county during this difficult time.
Making a positive difference to communities, people & the environment
Grants for Good is our first fund that invites local charities, voluntary groups or social enterprises that have an average annual income of less than £50,000 to apply to us for funding.
What is the Grants for Good Fund?
Every three months, we’ll share £10,000 between 5 shortlisted projects that have a positive impact on communities, people or the environment.
Since 2011, the Matthew Good Foundation has empowered employees of the John Good Group to support many good causes in the UK and around the world by nominating good causes for funding. However, in 2021, our tenth year, we wanted to extend our impact and allow small charities, community projects and social entrepreneurs to come straight to us.
To stay true to our ethos of donating funds to causes close to the hearts of our members, every three months, five shortlisted projects will be voted for by John Good Group employees. These five charities will all receive a share of £10,000 – the more votes a cause receives, the bigger the donation. Following the vote, the project that receives the most votes will receive a grant of £3,500, second place £2,500, third place £2,000 and fourth and fifth place will both receive £1,000.
Charities and projects are welcome to apply all year round, and your application will be considered in the next funding round. Funding will be awarded every three months, in April, July, October and January, with an application deadline of the 15th of the month before. Eg. for the April round, applications will close on the 15th March, for the October round, applications will close on 15th September.
Who can apply?
Your application must be on behalf of a local community group, charity, voluntary group or social enterprise that has a positive impact on communities, people or the environment and has an average income of less than £50,000 in the last 12 months.
We want to make it easy for very small charities or new community interest companies to apply, so organisations/groups do not need to be a registered charity, however, you will need to have a bank account in your organisation’s/project’s name such as a community bank account. We are not able to provide funding to personal bank accounts.
How to apply
We don’t want small charities to be intimidated by lengthy forms to complete – so we’ve kept the online application form straightforward. We’ll need your contact details, a brief outline of the organisation’s work, and how you’ll use the funds. We’ll also need a reference from someone not involved in the project, but with enough knowledge of what you do to support your application.
If you have any problems applying using the online form, please email info@matthewgoodfoundation.org.
Please forward this on to your team and anyone you think could be interested in this opportunity
Essex County Council are inviting Individuals with Learning Disabilities and/or Autism and Essex businesses to apply for Grant funding to open or expand their business to employ individuals with Learning Disabilities and Autism.
Essex County Council have up to £120,000 worth of funding available for Essex Businesses, with grants of up to £25,000 available per proposal.
The Council welcomes small and medium commercially viable businesses that are focused on creating solutions to overcome barriers that create real and meaningful jobs for individuals with Learning Disabilities and Autism.
Do you:
Have a new, creative innovative business proposal?
Have a proposal that is both viable and sustainable?
Want to open or expand your business to employ Adults with Learning Disabilities and/or Autism?
We have just launched our secondary prevention workstream fund for 2023-24.
This is an exciting new fund from the VVU, with a potential pot of £380, 000 to support and provide interventions for children, young people and families who are at risk of being involved in criminality and exploitation through factors that make them more vulnerable than their peers.
This fund has two rounds; Round one will fund work taking place from January 2023, and round 2.) will fund work taking place from April 2023-March 2024.
About the fund
The Secondary Prevention Workstream focuses on those Children, Families & Young People, who are at risk of being involved in criminality and exploitation through factors that make them more vulnerable than their peers.
These factors might include but are not limited to- Adverse Childhood Experience, early trauma, peer/ sibling/ parental involvement in criminality, difficulty in engaging with education, risk of ‘falling out’ of education, poverty, disenfranchisement.
The secondary prevention ‘cohort’ includes children and young people suspected of being involved in county lines, gangs and knife crime.
Applications should demonstrate how projects have a positive impact on reducing serious violence, criminality and exploitation in areas within Southend, Essex and Thurrock.
Interventions need to target one or more of the vulnerable groups – especially those at risk of ‘falling out’ of education, and those who are frequently missing from education; those accessing A&E departments due to violence or threat of violence.
Outcomes should include increased awareness and resilience towards serious violence, criminality and exploitation with individuals taking part having the opportunity to divert away from crime and exploitation toward more positive futures.
All applications must demonstrate how their project enables children & young people to do one or more of the following: Improve engagement with education; Reduce the risk of exploitation and increase protective factors; Make positive choices that keep them safe; Raise self-esteem and confidence; Build resilience; Improve emotional and physical health and mental well-being.
And finally, applications must demonstrate how they reflect in their approach and delivery the learning from the Youth Endowment Fund Toolkit.
And now the small print!
1.) This funding round is ONLY open to for local **’not for profit’ voluntary or community groups and statutory organisations based in, and delivering in Essex, Southend and Thurrock. (Excluding schools, colleges or educational establishments – unless in conjunction with a voluntary community sector provider as above).
2.) We are looking to fund projects that meet our stated aims and can run from January OR April 2023-31st March 2024.
3.) Projects starting in January will be funded in ‘Round One’, and projects with an April start date will be funded in ‘Round Two’. Projects funded from January onwards in round one must be an established project with face-face work taking place in January.
3.) Groups can apply for more than one project if they would like to, but the total cost of all applications must be no more than £50,000
If you have any questions not already answered in our Q&A sheet, then please contact Jim White jim.white2@activeessex.org, or Rachel Brett rachel@ecvys.org.uk
On Monday 16th January 2-4pm, C360 will be co-facilitating a meeting with the Be Well (£150,000) & Age Well (£167,000) domains to launch a fund totalling £317k aimed to address key priorities:
Be Well
Outcome : Adults are empowered to make health lifestyle choices.
Funding Criteria: Physical activity in men aged 30-50 (linked to higher men suicide rates).
Cost of Living Support – healthy, affordable and sustainable eating.
Age Well
Outcome: For people to live as safely and independently as possible as they grow older
Funding Criteria:
Improve levels of physical activity in older adults >65
Improve outcomes for carers – specifically advocacy and/or respite
Cost of living – specifically support for vulnerable older adults to deal with practicalities
Improve mental health for older adults >65
The meeting will start at 2pm and will close at 4pm including time for networking.
The session will be interactive with an opportunity to hear from the Be Well & Age Well Domain followed by a networking session.
One Colchester, the local strategic partnership for the Borough, is holding £317,000 for distribution in Colchester over the next two years. The same figure is being held by Tendring Together whose launch event will take place on the same day 10am-12pm please contact funding@cvstendring.org.uk for more details. C360 and CVS Tendring are providing administrative support for managing the fund and supporting development of applications. There will be the potential to explore awarding funds to groups working across North East Essex through the collaborative management of the funding.
If you would like to attend the Colchester event, please contact funding@community360.org.uk to confirm. If you would like to be involved but are unable to attend, get in touch and your name will be registered.
Co-op and Crowdfunder have teamed up to help community organisations navigate the cost of living crisis to provide vital services this winter.
Are you welcoming people into a warm space in your community, or wanting to extend existing activities or services to support more people?
Eligible community groups could get up to £3,000 to continue or extend vital services.
Criteria
This £1m match fund has been launched by Co-op to support local organisations who are supporting their communities through rising costs this winter, by bringing people together into warm spaces.
To be eligible for match funding your organisation must:
Be based and have a bank account based in England, Wales, Scotland or Northern Ireland
Be a not-for-profit constituted organisation, including community groups, schools, registered charities and social enterprises
Have a bank account in the name of the organisation
Run a crowdfunding campaign this winter, delivered by 31st March, 2023
Be raising funds for revenue costs only (capital costs such as building refurbishment are not eligible)
Your project must be a community organisation that welcomes people into a community space in your local area to provide support and needs urgent help this winter to:
Maintain vital existing services in the face of rising energy costs
Make the community space that you operate from more welcoming
Increase opening times or extend services
Typical projects may include (but are not limited to):
A community cafe that needs funding to continue offering their building as a warm space.
A local village support group wanting to extend existing activities to support more people in their community.
A community fridge, wanting to promote their services more widely to meet increasing need.
A youth group whose energy costs have increased.
Match Funding criteria:
To receive match funding, the following conditions must all be met:
For every donation made towards your project we’ll match it up to £250, so if your project receives a donation of £20 we’ll add another £20, If your project receives a donation of £600 then you’ll receive an additional £250.
Only one donation per supporter will be matched (we will not provide match funding where a supporter is deemed to have made multiple donations).
You can receive a maximum of £3,000 of match funding per organisation.
This fund will be distributed on a first come first serve basis and applications will close on 28th February 2023.
To apply for this position please click on the application form button at the top of this page, and complete the form by the closing date of Friday 23rd December 2022