Capacity Building

If you've got an idea for a project to improve your local community, this programme can help make it happen.

Lloyds Bank and Bank of Scotland are offering a fully funded year of learning and a grant to help you get started on a new idea or scale up an existing social enterprise.

During the programme you will develop as a leader and obtain the skills needed to take your organisation to the next stage.

The programme is incredibly practical and students can expect to learn from their peers, build new networks and be challenged by practitioners.

Our Big Gig is a community music celebration which will take place across the UK from the 11 -13 July 2014.

Presented by Superact, this annual event brings communities together to improve community cohesion and inspire more people to take part in music making opportunities in their local area.

All Our Big Gig events are organised by local volunteers from Community Groups with support from Superact’s Project Managers. All events need to be at least four hours long, free to attend and present opportunities for people to participate in a range of musical activities.

The Big Lottery Fund and ITV have launched the People's Millions public voting competition for 2014. This year organisations can apply for up to £50,000 for projects that help communities to enjoy as well as transform their local environment.

People will get the chance to vote for those projects they want to see funded in the region, when they are screened on the ITV regional news between 25 and 27 November. In your region 4 projects will win an award following the public vote run by ITV television, with a fifth award going to the runner up that receives the most votes.

The Cabinet Office (CO) and the Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG) is offering an innovative £15 million payment by results programme that aims to improve outcomes for young, homeless people.

The Fair Chance Fund aims to move at least 2,500 homeless, young people not in education, employment or training (NEET) into sustainable accommodation and at least 1,000 of those into sustained employment, education or training over 36 months - from January 2015 to December 2017.

FaithAction will be administering a pot of £160,000 over 2 years. This is available as 1:1 match-funding for small grants of £2,000 and £5,000 to facilitate new multi-faith social action projects at a local level, where there is often a lack of confidence in undertaking volunteering work in a multi-faith way.

The Community Investment Fund invests debt and equity into community based social enterprises and charities in England. The Fund’s investors are the Social Investment Business Foundation and Big Society Capital.

The Fund invests between £250,000 and £1m in community based, locally led organisations which are providing essential support and services to improve the well-being of local residents, developing the local economy and creating positive social change for all individuals in the community.

The Big Lottery Fund has announced the launch of Big Potential, a £10 million fund to help charities and social enterprises get investment ready. The ultimate aim of the fund is to improve the sustainability, capacity and scale of VCSE organisations so they can deliver greater social impact.

The Big Lottery Fund has chosen the Social Investment Business in partnership with Charity Bank, Social Enterprise UK, Locality and the University of Northampton to deliver the much needed support to the VCSE sector.

BBC Children in Need give grants for children and young people of 18 years and under experiencing disadvantage through illness, distress, abuse or neglect, any kind of disability, behavioural or psychological difficulties and living in poverty or situations of deprivation. Organisations are funded who work to combat this disadvantage and to make a real difference to children and young people's lives.

BBC Children in Need's Small Grants programme is open to charities and not-for-profit organisations.

Playing fields are one of the most important resources for sport in England but many of them are waterlogged or in a state of disrepair, so Sport England are investing £28 million of National Lottery funding into improving community sports fields.

The programme is being delivered via eight funding rounds with approximately £4 million being awarded to projects in each round. The first five rounds of funding has benefited 336 projects who have been able to either create new natural turf pitches or improve existing ones that needed leveling or drainage works.

Do you want to raise awareness of the great work your charity does to help others? Text Santa aims to help someone near you and raises funds every year to do just that.

As well as raising money, the aim is to maximise brand awareness for all of the charities involved. Text Santa provided the charities with 6 hours of airtime through ITV’s existing programming formats and regional news!

In order to be able to apply for the opportunity to become a Text Santa beneficiary your charity must comply with the following criteria: