Capacity Building

This new scheme offers financial support to individuals and organisations, to create and run pilot projects which take science to diverse audiences, and engage them with science in their own communities.

Aims
The scheme aims to:
• reach audiences of all ages and from all walks of life that are currently under-served by existing activities and inform, inspire and involve them in science
• investigate and test new methods of engagement and participation.

How can the Big Lottery Fund best help communities and people most in need?

From March until July 2014, the Big Lottery Fund are inviting people to add their voice to a UK wide conversation around key areas of Big Lottery Fund’s work.

Your views will help them to consider their role as a funder and help shape their vision and plans from 2015 to 2021. Most importantly it will help them to deliver the following four themes:

Small Charities Coalition has relaunched their free Trustee Finder service, which helps charities recruit new trustees.

Improvements have been made to significantly increase the number of potential trustees viewing the vacancies and, as a result, help fill more trustee positions in charities of all sizes.

To view Trustee Finder, visit: www.smallcharities.org.uk/trustee-finder/
 

Inspired Facilities is a Sport England £110 million programme that funds the renovation and modernisation of local sports facilities.

Inspired Facilities can fund formally constituted not-for-profit organisations and statutory bodies. This might include sports clubs, voluntary organisations, local authorities, schools or governing bodies of sport.

New research from ACEVO, the Association of Chief Executives of Voluntary Organisations, has warned that communities face a crisis point in the ability of local services to keep pace with rising levels of need in society.

The findings emerge in the first survey from ACEVO’s 2014 Social Sector Tracker, the charity sector’s annual flagship surveys of senior social leaders and charity chief executives.

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.