These grants are available for the purchase and refurbishment of assets.
What are the themes for 2014?
Community Assets – Under the Hammer: Capital grants to facilitate competitive bidding for land and buildings to make use of the Right to Bid. If you apply under this theme you will need to have registered the building or land as an asset of community value and be actively looking to use the Right to Bid;
Community Share Matching: Capital grants to match-fund monies solicited direct from communities through community share issues where initiatives involve the acquisition, development or refurbishment of land or buildings. Organisations applying under this theme need to have launched or completed a share issue and should expect to be able to provide evidence of a match for the amount requested by December 2014. If you are applying under this theme you can be making use of either Right to Bid, Asset Transfer or simply involved in a straightforward asset acquisition;
Empty Buildings and Derelict Land: Capital grants to support local communities to bring empty, abandoned, derelict buildings and land back into community use / ownership. Such sites may have been left empty for a variety of reasons such as through absent or irresponsible ownership. Because they have been empty or abandoned for a number of years many of these buildings cannot be listed (as an Asset of Community Value under the Right to Bid).
Who should apply?
These grants are specifically aimed at community led organisations which can demonstrate scale, ambition and innovation in the following ways:
Innovation either in terms of type of asset, business model, asset or service delivery plans
Evidence of potential or likelihood of being considered an exemplar with potential to inspire others to be ambitious, i.e. national class leadership for a type of asset, by virtue of type of building or nature of community, land or type of business or service to be provided from the building or nature of community it will benefit. Shows potential to stimulate similar approaches and therefore achieve wider replication.
Evidence of use of asset acquisition to achieve transformative community-led service delivery or to showcase pioneering community-led planning outcomes.
Evidence of an imaginative approach to combining use of a number of policy and/or strategic initiatives e.g. Right to Bid, Right to Challenge, Neighbourhood Planning and Right to Build to meet community needs.
How much funding is available?
There is £3.25m available in 2014. The minimum grant you can apply for is £100,000 and the maximum is £500,000. All grants offered will need to be spent within this financial year.
For further information and to apply, visit: www.sibgroup.org.uk/communityrights/capital/
Deadline: Thursday 26 June 2014