Author Archives: Marvin
Women and girls fight back with £48.5 million Lottery funding
June 23, 2015
Women and girls facing or affected by substance misuse, mental ill health and other complex issues such as domestic violence, sexual exploitation, and homelessness are to be supported by a £48.5 million initiative announced today by the Big Lottery Fund.
The grant maker, which is responsible for distributing 40% of the money raised through National Lottery players, will be funding activities that will be determined by the women and girls themselves enabling them to take control of their lives.
One in four women will experience domestic violence during their lifetime* and up to 3 million women and girls across the UK experience rape, domestic violence, stalking or other violence each year**.
A Women’s Aid survey in 2013/14 found that 31% of referrals to women’s refuges were turned away due to lack of space.
The Big Lottery Fund’s multi-million pound investment will largely be used to fund tried and tested work where there is evidence of success and effectiveness. It will also raise awareness, support preventative work and share what works and lessons learnt.
Christine’s story:
Christine, 49, has been through many violent and abusive relationships, starting when she was 17.
She said: “One of the worst incidents happened when I was just 20. I was friendly with my male cousin and my boyfriend saw us chatting. That night I got a beating that went on and on – it went on for hours – he just kept hitting me through the night. I was black and blue all over with chunks of hair missing but I was too scared to go to hospital. He said he’d kill me if I did.
“I had another relationship when I was about 25 which started off fine, like they all do, but after a year things changed. He went to prison for burglary and when he came out he started controlling me and made me buy dress sizes that were too large in order to hide my figure.
“He got so bad that he locked me into the house and kept the only key. He even nailed the windows in so I couldn’t escape. He eventually put a padlock on the bedroom door, gave me a bucket and locked me inside. I only escaped him by telling police about his plans to commit a burglary and when they arrested him was able to leave him.
“It’s not just the fear which make it hard to leave these men, you become so controlled and feel so worthless that you believe that you must deserve it.”
Christine had several abusive relationships before she eventually left Sheffield to escape her past and ended up in Hull where she now volunteers at the Preston Road Women’s Centre.
“I felt so low my head was down at the floor. I was scared to go. But now I feel great. I’ve completed several courses and now after volunteering for a while, I am on a work placement 26 and a half hours a week. Now my head is held high.”
Clare Jones, CBE, WomenCentre’s national lead, said: “We welcome this fund, which will be a lifeline for so many women’s projects across the country that are currently struggling to survive. It will be a major boost to projects through which women and girls are breaking free from situations that have led to experiences of isolation, shame and fear. This is an opportunity for diverse communities of women and girls to work together to overcome difficulties and build safer, more positive futures.”
Projects that will be funded will be women and girls sector led partnerships which will run activities determined by the woman and girls themselves. These could include emotional support, advocacy, financial advice, childcare, community-based women’s centres and rape support centres, and services to meet the needs of refugees, asylum seekers and black and minority ethnic women.
Nat Sloane, Big Lottery Fund England Chair said: “There is so much more can be done to raise awareness and break down taboos which affect too many women and girls on a daily basis, they are our family, colleagues, friends and neighbours. Today’s £48.5 million will enable women and girls through voluntary organisations and social enterprises to be in control of their lives and help support others in similar situations.”
Women and girls organisations interested in applying for funding can find more information at www.biglotteryfund.org.uk
Big Lottery new grant opens!
May 1, 2015
Criteria for Initial Grants Programme announced
Since the Power to Change was launched in late January, they have been working hard to develop programmes that will truly make a difference to community businesses. By the end of the year they aim to have provided £9 million of funding and support to businesses across England.
A majority of this funding will be awarded through their Initial Grants Programme (IGP), an initiative that has been specifically designed to help new and existing community businesses that are in a position to make a step change in their journey towards long term sustainability within the next six months.
In order to help organisations assess whether the Initial Grants Programme funding is suited to their current needs and stage of development, they have developed a set of six criteria which organisations/ projects must meet to be considered for funding through the programme. To view the criteria click here.
If you believe your organisation meets these criteria, you will be able to apply for Initial Grants Programme funding on the Power to Change website from Tuesday 12th May.
If you have previously completed the Community Enterprise Checker on the Locality website, you will automatically be considered for the programme and contacted if the funding could be appropriate to your project/ organisation. You don’t need to do anything more at this stage.
If your organisation doesn’t meet the criteria for the Initial Grants Programme, please do not be disheartened as we will be introducing a number of new funding and support programmes later this year.
Should you need any guidance, feel free to call 01733 200906 and a member of the Can Do Communities team will be pleased to help.
New Asset Transfer Funding Arrives!
February 17, 2015
The boost to the Community Rights programme will give even more people greater control and influence over what happens locally.
Up and down the country, communities are taking action – from regulars running their local pub and protecting other treasured assets to ambitious plans for new development, new jobs and better targeted services.
This new funding will mean:
- likeminded communities will be able to network and learn from each other through the new My Community Network
- communities will have access to tailored advice through a phone and online advice service to help them use the range of community rights and other neighbourhood approaches
- 100 more neighbourhoods will be supported to use the Our Place approach, enabling councils and other public sector providers, voluntary and community groups, local businesses and the community to work together to tackle important local issues from job creation to health priorities
- 100 communities will receive support to take the first steps in identifying important local issues and develop Community Action Plans
- 50 communities will receive support to develop economic plans to address local economic priorities like job creation and enterprise
- 50 local authority/community partnerships will receive advice, support and grants to support the transfer of multiple or complex publicly owned assets into community ownership
Stephen Williams also announced today the awarding of 6 new contracts to support communities in using the Community Rights in 2015 to 2016.
These contracts have been awarded to Locality, Co-operatives UK and The Community Development Foundation (CDF).
These 6 new contracts are:
- advice service and network – Locality and the Community Development Foundation with the Local Government Association, National Association of Local Councils, National Association for Voluntary and Community Action and Anthony Collins Solicitors
- community economic development – Co-operatives UK with New Economics Foundation, Community Development Foundation, The Community Development Finance Association and Locality
- community ownership and management of assets – Locality with a wide range of delivery partners including The Local Government Association, National Association of Local Councils, Community Matters, Plunkett Foundation, Civic Voice, Ubele and Voice 4 Change
- grant administration – Groundwork
- neighbourhood planning and community Right to Build – Locality with URS-AECOM, a leading planning consultancy, and a number of other specialist sub-contractors including Design Council/CABE, the Royal Town Planning Institute and Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors
- first steps and our place – Locality with a wide range of delivery partners including The Community Development Foundation, The Local Government Association and The National Association of Local Councils
The delivery partners also include Civic Voice, Ubele and Voice 4 Change and will help the Our Place programme reach into harder to reach communities.
Asset Transfer- from the inside
January 11, 2015
An article about Asset Transfer from one of Can Do Communities Co Founders.
Asset Transfer- from the inside.
I am Marvin Symes co-founder & director of social enterprise Can Do Communities. We assist charities & community groups across England with support for their organisations or projects. In recent times because of the challenging economic conditions Local Authorities have needed to cut their costs, one of the ways they have done this is by transferring Community Buildings into Community Ownership at less than market value this is known as Asset Transfer. Of course the ‘real’ reason for an asset transfer is not even better use of a public building (although this often happens) it is primarily the Community Ownership bit, IE without certain restraints that the LA might have -people living in their community know it best and can tap into all kinds of resources that an LA cannot.
The Organisation that I help run has a team of people from Business Planners, Surveyors, Community Solicitors, Governance specialists etc., that run around the country advising people about asset transfer and what makes a sustainable community group or community building. Two years ago we were asked by Peterborough City Council to consider taking on one of their former play community centres, now this was an interesting proposal, we have been advising on Asset Transfer but had never physically been through the process of exploring ownership of a building ourselves as an organisation.
Fast forward 18 months and we have experienced first-hand what ‘our groups’ have experienced, trying to navigate through an asset Transfer ‘exploration’ ,and it’s important to note that it should be an ‘exploration’ not a quick and dirty deal because taking on a building on a peppercorn just seemed attractive at the time. First thing to say is that myself and other fellow co-founder probably ended up spending half of our working week for 18 months running the community centre. We tried to put the place on a solid footing realising that we needed to bring in £27,000 just to keep the place running per annum. We luckily found 2 core tenants to occupy parts of the building- a family gymnastics club and a start-up day nursery. The income from these 2 organisations should have covered the running costs, but then unexpected things happen like; tenants don’t pay on time, the heating stops working, there’s a guy wandering round on site without permission amongst the nursery children!, and I’m not making this up there are birds nesting in the gymnastics hall roof making a mess and because of nesting regulations – you can’t move them for 3 months!
I haven’t even mentioned the daily phone calls and emails made to the Council about this and that, all the time our core business needed our time and running the centre kept dragging us away, all of this work for the centre was on a voluntary basis. Two years on and we hope we have the left the building in good shape and a new organisation has taken over the management of the centre.
There is a very long list of things to consider when exploring Asset Transfer, here are just a few; Get a Building Survey early on to see the state of the building, Obtain the running costs from the LA asap, ideally obtain a grant to carry out every part of a pre-feasibility check on the necessary due diligence for asset transfer, construct a robust Business Plan asap (this is the major task that the LA will want to see carried out), make sure your organisation is fit for purpose IE governance etc., ensure you have a good community solicitor in your corner when negotiating a lease or freehold, if you have core tenants then make sure proper contracts around tenancy arrangements are properly drawn up and agreed, ensure you have a good contact at the Local Authority that leads on asset transfer and stick with them as a single point of contact.
Make sure the community around the building have been consulted; listen and provide the stuff that they need! – Most of all think Business, community Business.
More information around the support that Can Do Communities can provide around Asset Transfer can be found at www.candommunitites.co.uk or by calling the helpdesk on 01733 200906
Locality Conference 14 Live!
November 17, 2014
Over 600 people here in Cardiff for the 2014 annual Locality conference. Locality is the leading nationwide network of development trusts, community enterprises, settlements and social action centres http://locality.org.uk/about/
Can Do Communities are here to learn, network and do some Community Business!, highlights of day 1 ;
* Meet the Funders Workshop, see these latest funds;
http://www.biglotteryfund.org.uk/powertochange
http://www.beinvestmentready.org.uk/
Workshop on Community Rights http://mycommunityrights.org.uk/, the big news here is that following on from the successful Community Ownership funding programme, there is likely to be a similar funding programme available in the new financial year for community groups that need funding to build their capacity and explore some of the Community Rights born out of the Localism Bill.
Can Do Networked with a good range of people from ; Nat West Third Sector team to Anthony Collins Solicitors- all trying to add their bit of support to the Third Sector support jigsaw.
We will be tweeitng live from day 2 tomorrow @candocom1 or follow the live feed @ #locality14 on Twitter.
