PRESS RELEASE: Civil Society Consulting CIC celebrates after receiving £90,000 in National Lottery funding for grassroots community action
We are incredibly grateful for the continuous support from The National Lottery Community Fund.
Summary
With The Lottery’s generous support, CSC is launching a groundbreaking 12-month programme called Kinder Communities: Steps to Sustainability.
Through our Kinder Communities programme, CSC will provide personal support to social action leaders, helping them navigate the cost of living crisis while improving their resilience and overall well-being.
CSC will also offer capacity-building workshops to civil society organisations that will focus on income generation, filmmaking, website development… to name a few!
We’re taking applications for October 2023 so please get in touch with cohort leader Francesca if your organisation is interested: francesca@civilsocietyconsulting.co.uk
Civil Society Consulting Community Interest Company (CIC) based in London is celebrating today after being awarded almost £90,000 in funding from The National Lottery Community Fund, the largest community funder in the UK.
Civil Society Consulting CIC will use their funding to deliver an innovative 12-month support and capacity building programme for grassroots social action leaders from ethnically diverse backgrounds:
● To support social action leaders as individuals: to increase their resilience, improve their wellbeing as they navigate the cost of living crisis;
● And provide capacity-building to their civil society organisations to enable them to diversify their services and become stronger and more sustainable.
Building on CSC’s earlier bespoke capacity support initiatives, this new programme is called Kinder Communities: Steps to Sustainability — with a renewed focus on improving peer support networks and social action leaders’ wellbeing.
This new National Lottery funding will enable CSC to reach and support people from 70 grassroots organisations directly with one-to-one support, guidance and advice; up to 150 organisations will benefit from workshops on income generation, filmmaking and website development, among many other topics, as well as networking events. 15 participants will receive professional leadership coaching.
Kinder Communities: Steps to Sustainability will provide meaningful support to community leaders from marginalised communities on an individual level, but will also work towards ensuring the organisations they lead are more resilient and sustainable with better income generation, communication, internal governance processes and forward plans in place. The programme will be shaped by a Lived Experience Panel – made up of social action leaders who have had success with previous iterations of CSC’s capacity-building support – to ensure the programme remains relevant and fit-for-purpose.
National Lottery players raise over £30 million a week for good causes across the UK. The National Lottery Community Fund will distribute at least £4 billion by 2030, supporting activities that create resilient communities that are more inclusive and environmentally sustainable.
Mark Ereira-Guyer, founder Director of Civil Society Consulting CIC said: “Thanks to National Lottery players, this grant means that we can build on our recent work to help develop leaders and civil society organisations, especially in Northern England and from diverse, newly arrived communities, and with an expanded sessional delivery team including additional fundraising, website, evaluation and coaching experts. This will make a big difference to people’s lives.”
Claire Jopling, Head of Central Funding at The National Lottery Community Fund, said: “We’re delighted to be supporting Civil Society Consulting CIC to build on the achievements of their successful support programme, Steps to Recovery. Thanks to National Lottery players, this new funding will help deliver vital grassroots training and support to some of the most socially deprived areas across the country, supporting communities to come together and live healthier lives."
The first cohort of social action participants kicks off this month, and Francesca Godfrey, fellow Director and the programme’s co-leader said: “We are excited to start work with our first cohort of participants, made up of social action leaders that have previously contacted us for peer and capacity-building support. This is how we know this programme is so needed! Organisations such as Beyond United (Greater Manchester), Compas (Peterborough), and James Ross Hunter Youth Support CIC are already mobilised and ready to go.’’
To find out more visit www.TNLCommunityFund.org.uk
