NEWS: Nurturing Grassroots - bringing capacity building and leadership development support to community interest companies and smaller community support groups

Civil society across the UK is facing its greatest test, just to survive is a mammoth task. We have now seen 15 or more years of Government austerity and cuts, and as financial difficulties again mount even more we have seen (sadly) many vital organisations simply fall over. One recent example is our friends at West Norfolk Carers - they have been compelled to close their doors as local health authority cuts bore down. Others helping the most vulnerable communities struggle to get the resources and capacity-building support they badly need. Colleagues on our Lived Experience Reference panel - from east London, Rochdale, Middlesbrough, Redcar and Peterborough - report exceptional challenges to keeping their organisations afloat. 

This all takes its toll. We know from talking to many sector leaders that they face burnout and are distressed by the sheer lack of funding and paucity of support in their localities. We always try our best to respond positively and empathetically to these community needs and to support leaders to best serve their communities.

Grassroots civil society organisations are our organisational bread and butter. We have been working with some truly inspirational grassroots leaders in many of the toughest areas, helping them steer a path through the treacherous funding waters and overcome operational barriers. We have always aimed to support those at the coalface working with and alongside minoritised communities and in the poorest neighbourhoods.

We have now secured new funding from our wonderful friends at the National Lottery - Reaching Communities - to work with a further 120 grassroots organisations over the next three years. This bespoke and tailored support builds on what we have achieved previously as part of funded programmes such as 'Steps to Sustainability' and 'Kinder Communities' and is called ‘Nurturing Grassroots’.

The focus will be on those grassroots civil society organisations in northern, central and eastern England (we failed to secure the necessary funding to help CSO organisations in London - so we are extending our ‘pro-bono’ help generated from our commissioned income ‘profit’!), and especially provide support to the burgeoning social enterprise sector, often headed up by some mighty dynamic social action leaders. 

In the UK there are now over 32,500 registered community interest companies (CICs) and we will be working with many of those newly arrived and in their formative days.

Our Nurturing Grassroots programme will aim to:

• Teach participants to get the best out of the CIC model, and make them as robust and resilient as possible

• Support small community group and social enterprise leaders in their personal development, and increase their leadership potential and wellbeing

• Develop CICs by increasing their income, visibility and impact in their local communities.

The programme will be delivered in a combination of one-to-one support and peer group learning (especially leadership coaching) mixed in with national networking opportunities and invitations to some special events. 

We have a team dedicated to this programme, including Mark Ereira-Guyer, Munashe Munyukwi, Sadia Akram- other colleagues (Natasha Ereira-Guyer, Rebecca Pauley and Viki Lee) will be pitching in with communications, evaluation and other support. Leadership coaching will be provided by Dee Brecker - a professional coach with a long-standing working relationship with the team.

We’re now planning our first cohort - we already have some great organisations on board and are looking forward to welcoming more.

As the financial situation and general funding landscape continues to deteriorate for many in the sector that we all love and value we hope that Nurturing Grassroots will make a tangible difference to as many grassroots organisations as possible. If you are outside of our target areas then please do still get in touch. 

To access Nurturing Grassroots support:

• Please complete our Baseline Survey: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/WNFH53Z 

• Sign up to our Co-Production and Values Statement: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/28TLRN7 

Nurturing Grassroots is funded by The National Lottery and delivered by Civil Society Consulting.