- Area:
- Yorkshire and the Humber
- Programme:
- Supporting Change and Impact
- Release date:
- 20 3 2012
Charities across Yorkshire and the Humber who are struggling with the effects of public funding cuts and increased demand for their services, including employment support groups in Leeds and Hull, have been given a Lottery lifeline today.
Big Lottery Fund (BIG) has awarded 30 of its grant-holders across Yorkshire and the Humber an extra year’s worth of funding to enable them to continue their work through the tough economic environment. Grants of up to £10,000 have also been awarded to a further 64 projects to help them review their work and find ways of becoming more sustainable.
Projects sharing in the funding - totalling over £3.8 million - provide vital services to some of the most vulnerable groups in society. Many face an uncertain future as their Lottery funding comes to an end, compounded by increasing demand from beneficiaries as other services are forced to scale back or close down, and welfare reforms begin to take effect.
Leeds Action to Create Homes (LATCH) delivers courses such as plumbing, joinery, DIY, and cycle maintenance to people with mental health problems, physical disabilities, drug and alcohol problems and learning disabilities. It also includes a volunteer programme for unemployed people, developing skills and confidence through working on empty houses to bring them back into use. Increasing unemployment combined with benefit cuts has created more demand for its courses and volunteer placements. Key to the future is the development of LATCH Builds, a social enterprise refurbishing long term empty properties with unemployed volunteers to bring them back into use as social housing.
It is using the £10,000 Supporting Change funding to commission external advice including looking at delivering and selling courses to other organisations to generate income. Another £80,124 Impact funding will enable LATCH to continue the successful elements of its project for further 12 months.
Hands On Coordinator, Mags Shevlin, said: “Rising unemployment has led to high demand for our courses and volunteer placements. People who participate have often had very difficult lives and they get a huge amount out of the project, developing skills and confidence and moving on in their lives. It’s really important to us and the people we work with that we can keep offering these opportunities into the future. We’re delighted that BIG has chosen to support us with this funding, which will be used to develop the project into a social enterprise, LATCH Builds, that will generate income and sustain its benefits beyond the end of the grant funding.”
Enviromail in Hull develops opportunities for employment, volunteering, training and work experience, focusing on local disabled people and those looking to return to work. Another strand of the project delivers environmental projects such as tree planting and developing organic allotments on wasteland. Many groups that Environmail works alongside are offering a skeleton service run by volunteers following public spending cuts. The group’s waiting list for the recycling and work experience programme is growing, placing increased pressure on the group to provide more support to the community.
It has received £9,980 in Change funding to launch a quarterly professional magazine to enable Enviromail to promote the project, share successful practices and potentially generate revenue from commercial advertising to sustain itself in the future. The £73,320 in Impact funding will enable the project to carry on for further 12 months.
Pete Lemon, Project Manager, said: “The help and support of the Big Lottery Fund enabled our Community Direct Project tobecome a reality. Their continued support and guidance has enabled Enviromail to launch a successful waste Recycling service which, despite the current economic downturn, is flourishing. The commercial revenue generated from these servicesis providing the project with much needed funds, offering long term sustainabilityto our project and ensuring its benefits spread to other community organisations throughout the area.”
The funding is part of a Big Lottery Fund initiative called Supporting Change & Impact, which totals over £70m and is designed to help Lottery-funded good causes cope with the developing impact of public funding cuts. The National Council for Voluntary Organisations (NCVO) estimates that voluntary and community groups will experience a reduction in public funding of up to £3.3 billion by 2015.
Vanessa White, Big Lottery Fund Head of Region for Yorkshire and Humber, said: “This funding package throws a lifeline to organisations as they strive to provide crucial services to some of the most vulnerable in our society. BIG is acutely aware of the pressures facing organisations as a result of public funding cuts.
“These grants give those groups showing significant successes an extra year’s support and also gives them time to plan for the future - to explore ways of making their projects more sustainable.”
As part of the £70m support package, BIG also added over £25m to its two main open grants programme in England, Reaching Communities and Awards for All, to fund an additional 1,200 charitable and community projects, and has awarded almost £20 million to partner organisations that distribute or manage funding on its behalf to further support their grant holders. These include MIND, Groundwork, and Age UK, who deliver funding as part of BIG’s Well-being and Changing Spaces grants programmes.
A full list of projects awarded an extra year’s funding
A list of projects receiving up to £10,000 to review and plan for the future
Further Information
Big Lottery Fund Press Office: 020 7211 1888
Out of hours media contact: 07867 500 572
Full details of the Big Lottery Fund programmes and grant awards are available on the website: www.biglotteryfund.org.uk
Ask BIG a question here: https://ask.biglotteryfund.org.uk
Follow BIG on Twitter: www.twitter.com/BigLotteryFund #BIGlf
Find BIG on facebook: www.facebook.com/BigLotteryFund
Notes to Editors
- The Big Lottery Fund (BIG), the largest distributor of National Lottery good cause funding, is responsible for giving out 46% of the money raised for good causes by the National Lottery.
- BIG is committed to bringing real improvements to communities and the lives of people most in need and has been rolling out grants to health, education, environment and charitable causes across the UK. Since June 2004 BIG has awarded over £4.4bn.
- The Fund was formally established by Parliament on 1 December 2006.
- Since the National Lottery began in 1994, 28p from every pound spent by the public has gone to good causes. As a result, over £27 billion has now been raised and more than 370,000 grants awarded across arts, sport, heritage, charities, health, education and the environment.
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