BIG LOTTERY FUND
“BIG Lottery Fund Programmes”
Jonathan Clark, Victoria Bruce
East of England Regional Team
BIG introduction:
 Formed through the merger of the Community
Fund and the New Opportunities Fund
 Responsible for distributing half of the money the
National Lottery raises for good causes
 Annual awards budget of £630 million
 Our Mission: “to bring real improvements to
communities and the lives of people most in need”
BIG centres:
London centre
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Chief Executive office
F&CS Directors office
Policy and Partnerships
Communications
London regional office
Country offices
 Scotland
(Glasgow)
 Northern Ireland
(Belfast)
 Wales
(Cardiff and Newtown)
Birmingham centre
Finance and Corporate
Services
 Operations
 West Midlands regional
office
Newcastle centre
Operations
 North East regional office
Regional Offices
North West (Manchester)
Yorkshire and Humber
(Leeds)
East Midlands (Nottingham)
 East (Cambridge)
 South East (Guildford)
 South West (Exeter)
The Lottery Pound
BIG LOTTERY
FUND - 14p
Spo r t s - 4.7p
Ar t s - 4.7p
Pr izes - 50 p
Her it age - 4.7p
Lo t t er y
t ax - 12p
Ret ail er s - 5p
Camel o t - 5p
The funding framework:
Health, Education, Environment and Charitable Purposes
Community learning and
creating opportunity
Promoting community
safety and cohesion
PURPOSES
Promoting well being
People having
Stronger
Improved rural and Healthier and more
better chances in communities, with
urban
active people and
life, with better
more citizens,
environments,
communities
access to training working together to which communities
and development
tackle their
are better able to
to improve their
problems
access and enjoy
life skills
THEMES
OUTCOMES
Project Outcomes:
 The direct difference your services will make to the
people or organisations your project will benefit
 Outcomes should be SMART
“Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Time-based”
 Guidance is available on our website:
“Explaining the difference your project makes”
Before applying what do you need
to think about?
 The people and organisations who will mostly benefit from the programme
and the needs they have
 The difference you want your project to make and the outcomes you hope
it will achieve
 How your planned outcomes match the strategic outcomes of the BIG
funding programme to which you are applying
 What activities you want to undertake to meet those identified needs and
deliver your planned outcomes
 How much those activities will cost and how much you want from BIG
BIG Commitments
 Supporting the voluntary and community sector
- 60/70% commitment
 Adding value
- Additional to government
- Complimenting local plans, strategies and initiatives
 Promoting partnership
- Encouraging partnership working
The Big Programme Overview
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Breathing Places
Changing Spaces
Reaching Communities
Awards for All
Playful Ideas
Family Learning
The Big Boost and Young People’s Fund (2)
Other BIG Programmes
Breathing Places
What is it?
 UK-wide small grants programme developed in partnership with
the BBC to complement the BBC’s Breathing Places campaign
that aims to put communities in touch with local wildlife habitats.
 Phase 3 of the programme: launch on 12 Nov 07, closes on 18
Jan 08, decisions due in June 2008.
Grants available:
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£5 million will be available across England
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Likely grant size: £1,000 - £10,000
Breathing Places
Eligible organisations:
Likely to match Awards for All eligibility:
 VCS, schools, statutory health bodies, parish councils and town
councils can all apply.
 Groups must be constituted and must have access to a bank account
that requires at least two unrelated signatures
Phase 3 outcomes:
 The natural environment of breathing places is developed to
encourage plant life and animals.
 People in local communities make more and better use of breathing
places.
 People in local communities are more engaged in developing and
maintaining breathing places.
Breathing Places: examples in Herts
 St Joseph’s Catholic Primary School, Bishops Stortford
Grant to develop an underused area in their school grounds into
a sustainable, natural resource to be used by pupils, parents
and visitors.
 Friends of the Nickey Line, Hemel Hempstead
Grant to conserve and enhance the ‘Nickey Line’, an old and
disused eight-mile railway track running from Hemel Hempstead
to Harpenden for the benefit of the local community.
 Rhodes Birthplace Trust, East Herts
Grant
to transform a piece of unused land into a wildlife and sensory
garden. Children from the Specific Learning Difficulties
Resource Centre at the local primary school will be involved.
Changing Spaces
What is it?
 Overall outcome: "improved rural and urban environments,
which communities are better able to access and enjoy“
 £234 million available in England
 Projects will include:
 physical improvements to local green spaces, community gardens,
allotments, footpaths and nature reserves
 local food growing and retailing, box schemes, farmers markets and
composting
 access to the natural environment through better information and signposting
 educational projects which raise awareness of local environments and wider
environmental issues.
Changing Spaces
How will it be delivered?
 Portfolios: strategic schemes made up of a number of projects
The five successful portfolios announced on 20 August were:
Crime Concern, The Field Studies Council, Imperial College,
Plunkett Foundation and Places for People
 Award Partners: organisations delivering a grant scheme for BIG
The five Award Partners will be ready to start making grants in early 2008. Three
Award Partners have already been announced:
 RSWT’s ‘Local Food’ scheme (£50m): to support growing, processing and
distributing local food, as well as other activities e.g. composting.
 Groundwork’s ‘Community Spaces’ scheme (£50m): to create better local
environments and increase access to quality local spaces.
 Natural England’s ‘Access to Nature’ scheme (£25m): to encourage more
people from all backgrounds to enjoy the natural environment.
Reaching Communities
What is it?
 Aim:
“To bring real improvements to communities and to the lives of
people most in need, supporting projects that respond to locally
identified needs and involve communities in delivering projects”
 Projects must enable at least one or more of the
four BIG outcomes to be achieved
 2 stage process – outline proposal stage and full
application stage
Reaching Communities
How much is available?
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Awards of between £10,001 - £500,000
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Funding for up to 5 years
Who can apply?
 Local groups or larger organisations working at a community level,
meeting identified needs
 Legally constituted organisations
 Registered charities, statutory bodies (including schools), charitable
or not-for-profit companies, social enterprises
Awards for All
What is it?
 A rolling programme
• you can apply at any time
 A fund for small grants
• from £300 to £10,000
 Hear within eight weeks
• money up-front spend within 1 year
 Your contribution
• in kind or cash
 Straightforward monitoring of awards
• compliance will be essential
Awards for All Outcomes
Projects must achieve at least one of these outcomes
Extending access and participation
helping more people to become actively in local groups & projects
Increasing skills and creativity
supporting activities which help develop people and groups,
encourage talent & raise standards
Improving the quality of life
local projects improving people's opportunities, welfare,
environment or local facilities
Playful Ideas
What is it?
 Aims to support innovation and new ways of
providing children’s play
 Demand-led rolling programme with the final
application deadline 31 December 2007
 “a creative and novel approach to addressing an
identified need within the field of children’s play”
 2 stage application process: outline proposal form
and full application
Playful Ideas
Grants available:
 up to 5 years revenue and capital funding
 grants of between £10,000 - £250,000
Eligible organisations:
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registered charities
voluntary or community groups
charitable or not for profit companies
town and parish councils
social enterprises
Projects funded through Playful Ideas
Milton Keynes Play Association - £201,402
 The scheme gives local children the chance to bring play memories back to
life. The project works with both children and adults, exploring the adult’s
memories of childhood and their most exciting play experiences working
together to recreate those play activities.
Haven House Foundation - £164,634
 A project to provide play services for life-limited children in their own homes
through trained play workers and also provide specialist toys and other
equipment on free loan to families
Special Toys Educational Postal Service - £163,375
 The scheme purchases multifunction toys and provides a free free postal
service to loan them to disabled children throughout England
Family Learning
What is it?
 Enjoyable learning activities to improve skills and
knowledge of family members
 Learning activities where children and parents learn jointly
and where there are clear learning outcomes for both
children and parents
 Learning that allows parents to learn more about how their
children learn and encourages both to pursue further
learning
 Family is defined as ‘at least one parent or other adult carer
and at least one child up to the age of 16’
Family Learning
How much is available?
 Grants available between £10,000 and £500,000 for
projects that last from one to five years
Who can apply?
 Registered charities
 Voluntary and community organisations
 Charitable or not for profit companies
 Social enterprises
 Statutory bodies including schools )
 Private sector organisations
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must partner with a VCS org
Funded under Family Learning
Home-Start Chorley and South Ribble
Awarded £159,221
 Project to deliver five weekly sessions during term-time across
various locations for families with pre-school children
 Parents and children together developing skills in story telling,
cooking, art and crafts while improving literacy and numeracy
 Families given fact sheets at the end of each session so they can
continue what they have learnt at home and share with other family
members.
Other funding for Children & Young
People
The Big Boost (awards to young individuals)
 Supporting ideas that benefit the community
 £250 to £1000 (11-16) and £500 to £5000 (16-25)
 More info: www.thebigboost.org.uk (closes 1st November 2007)
Young Peoples Fund (2)
 £76m available to be divided equally between national and local
projects
 Focus to be on youth inclusion and will only fund youth led projects
 Projects must help achieve the ‘Every Child Matters’ outcomes
 Due to launch in December 2007 (national grants) and April 2008
(local grants)
Other BIG Programmes
 Advice Plus
Funding organisations providing advice on rights and responsibilities
 BASIS (2)
Funding VCS infrastructure
 Community Assets
Funding refurbishment of local authority assets to be transferred to VCS
 Community Libraries
Funding refurbishment of local library facilities
 International
Funding projects that tackle causes of poverty and deprivation around the world
 Research
Funding social and medical research in the UK
BIG Public Involvement
Peoples Millions in association with ITV
Living Landmarks
BIG Success Story
What difference can funding make?
Mohammed Alam
North Herts Minority Ethnic Forum
BIG
Question & Answer
Session
For more information
Outline proposal forms and guidance notes from:
The BIG Advice Line – 0845 4 10 20 30
www.biglotteryfund.org.uk
Awards for All advice from:
The A4A Advice Line 0845 600 20 40
www.awardsforall.org.uk