Bury Council Community Funding now open to local groups

Community and voluntary groups are invited to apply for funding to strengthen their ability to help residents with ongoing financial pressures.

Bury Council has launched a new Community Fund, following feedback from partners and discussions at two recent cost-of-living summits.

Grants will come from council resources and the Government’s Household Support Fund and be used to support local groups in their work to help people at a time of rising bills and budget demands.

The fund is open to all voluntary, community, faith and social enterprise organisations based in, or who operate in, the borough of Bury. Groups can apply for up to £2,000 (or £5,000 for collaborative bids involving more than two groups) by demonstrating how their activity will contribute to one or more priorities in Bury’s Cost of Living and Anti-Poverty Strategy:

• Food poverty
• Wellbeing and Poverty
• Finance and Debt
• Work and Wages
• Childhood Poverty
• Housing related (including fuel) poverty
• Poverty and digital inclusion
• Reducing stigma and bias in relation to poverty

This list sets out examples of the type of activity that could be supported, but new and tailored projects are also encouraged:

• Activities which support local people to access information and advice that enables them to increase their (financial) resilience
• Resilience support for community organisations to maintain services to mitigate the impact of rising costs
• Setting up a new service based on an identified local need to tackle cost of living pressures in the borough. Examples of schemes elsewhere are detailed in the Cost of Living and Anti-Poverty Strategy.
• Targeted provision of fuel and food support information, particularly to those who haven’t previously accessed provision
• The delivery of warm space provision and associated activities
• Community appliances, such as a community fridge

Applications should be in line with Bury’s LET’S Do It strategy - focusing on local neighbourhoods through enterprising and innovative approaches, working together to build on the existing strengths of our communities.

Councillor Richard Gold, cabinet member for finance and communities, said: “We recognise the vital role that local voluntary and community groups provide to support local people. Building on the work of our Anti-Poverty Steering Group, and to support local community activity, we are making further funding available to enable activity to continue, or be put in place, to deliver against the priorities in our anti-poverty strategy as local groups support residents facing hardship.”

Applications are open now. Some groups will have projects that are ready now, and so there is an initial closing date early in the new year, with a further date in February to provide an opportunity for those groups who require further time to develop proposals or potential collaborations.

The first round of applications closes on Monday 16 January 2023, with a further deadline of Monday 13 February 2023.

To apply, groups can access an application form and guidance at www.buryvcfa.org.uk. For any support with your application, please email the Bury Voluntary and Community Faith Alliance (Bury VCFA) at funding@buryvcfa.org.uk or call 0161 518 5550.

Information about local and national support available to individual households in the borough has been brought together at www.bury.gov.uk/hardshiphelp or call 0161 253 5400.

ENDS

Press release issued: 21 December 2022.