Newport City Council has launched three grant schemes for charities, social enterprises and local community groups (VCSEs) working in the realms of culture, heritage and sports. The UK Government’s Shared Prosperity Fund (SPF) includes these grants. The allocations support Newport City Council’s future vision of an ‘Ambitious, Fairer, Greener Newport For Everyone’. The council is harnessing whatimpact.com’s modern platform technology for the grant-making operation to ensure a seamless, transparent, and democratic application and evaluation process. The platform gives equal opportunity to various organisations and projects to apply comparably. This includes allowing them to build a mini-website for their project to seek further support from individuals and the private sector, and at no cost! To explore how we can help match VCSEs with resources, visit our tailored page for charities, community groups and social enterprises here!
The UK Shared Prosperity Fund (SPF)
From the UK Governments SPF* funding, Newport City Council were allocated over £800,000 to ‘level up’ Newport. The grant scheme is for supporting culture, heritage, and sports-related activities, projects, and social interventions. Essentially, intending to add to local charities, social enterprises and community groups’ budgets.
The UK Shared Prosperity Fund is a central pillar of the UK government’s Levelling Up agenda. It provides £2.6 billion of funding for local investment by March 2025. The Fund will improve pride in place and increase life chances across the UK. Specifically, by investing in communities and places, and supporting local businesses, people and skills. Newport City Council’s focus for these SPF grants is to enhance the social fabric and sense of local pride in Newport. Therefore, they are investing in activities that enhance physical, cultural and social ties and access to amenities. They aim to target funds to the levelling up interventions that support equal opportunity and build resilient, healthy and safe neighbourhoods. To find out more about Newport City Council’s SPF grant programme, visit their profile page HERE.
Alternatively, to find out how you can distribute your community grants effectively, book a demo HERE.
Grant-making made easy
Newport City Council has taken a new approach to grant-making, harnessing whatimpact.com’s modern platform technology. Providing hands-on support to ensure a wide range of organisations to apply for grants from £1,000 to £30,000 per project. The council aim to attract various organisations to deliver innovative, new solutions to tackle societal challenges in Newport. These projects should focus on enriching either sports, culture, or heritage. Grants are available for any organisations whose beneficiaries consist of people living in Newport.
Councillor Jane Mudd, leader of the council and cabinet member for economic growth and strategic investment, said: “We are delighted to be able to make these grants available thanks to the Shared Prosperity Fund. We have many fantastic community groups, charities and social enterprises in Newport, and we would love to see as many of them applying for these grants as possible. I am looking forward to seeing the many ideas for projects which celebrate our city’s rich and diverse cultural, heritage and sporting offers.”
More about whatimpact
whatimpact.com is a nationwide grant and donation platform that uses the Charity Commission, Companies House, and 360Giving data to build VCSE profiles. These profiles allow them to present their work, projects, resource requests and case studies in a transparent and equal manner. Therefore, the process of applying for grants is significantly easier and quicker than traditional grant-making application processes tend to be. VCSEs will also use the platform to report on the success of their projects. Whatimpact has one-on-one support for all applicants, both online and in-person. Furthermore, whatimpact is collaborating widely with Newport-based VCSE support organisations e.g. the council’s Community Connectors team, GAVO and Newport Live. These organisations are promoting the grant programmes and providing additional support for VCSEs e.g. setting up a bank account for new initiatives.
whatimpact.com is a social impact start-up backed by the UK GOV (Innovate UK). whatimpact.com is the leading Social Value Brokerage in the UK offering comprehensive technology solutions for the public and private sectors to collaborate with VCSEs efficiently. In addition to the grant-making system, the company offers solutions for social value delivery for public sector procurement.
Key Dates
Grants are available for application from 12th February till December 2024. However, the grants are awarded on an ongoing basis. With most projects suspected to take place in 2024 and early 2025. Subsequently, all interested VCSEs are advised to apply as soon as possible. For more on the innovative whatimpact.com grant-making platform, click HERE.
*SPF
The UK Shared Prosperity Fund is a central pillar of the UK government’s ambitious levelling up agenda and a significant component of its support for places across the UK. It provides £2.6 billion of new funding for local investment by March 2025. All areas of the UK will receive an allocation from the fund via a funding formula rather than a competition. It will help places across the country deliver enhanced outcomes. Whilst recognising that even the most affluent parts of the UK contain pockets of deprivation that need support.
For more information, visit https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/uk-shared-prosperity-fund-prospectus
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