We’re inviting organisations in Essex to bid for funding to help create resilient and vibrant communities.
The Essex Community Initiatives Fund (CIF) 2023 to 2024 is now open for applications. Essex Association of Local Councils will administer the fund on our behalf.
There are two levels of grant. The main CIF with an allocation of £300,000 and grants up to £10,000 towards projects that benefit the wider community. The Micro Grant Community Chest Fund with an allocation of £50,000 and grants of up to £1,000 to help communities connect.
Town and parish councils, community groups, social enterprises and individuals in the Essex County Council area are invited to apply.
Projects should have community backing and show that they meet a real community need.
Projects could be to:
create, buy or develop new community assets
enhance existing community assets
enhance or develop initiatives that strengthen a community, including cultural initiatives
Community Initiative Fund projects
Examples of projects the CIF has funded since 2019 include:
children’s play areas
upgrades to sports facilities
improvements to community buildings such as new heating systems or accessible toilets
a new minibus
staff costs for projects or maintenance
restoring a nature reserve
IT systems or support
cultural events and activities
The deadline for applications to the main CIF is 18 August 2023.
Your FREE digital referral and signposting platform
Mid and South Essex ICB has funded the rollout of this digital referral and signposting platform after Essex Frontline’s proven success across West Essex over many years.
We are already meeting and speaking with a number of wonderful services across Mid and South Essex, most of which have begun, or have already completed, their setup on Frontline.
The Frontline admin team can help set up your service and make the process super simple. So why not come along to a drop-in and see for yourself how Frontline can benefit your service and users?
If you’d like to add your service to Essex Frontline or want to know more, contact our friendly Frontline team at info@frontlinereferrals.org.uk or call 01799 618855.
A special event to recognise and celebrate the work of Colchester’s community volunteers took place yesterday at Colchester Castle.
The occasion, co-hosted by Colchester City Council (CCC) and Community360 (C360), brought together some of the dedicated organisations and selfless volunteers who offer their assistance to the most vulnerable members of the community.
As well as stalls and activities showcasing the work of more than 150 local volunteer groups, attendees heard guest speakers from CCC and C360 share their experiences and insights and enjoyed two performances by Harmonize Choir.
The new mayor of Colchester, Cllr John Jowers, whose theme for the year is Volunteers – the heart of our communities, expressed his gratitude and appreciation for the many volunteers and unsung heroes who tirelessly support communities across Colchester. Rachel Walton from AFiUK Colchester paid a moving tribute to the Laurence Walker, who died in March having devoted his life to promoting racial equality and diversity.
Cllr Natalie Sommers, Portfolio Holder for Communities, said: “We are incredibly grateful to the countless volunteers who tirelessly support our local communities day in and day out.
“Their unwavering commitment and selflessness are a testament to the power of community spirit and the importance of coming together to support those most in need.
“We are deeply appreciative of their willingness to step forward and lend a helping hand when and where it is needed the most, which was particularly evident during the challenging times of the pandemic. We are fortunate to have them as part of our community and this event was one small way to thank them.
“I hope that, by recognising and celebrating those whose volunteering makes a difference, others will feel inspired to follow. Their efforts serve as a constant reminder of the importance of giving back to the community.”
Tracy Rudling, CEO of C360 and Chair of One Colchester, said: “This type of event has been organised by C360 and its valued partners for almost 30 years now, and it never fails to inspire, humble, and make me so proud of what we achieve in Colchester, together. Volunteers are at the core of what we do, they are dedicated, hardworking and go above and beyond to help us reach out and touch the lives of our people every day in every way. I am always amazed how they continue to show commitment, expertise and immense kindness in so many different ways and I know how grateful colleagues and the organisations we support are for their ongoing support. Our volunteers are the bedrock, eyes and ears of all that we do and the impact of their contribution is unmeasurable.
This event gave us an opportunity to put the spotlight on the valuable work of our unsung heroes, to say thank you and to let them know just how much they are appreciated.”
Volunteers Week is an annual celebration to recognise the fantastic contribution volunteers make to communities. It is supported and celebrated by small grassroots organisations as well as larger, household-name charities.
Compassionate Communities hopes that you can join us for the next Compassionate Tendring workshop ‘Demystifying End Of Life Care and Cancer’ that is taking place on Wednesday 21 June, at Wix Village Hall, CO11 2RT.
The aim of this workshop is to support a Compassionate Community approach to EOL care and bereavement support by sharing, learning and improving the support available in our communities, pathways into and out of services + identifying collaborative opportunities to improve EOL care for everybody.
WORKSHOP SCHEDULE
09.30 – 10.00: Arrival and refreshments
10.00 – 10.15: Scene setting – Greg Cooper, Head of Partnership, St Helena
10.15 – 11.45: Presentations, discussion + Q&A
Personalised Care in Secondary Care – Louise Smith, Macmillan Deputy Lead Cancer Nurse, ESNEFT
Personalised Care in a Community Setting – Kelly Stanford, Macmillan Cancer Care Nurse, Clacton PCN
PCN Cancer Care – Laura Beesley, PCN Cancer Care Nurse, Colchester + Abby Hardy, PCN Cancer Care Nurse, Tendring
Palliative care in the community – Clinical Nurse Specialists, St Helena
12.15 – 12.30: Workshop review + forward plan – Debbie Dyer, Advanced Clinical Practitioner, Community Hospitals, ESNEFT
Thanks to partnership working, funding and community spirit, the One Colchester Winter Resilience Campaign has been a huge success, with over 500 winter packs being distributed over the winter months to Colchester’s most vulnerable.
A Winter Resilience Steering Group, chaired by Community360, who co-delivers the project, brings together representatives from the public and voluntary sector to facilitate action over the winter months.
Roadshows were delivered in the community, information events and support were available through the One Colchester Hub, and winter packs were distributed to those affected by the cold weather, including families on low incomes, people living with respiratory conditions and long-term health conditions.
Jess Leonard, Strategic Head of Projects at Community360 said: “It is humbling every year to see just how many people in our community are benefiting from the Winter Resilience Campaign. A staggering 3700 people were supported through the Warmer Homes Project alone. We were able to conduct outreach in the community, distribute winter packs, warm clothing and provide food and clothing vouchers.”
She added: “In total we were able to support over 7774 residents who received assistance during the project. This included giving advice and help with accessing additional grants, bursaries and accessing support for hardship via local charity groups. Our Social Prescribers also intervened with cases of social isolation, providing new slippers to those at risk of trips and falls and distributing hygiene and food packs to patients being discharged from hospital who needed extra support to return to their homes.”
Local groups and charities also benefited from the project receiving bursaries to help
with community projects. From running social groups, helping with outreach to
providing hot meals. The Essex Integration Project, Mercury Theatre, Mercury
Tots and Seniors Clubs, Sanctuary Housing, Beacon House and Heads2Minds all
received funding.
“The Mercury Theatre was delighted to receive a grant from the Winter Resilience Fund. Over the cold months we welcomed the community in as a Warm Space, but also wanted to offer more for Colchester residents struggling with the ongoing cost of living crisis.” Said Abbi Roberts, Development Director at the Mercury Theatre.
She added: “The grant allowed us to offer bursary places for our weekly tot’s classes, parent and baby/toddler sessions which focused on sensory development and creative play, as well as Seniors Social Club our weekly social group for people 55+ who enjoy the creative arts. Feedback from the participants was amazing and many said having a weekly social activity to look forward to was a life line during an otherwise tough time.”
Every year the Mercury engages over 30,000 people, of all ages, backgrounds and abilities, through a wide range of creative participation activities. They partner with a number of local community groups, charities and schools to engage the hardest to reach in our community.
Tracy Rudling, CEO at Community360 and Chair of One Colchester said: “The Winter Resilience Campaign shows the importance of collaborative working, enabling partners to provide much-needed help and support over the winter months to the people of Colchester. I would like to thank everyone who has been part of delivering this amazing project, from our partners, local charities, groups and our volunteers.
The success of the One Colchester Hub and its programme of activities, has also demonstrated how collaborating to establish a community focal point can make a real difference to people living in our city.”
She added: “It has been particularly tough this year for older and younger people alike with their finances just not stretching to cover basics due to the huge increase in food, heating and electricity costs. I am so grateful that as a city we have the foresight to be able to put in place support to help those who are really struggling. However, our work does not finish just because winter is over, the cost-of-living crisis is not going away which means there are still some challenging times ahead.”
If you are a business, organisation or charity and would like to get involved with this year’s Winter Resilience Campaign, please get in touch. The organisation is looking for organisations who can help with volunteering, sponsorship and support. Contact Community360 0n 01206 505250 or email catwright@community360.org.uk
Britain is facing its biggest cost of living crisis in decades. At Citizens Advice, we’ve seen more people coming to us for help with crisis support, energy problems and not having enough money to make ends meet than ever before. In this dashboard Citizens Advice share insights from across our service on how the crisis is affecting the people they help.
Citizens Advice have been updating this dashboard every month tracking how the cost of living crisis is changing. If there are insights you’d like to hear from them, please get in contact at coldatadashboard@citizensadvice.org.uk.
This programme is open for applications from Monday 22nd May 2023 until 4pm on Friday 7th July. No applications will be eligible if received after this.
Please note – you cannot apply to us if you are currently a grant holder and your grant is not due to end until 2024.
Eligibility for our UK Programmes
We do not fund individuals, only organisations. To be eligible to make an application your organisation must be based in the UK and be one of the following:
Registered Charity
Charitable Incorporated Organisation (CIO)
Community Interest Company (CIC) (NB must be limited by guarantee, not by shares)
Charitable Company (NB you must be registered both as a charity and a company)
To be eligible to apply, your total annual income as shown in your most recent accounts should be no more than £250,000.
If your income is above that in your latest accounts but your average income over the most recent three years is under £250k then you can still apply – this is to allow for one-off “good” years.
We are keen to support small organisations and our preference is to fund those already established rather than new ones (though these are still eligible).
Individuals (including via bursaries)
Non-charitable activities
Promotion of Religion
Party-political organisations or Party-political campaigning (charitable campaigning is okay)
Medical research
Registered Social Landlords (eg housing associations)
Hospitals or primary healthcare provision
Fundraising-only posts (though we can fund a post where fundraising is part of what they do)
Statutory services
Residential care
This list is not meant to be exhaustive. If you have an activity/proposal where you are not sure if we would fund it, please get in touch and we can discuss it.
We Do Not Fund
Supporting Good Governance and Good Practice
Whilst you may be eligible to apply and your proposal meets our criteria, priority will be given to organisations which demonstrate good governance and good practice. For example:
having a history of returning accounts and documents to your regulatory body (eg Charity Commission) on time
having at least four Trustees/Directors on your Board and where all trustees/directors are unrelated to each other and to the CEO or Executive Director.
having robust policies and practices on safeguarding, equalities, financial management, etc
We will also prioritise organisations which have a significant number of people on their boards and/or staff team who have lived experience of the issues they are addressing.
Where a grant would be used to support the provision of specialist and/or sensitive services you must demonstrate sufficient track record and expertise in delivering those services. In some cases a recognised qualification or quality mark may be required.
We hope this information is clear – however if you are not sure about anything please get in touch.
Types of Grants Awarded
The Fund has signed up to the IVAR Eight Commitments ( https://www.ivar.org.uk/flexible-funders/ ) – a pledge by funders to provide clear information and reduce bureaucracy for applicants. As part of that pledge we aim to provide funding which meets your needs as far and as appropriately as possible.
We offer Unrestricted Grants; or Project/Core Funding.
You can choose which of these to apply for, however please note that to be eligible for unrestricted funding all the work of your organisation must meet our criteria. For example, if you were a general community group where only some of the work you did was with refugees then you could not apply for unrestricted funding as your other work would not meet our priorities. All unrestricted grants must be used for charitable purposes.
Organisations can apply for up to two years’ funding with grants awarded usually between £5,000 – £7,000 in value per year.
If you already hold a grant from us you can apply in this round provided that your current grant ends in 2023 – if it does not end until 2024 then I’m afraid you are unable to apply.
If you applied before and were unsuccessful you can still apply in this round.
Your people can be your biggest asset and with security awareness training they can become highly effective barriers to cyber-crime. Security awareness training provides simple and effective knowledge for people to understand their environment and provides the confidence to challenge when something does not look right. The training is focussed on those with little or no cyber security or technical knowledge and is delivered in small, succinct modules using real world examples.
The sessions will cover the following:
Introduction to Cyber Resilience
Why it is important
Different types of security vulnerabilities out there (technical/non-technical)
Social Engineering
Strong passwords and their importance
Ishings (Spear Phishing, Vishing, Email Phishing and Smishing)
Social media and what you put out there
Keeping devices up to date
Local Grown Attacks and their Impact
Ransomware
This training is delivered by the Eastern Cyber Resilience Centre. The trainers are highly knowledgeable, personable, and friendly and pride themselves on providing the right environment to feel comfortable and to ask questions.
NEA’s free Fuel Poverty Forums are aimed at frontline service providers, to examine practical and policy initiatives related to fuel poverty and delivering energy efficiency solutions at a local, regional and national level. The regional Forums showcase innovation, good practice and promote dialogue and discussion on a wide range of sectoral issues to help NEA shape policy developments and campaigns.
The summer forums will be taking place in person in June and July. Attendance is free, however numbers are limited and NEA members will be given priority booking.
To register, click the link below to be taken to the booking form. Registered participants will receive an agenda and joining instructions nearer to the time.
Cost to participants: Free (However, if a delegate fails to attend a course that they have booked, or cancel with less than five working days’ notice, their organisation will be charged)
Target audience: anyone working with children and families in Essex
Learning Outcomes:
What Criminal Exploitation is
The signs of Criminal Exploitation in children & young people and how it progresses
Practical guidance for communication with children & young people you suspect of being involved in criminal exploitation
What services there are available to support children, young people and families who have been subjected to Criminal Exploitation
Time for questions and sharing concerns/ advice
Cancellation
If a delegate fails to attend a course that they have booked, or cancel with less than five working days’ notice, their organisation will be charged – £20. A delegate will be deemed a non-attendee if they arrive 15 minutes after the course commences either online or at a venue.
N.B. This is a virtual training course and delegates will be sent a calendar invite with the link to Microsoft Teams to join the event. Please note that your email address may be visible to other delegates on the Microsoft Teams invite.
If the booking for the course has closed, please e-mail escb.training@essex.gov.uk to see if there are any places available. Only those delegates who are on the ESCB attendance list will be admitted to the training.
NB: There is no charge to delegates for these workshops although there will be a charge for non-attendance and late notice cancellation.