Developing and managing a budget that works for you and your funders

Free workshop by Community Works

Open to all community and voluntary organisations across Brighton and Hove, Worthing and Adur.

Would you like to know more about budgeting issues for voluntary and community organisations?  Perhaps you don’t always have confidence in your budgets and find decision-making on budgeting challenging?

This session will cover making sense of your budgets, both in terms of:

  • creating budgets for funding bids
  • identifying where expenditure should go, and how particular roles or services are funded

We can also hear about software packages such as Xero and Sage.

The session will be led by an expert accountant with knowledge of the charity and voluntary sector.

Where: Gordon Room, Worthing Town Hall, Chapel Road, Worthing BN11 1HA
When: Thursday 20 June 2019, 14:00 – 16:00
To book: Book your place online via the Community Works website

Bid writing workshops in Brighton Jan and Feb2017

Tuesday 10th January or Tuesday 21st February

Bid Writing : The Basics

Cost: £95

This workshop provides a series of practical tips to improve the quality and success rate of your future funding bids.

Bid Writing : Advanced

Cost: £95

This advanced workshop covers series of important topics in depth to further improve the quality and success rate of your future funding bids.

For more info and booking: http://nfpworkshops.co.uk/

 

Free training course: Finance for small groups

Community Works is running another Finance for Small Groups training course on 23 and 30 November 2016.

Please note this course takes place on 2 successive Wednesdays and you need to attend on BOTH days.

Course length: 2 x sessions over 2 days

Date: 23 and 30 November 2016

Time: 9.30am-1.30pm

Venue: The Bridge Community Education Centre, Lucraft Road, Brighton.

Trainer: Steve Early

Who is this course for?

This two half-day course is aimed at anyone from a small community group who wants to understand more about bookkeeping, financial management and budgeting. It is aimed specifically at groups:

  • With an income of under £35,000 and who are receiving a grant through the Community Health Fund and/or who are delivering health and well-being activities
  • Community Works will prioritise those groups whose health and well-being activities support LGBT people, younger people and older people e.g. physical activity, arts / heritage /culture, food and nutrition, intergenerational work

By the end of the course you will be able to:

  •          keep basic books using an Excel template designed by the Resource Centre
  •          write an accurate budget including your core costs
  •          account for each fund you have separately
  •          put in place appropriate financial controls
  •          provide financial information to the rest of your management committee
  •          understand the rules around independent examinations

Course fees:

FREE

For more information on either session or to book your place visit:

http://bhcommunityworks.org.uk/finance-for-small-groups  or please call 01273 234023

Stuart Read Legacy Arts Fund

Grants of up to £1000 available from the Stuart Read Legacy Arts Fund for projects that promote the arts amongst young people under 17.

Next deadline is March 25th.

More details on our favourite funders page 

Grants available for London Road Area

Just over £2,500 is available for grants of up to £500 per application from the Healthy Neighbourhood Fund, London Road.

The fund is being managed by Serendipity – [email protected], and applications must be returned to them by 18th March 2016. For further information also contact Serendipity.

The overarching theme for grants is to support projects that impact on the health and well-being of the community within the London Road area of Brighton (the area boundaried by New England/Viaduct Road, the Level, and Trafalgar Street). There are also the following public health priorities for applications:

  • Projects or activities that educate to prevent people starting to smoke or support them when they are ready to stop,
  • promoting healthy eating, improving diet and nutrition and helping to reduce obesity
  • Encourage active living and physical activity
  • Improving sexual health
  • Encouraging and supporting sensible drinking
  • Improving mental health and well-being and addressing isolation

Applications can be made by groups and organisations in the voluntary and community sector, groups of individuals, or individuals, but not from statutory or private organisations.

The applications should be no more than 2 sides of A4 and cover the following points:

  • Contact name and address
  • Group/Organisation Name (if not individual application)
  • Name of Project
  • Start and End Date
  • Details of Project/Activity -What are you going to do?
  • How this impacts on the themes and priorities of this fund.
  • Number, type, and location of beneficiaries – Who you going to do it with, how many, where?
  • How are you going to evaluate the work – How can you show you did what you said you would?
  • Project Cost – with breakdown – How much/what for?
  • Funding requested – with breakdown (if relevant where is the rest of the money coming from)
  • Sustainability or Exit Strategy – What happens at the end of the Funding?.
  • Additional Information – for example, how do we know you can deliver it?

Sport Relief Community Cash

Deadline is Tuesday 16th February, 5pm.

Grants of £500 to £1000 available to small grassroots community groups in Sussex for local projects.

Apply through Sussex Community Foundation.

The full criteria for this funding can be found on the Sussex Community Foundation website but broadly –

The aims of the grant are:

To support work where there is clear evidence of a beneficial impact on people’s lives who are excluded or disadvantaged through low income, rural or social isolation, age, disabilities, race, sexuality or gender.

To support community groups undertaking work that helps people of all ages feel more included in their community, builds their skills and increases their sense of achievement.

Who can apply?

They are particularly keen to ensure we reach groups of people who often miss out. As such they accept applications from:

 

  • constituted voluntary and community groups
  • charities
  • social enterprises
  • co-operatives
  • community interest companies

Bags of Help

Tesco’s new grant scheme Bags of Help allows communities to bid for up to £12,000 in community funds, to be used towards environmental improvement projects. This project is being administered by Groundworks together with Tesco.

The grant will fund capital projects that provide community benefit and where there is no charge to access. Projects that would typically receive funding include:

.               Parks, pocket parks and urban green spaces

.               Green corridors – river and canals, cycle ways

.               Formal and informal play areas

.               Open access sports facilities within public parks and recreation grounds

.               Informal outdoor recreation facilities; e.g. gym equipment, woodland walks

.               Nature reserves, community woodland, ponds and village greens

.               Churchyards

.               Seafront improvements

.               Community allotments, community gardens, orchards and city farms

.               Spaces in the grounds of hospices and day centres

.               Allotments

.               School grounds

.               Community spaces on housing estates or residential areas

There’s no match funding requirement to access this grant, but the grant should be the majority of the funding required for the project, which could be a stand-alone project or a discrete, self-contained part of a larger project or part of a phased project and will need to be delivered within twelve months of receipt of the grant.  Landowner’s permission is essential and some projects might also need planning permission.

Once all the bids are in and have been shortlisted by Groundwork and Tesco to the final three projects in each area, Tesco customers will get the chance to vote in local stores for which of the three finalists will receive either £12,000, £10,000 or £8,000. So projects in the final three are guaranteed some money! You can read more about the grant programme on Groundwork’s website http://www.groundwork.org.uk/Sites/tescocommunityscheme

The next funding round will open for applications in April! If you have any questions or want further advice on developing project ideas, contact Ben the Community Enabler for Sussex and Surrey.

Mob: 07736132698

Email: [email protected]

www.south.groundwork.org.uk

Free training from Community Works – Finance for Small Groups

Date: 25 November and 2 December

Time: 9.30am-1.30pm

Venue: The Bridge Community Education Centre. In the IT Suite (25) and the Bevendean Room (2)

Trainer: Steve Early

This two half-day course is aimed at anyone from a small community group who wants to understand more about bookkeeping, financial management and budgeting. By the end of the course you will be able to:

  • Keep basic books using an Excel template designed by the Resource Centre;
  • Write an accurate budget including your core costs;
  • Account for each fund you have separately;
  • Put in place appropriate financial controls;
  • Provide financial information to the rest of your management committee;
  • Understand the rules around independent examinations.

Who is this course for?

This training is aimed specifically at groups:

  • With an income of under £35,000 and who are receiving a grant through the Community Health Fund and/or who are delivering health and well-being activities
  • Priority for groups whose health and well-being activities support LGBT communities, BME communities, younger people and older people e.g. physical activity, arts / heritage /culture, food and nutrition, intergenerational work.

Course fees:

Free.

To book on:

To book your place please visit: https://finance-for-small-groups-nov-2015.eventbrite.co.uk. There are limited spaces available, so please book early!

For more information:

If you have any questions please contact: [email protected] or call 01273 234023.

Galaxy Hot Chocolate Fund

The Galaxy Hot Chocolate Fund is open for applications again, offering small grants to help small, local community groups and charities across the UK and Ireland.

Now in its fourth year, the Fund will distribute five £300 awards each week, one of which will be for the applicant that attracts the most support on the Fund’s website that week.

The Fund is open for entries until 23 February 2015.

Since it was first established the Fund has supported more than 100,000 people.

Applications need to be made on line. Go to: www.galaxyhotchocolate.com

 

Successful Money in Mind project comes to an end

Big Lottery funding for the Money in Mind project will run out at the end of September 2014. The Money in Mind project has provided free support with money management to small groups in Brighton & Hove since October 2009.

Over 300 groups have been helped with training, advice and information, two free downloadable accounts systems, and free access to an examination of accounts service. An independent evaluation of the project in August 2014 found that:

  • Groups found the support offered by the Money in Mind project to be of excellent quality, and all beneficiaries would recommend the service to their colleagues and friends.
  • A large majority of groups who received support from the Money in Mind project reported that their skills, confidence and knowledge had improved following the support.
  • A majority of groups reported that they were better able to raise funds following the support they had received.

From October 2014, the Resource Centre has put aside funds to continue this free support for small groups who are based in areas of social housing, black and minority ethnic community groups, and disabled people’s groups.

For other groups, the following services are currently available:

Community Works are interested in finding out how many groups would find free examination of accounts or money management advice services useful, to help them with future planning (but they are not offering it at the moment). It is worth contacting them to tell them you would like to use these services if they are able to offer them in future. Contact Lisa Mytton, [email protected] or on 01273 234031 to let her know that your organisation would find this service useful.