Modernisation Fund distribution plans revealed
Howard Lake | 23 October 2005 | News
The government fund worth £18 million to assist the voluntary sector in Northern Ireland to modernise has produced draft guidelines. The Modernisation Fund has been established to provide resources above normal funding mechanisms to help promote modernization and change within the voluntary and community sector and to enhance the capacity of the sector to deliver services.
The draft guidelines produced by the Department of Social Development indicate that the fund will only support those organizations which are already directly involved in delivering services. One element of the fund will distribute £3 million towards ‘innovation, organizational restructuring, joint working, partnerships or mergers and improving governance. The remaining £15 million pounds will be directed at improving service delivery through physical infrastructure with a particular priority on services in support of children and on improving accessibility to services.
There is no funding limit for projects and while the funds will be distributed over three years the government is clear they do not want to ‘create a resource trail.’ In other words, they do want long term funding commitments and all initiatives have to be one-off.
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Application is through an open two stage process. Applicants will initially be invited to submit a concise expression of interest after which successful expressions of interest will be asked to submit a full application for appraisal. An unusual aspect of this process will be the requirement in advance to get the endorsement of the government department responsible for the service or activity delivered.
It appears that the fund will be open very shortly, with the draft guidelines indicating applications by the end of October.
About Howard Lake
Howard Lake is consultant editor of UK Fundraising. He founded the site in 1994 and successfully sold it in 2022. As director of Giving X Ltd he is exploring growing giving on a massive scale.
He is the founder of Fundraising Camp and co-founder of GoodJobs.