City Bridge Trust launches £100m charity pot to help disadvantaged Londoners
Melanie May | 24 April 2018 | News
City Bridge Trust has launched a new five-year funding programme, Bridging Divides, which will see £100m distributed to the capital’s charities to help disadvantaged Londoners.
In a consultation, City Bridge Trust asked Londoners, charities and community groups, public and private sectors, funders and policy makers for their views on the health of the charity sector.
Responses spanned 1,000 Londoners and described a charity industry ‘in crisis’ and ‘at tipping point’, with reductions in state funding and spiralling costs of living in London contributing to a surge in demand for services.
Through Bridging Divides, City Bridge Trust has pledged a more flexible charity funding approach, including grants of different sizes and duration, with more targeted social investment and match funding.
City Bridge Trust’s research also saw the capital’s charities raise Brexit as an issue of concern, with uncertainty about future European Union funding, staff recruitment and demand for charity services all being referenced. Bridging Divides aims to address these concerns through targeted charity funding.
Areas to receive support from Bridging Divides include:
- Supporting survivors of domestic and sexual abuse, modern day slavery, trafficking and hate crime
- Helping people experiencing food poverty through food banks
- Backing for environmental projects
- Boosting integration support services for migrants and refugees
- Enabling disabled and older people to have more choice and control
- Helping ex-offenders to transform their lives
Alison Gowman, Chairman of the City of London Corporation’s City Bridge Trust Committee, said:
“In the next five years we will transform the lives of thousands of Londoners most in need.
“We will give a voice to people who are underrepresented, give independence to those who are held back, and cut the inequality which should not exist in the capital.
“Working closely with charities we can stay alive to the changing needs of Londoners, strengthen our communities and make this city a fairer place to work and live.”Advertisement
Bridging Divides is split into three new charity funding programmes – Connecting the Capital, Positive Transitions, and Advice and Support.
- Connecting the Capital: through this, City Bridge Trust will fund charity programmes including sports and arts projects for people with disabilities, philanthropic giving, and greening and growing projects that bring communities together and improve the local environment
- Positive Transitions grants will be given to charities supporting projects that help Londoners experiencing inequality to transform their lives. This will include funding for programmes supporting disadvantaged young people and support for survivors of domestic abuse.
- Advice and Support funding will support Londoners with the changes to welfare benefits, homelessness, unaffordable housing and the increasing cost of living in London.
City Bridge Trust will also offer charities advice on business development, environmental sustainability policies and exit strategy planning.
The Trust makes grants of £20 million a year to tackle disadvantage and inequality across the capital. It has awarded more than 7,700 grants totalling over £370 million since it first began in 1995.
Related posts
How should London grants budget be spent?
London Councils wants more views on future of grants scheme
London Marathon Trust announces latest grant recipients & next application deadlines
Stronger Communities fund now open for applications to support London projects
About Melanie May
Melanie May is a journalist and copywriter specialising in writing both for and about the charity and marketing services sectors since 2001. She can be reached via thepurplepim.com.