Big Lottery Fund offers £50 million for community centre buildings
Howard Lake | 26 July 2006 | News
The Big Lottery Fund is investing £50 million in buildings that will be hubs for communities, hosting a wide variety of activities for all sections of the community.
The Fund’s new Community Buildings programme will put Lottery good cause money into buildings across England to strengthen the key role they play in local communities.
The Big Lottery Fund will make £50 million available over three years, with grants of between £50,000 and £500,000 to improve, replace or introduce a building into a community that provides services and activities to meet the needs of a range of people.
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The programme is open to voluntary or community organisations (which includes charities, unincorporated associations, not-for-profit companies, credit unions, self-help groups or co-operatives and faith based community organisations), parish councils or church-based faith organisations.
Under Community Buildings, the Big Lottery Fund will give out grants that broaden access to and increase the use of existing services; create a greater number and wider range of new services; improve opportunities for the community to access a wide range of learning; and improve the skills, knowledge and capacity to respond to community needs.
The programme will support sustainable buildings that are adaptable to a variety of community needs, have a reduced impact on the environment and can be maintained by the community in the long term. It is also important for applications to demonstrate accessibility and meaningful involvement of the local community in both use and management of the centre.
Applications to the Community Buildings programme will be assessed in two stages and applicants wanting to apply for a grant, must submit their first stage application form by 30 April 2007. Application forms are available at: http://www.biglotteryfund.org.uk
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.