Issue 576 | 11 July 2019

Sector calls on government to stop cuts to vital services NAVCA has joined 19 other voluntary sector organisations in supporting a letter, written by National Voices which calls on the government to stop the cuts that sap the life out of society. The letter, which was published in The Guardian on Monday 8 July, asks the government to prioritise and strengthen local councils’ and the VCSE’s ability to build the conditions that help people thrive. Joining organisations including the Centre for Mental health, ACEVO and VODG, NAVCA has signed the letter and is calling for action to be taken now. Business and Communications Lead, Tom Watson, said: “If we want a healthier, happier and more together country, government must invest in community and the infrastructure that supports it, and it must start now. This letter communicates an important message to the leaders of our country; cuts to community services have been devastating, and they must begin now to put funding back into local government and the voluntary sector to rebuild vital services.” You can read the letter in The Guardian.

News, views and opportunities

Community Business Bright Ideas Fund - open soon! The Community Business Bright Ideas Fund will be open for applications from Tuesday 6 August 2019 until Monday 30 September 2019. Funded by Power to Change, the £3.2m Bright Ideas fund offers tailored support and grants of up to £15,000 to develop their projects. The fund gives community groups the early stage finance they need to work with local people to develop a community business idea the community wants and needs. It also gives them support and tools to start setting up their community businesses. The funding programme is delivered by Locality in partnership with Co-operatives UK, the Plunkett Foundation and Groundwork UK. To read the funding criteria or register for the Bright Ideas Round Six Webinar on Tuesday 16 July at 11am,  click here.

The Case for Place In April, Nathan Yeowell, Head of Policy and External Affairs at NPC, spoke at Salford CVS’s annual conference, which was called ‘radical roots to practical action’. His speech set out NPC’s thoughts about place-based approaches to social change, leading to its  new strategy , published on 3 July 2019. You can read the full speech here.

Social investors & advisors directory Good Finance has a free directory with social investors, advisors and live funds listed. If you are looking for finance and funding, you can save time by using the directory which has more than 80 investors and 60 live funds listed. Take a look here.

Charity Commission annual report & accounts The Charity Commission has published its annual report and accounts for 2018 to 2019. It sets out the key activities, successes and challenges experienced over the year, and highlights increases in demand on its core regulatory functions. You can take a look at the report here.

Digital roundup

Tech to Connect Challenge The Tech to Connect Challenge is looking to help civil society develop their early stage ideas for tech that enables more or better interactions. The aim of the Tech to Connect Challenge is to draw out and help develop ideas enabling civil society to combat social isolation using technology. This can be by developing new ways for people, or the organisation itself, to interact with others. By lending the right assistance to organisations that know the problem of isolation best, the hope is that technology can be targeted properly and delivered in a way that best reflects the needs of its users. The Challenge prize will help finalists develop their ideas into working prototypes and plan for their implementation. The £1 million prize will be split into £500,000 of business support from Nesta Challenges with the other £500,000 being awarded as financial support. Find out more here.

Digital & small charities: a collection of resources Thank you to CAST for sharing this brilliant resource from The Developer Society titled ‘The guides I wish I had when starting digital work in charities’ or ‘all the best resources that have helped me become less clueless’. This is a brilliant round up of guides and content, ranging from coding and SEO to creative and design. You can find the collection here.

Events

Supporting patients with complex needs, July 16, Manchester The Building Health Partnerships is hosting a free event for commissioners, clinicians, service designers, delivery organisations and system leaders from across health and care, including VCSE and Patient and Public Voice partners. The session will focus on working with the VCSE sector to prevent strokes, but the principles will be of interest across any ‘condition’. Find out more about this event, and how to register here.

Jobs

Visit our   jobs page  for more details on current vacancies in the voluntary and community sector, or click on the links below: Programmes Manager, NAVCA Head of Enterprise, Community First, Hampshire Development Worker (Localities), Salford CVS Development Worker (Social value), Salford CVS Community Development Officer - Havant, Community First Grassroots Development Officer, Bolton CVS Safeguarding and Governance Senior Officer, Bolton CVS Safe Places Coordinator, York CVS Also here's a   quick guide  to selling yourself when applying for a job in the voluntary sector. Advertise jobs and contracts here, on our website and through our Twitter page! Just send details including a weblink to   webedit@navca.org.uk . This service is free to members.

Funding, contracts & awards

Our funding section is brought to you by  Community Matters Yorkshire . Worshipful Company of Weavers Benevolent Fund The Worshipful Company of Weavers Benevolent Fund's principal aim is to support people in trouble, particularly young offenders and ex-offenders, and other disadvantaged young people. Preference is given to pump priming new projects, especially those which are innovatory and can serve as a model elsewhere. Deadline 31 July. Woodward Charitable Trust - General Grants The Woodward Charitable Trust is a grant-making trust.The Trust primarily funds charitable organisations in the UK. Woodward favours charities which make good use of volunteers and encourage past and current users to participate. Deadline 31 July. Golsoncott Foundation The Golsoncott Foundation aims to promote, maintain, improve and advance the education of the public in the arts generally and in particular the fine arts and music. This includes providing access to the arts for young people and developing new audiences. Deadline 31 July. David and Elaine Potter Foundation The David and Elaine Potter Foundation is a charitable family foundation established in 1999 to encourage a stronger, fairer civil society. Football Foundation - Build the Game Scheme The Build the Game scheme provides grants for small facility projects. They aim to assess applications to this scheme within 12 weeks. The scheme has flexible criteria and there are many eligible items, so long as it is the right project for the right applicant. All projects must demonstrate they can support the growth and retention of grassroots football. 2020 GSK IMPACT Awards The GSK IMPACT Awards provide core funding, training and national recognition for charities doing excellent work to improve people’s health and wellbeing. Up to 20 awards will be made ranging from £3,000 to £40,000. To be eligible organisations must be at least three years old, a registered charity, working in a health-related field in the UK, with income between £80,000 and £2.5 million. Deadline 23 September 2019.

Blogs & podcasts

Polly Neate explains how Shelter is embracing leadership principles that have been developed by the Better Way network to change how it operates. Joe Saxton of nfp Synergy looks back at his 15 years of being a chair of trustees for a charity and outlines his views on the twelve roles that a charity chair has. Ben Cairns, Director of IVAR, explores what ‘tech’ means for small voluntary organisations.

Health and social care

£5 million fund to develop support for unpaid carers The £5 million Carers Innovation Fund will invest in innovative ways of supporting unpaid carers, outside of mainstream health and care services. This funding will be used to improve support across the country and help build more carer-friendly communities. Applicants will need to demonstrate their idea is a fresh approach that is better than existing provision, will benefit the local community and can be expanded and replicated. The voluntary sector, charities, SMEs and commercial organisations can all bid for funding to prove their concept, with the aim of securing longer term funding from other sources. The fund was first announced last year as part of the Carers Action Plan, a cross-government programme of targeted work to support unpaid carers over the next 2 years. Initially the fund was worth half a million pounds. However, funding was later increased to £5 million. Read more here.

Implementation framework for the NHS Long Term Plan launched In January, NHS England and NHS Improvement committed to publish an implementation framework for the NHS Long Term Plan, setting out further detail on how the commitments in that document will be delivered. The framework has now been released and you can find it here.

Declare your care campaign The Race Equality Foundation has been working with the CQC on their Declare Your Care campaign, to encourage people to complain when care is not what it should be. They've produced some research about the racial disproportionality, including a series of filmed interviews with service users and carers about their experiences. Please share widely and help get the message out.

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