The purpose of this page is to assemble the knowledge we need to plan towards a shared community centre for residents in Round Hill and the area served by The Triangle Community Group in Brighton UK. The idea was resurrected at a Committee Meeting of The Round Hill Society on Monday 7th April 2008 during discussion on the proposed sale of The Victoria Public House at the junction of Richmond Rd and Mayo Rd.
The idea of a shared community centre was floated to some of the Committee Members of The Triangle Community Group at a meeting of Transition Brighton and Hove's Round Hill/Triangle Neighoodhood Group Transition Round Hill and Triangle on Tuesday, 8th April 2008.
As identified by The Charity Commission (below), in order to have the best chances of success, community centres need to have a ‘cradle to grave’ policy of offering something for everyone. The interest, which some residents have in sustainability, provides scope for several possible uses for a community centre, and may indeed open up funding opportunities (i.e. finance for community centre activities) under the 2007 Sustainable Communities Act. However, although an important one, sustainability is but a single interest suggesting uses of a place to organise and meet.
It would be counter-productive to sample the opinions of residents of Round Hill and Triangle on the need for a community centre in terms of single interests. It should be for ALL the residents to suggest functions and uses, though a little leading from those who have studied what funders will finance could help to achieve a result. Initially, we should invite all serious suggestions (social, cultural, recreational, educational etc). Once we have a community centre, if some interest groups put it to good use, then at least we won't have worked hard to secure a building which is under-used.
Index
The Charity Commission's publications
Attributes of a successful funding application
The Charity Commission's role in supporting community centres
Help from the Working Together Project-----Thank you to Maureen (Triangle) for this reference
Meeting the conditions for funding------------and for the feedback on meeting conditions.
Different methods of raising funds and funding websites
Many thanks to Vivien (Round Hill) for the following suggestions:
National websites & databases for grants and funds
Local websites & databases for grants and funds
Community Matters - the National Federation for Community Organisation
Help from the Charity Commission
Links to useful online publications by the Charity Commission
RS9a - Village Halls and Community Centres:----- Contents------- Annex A, B, C & D-------Summary
The Government recognises community centres and other charities that provide space and facilities for community services and activities can make an enormous difference to the well being of their communities. (See the Summary.)
Attributes of a successful community centre-----The Charity Commission Summary contains a six-point list of the most important ones.
The Charity Commision stresses the close relationship between (a) the ability of community centres to attract users, (b) their ability to attract trustees and other volunteers, and (c) their ability to generate funding. The Charity Commission also emphasizes the importance of a ‘cradle to grave’ policy of offering something for everyone and pro-active trustees who understand their responsibilities and ensure that their charity provides activities that meet local needs.
The aim of the Charity Commission's report: RS9a - Village Halls and Community Centres (see Contents), is to look at what charities are doing to meet the new challenges that they face and to outline some of the options that are open to them. The report is aimed at anyone involved in the governance and management of a community centre or other community-based charity that provides facilities for the community in which they are located, and for anyone with an interest in such charities.
The Charity Commission’s role in supporting community centre charities-------This is also outlined in a second six-point list within the Summary.
The role includes encouraging and enabling community centre charities to continue to meet the needs of their users or beneficiaries, and adjusting the regulatory framework so that it does not present any unnecessary barriers to charities’ ability to adapt and to modernise.
Help from The Working Together Project
The Working Together Project, (Community Base, 113 Queens Road, Brighton BN1 3XG) organises a number of training sessions for organisations in the Voluntary Sector. All voluntary sector people can go on these training sessions for free. The central message of these sessions is that in order to be successful in getting funding, you need to have clear forward plans, clear responsibility for financial management, and a good idea of outcomes and deliverables. This is certainly business-orientated in so far as it is necessary for a Group to show that it knows what it is doing with funds, in order to get any funding in the first place.
Meeting the conditions for funding
The Chair of The Triangle Community Group recently examined the application form which needed to be completed with a view to bidding for an Environmental Sustainability Grant for a newly formed Group.
Each section of the application form raised a lot of issues, both practical and organisational, for example:
- Has the new group had a constitution agreed at a general meeting?
- Has it got a bank account properly set up?
- Has the group decided how the money will be managed?
- Has it thought about any equalities issues, eg. access for disabled participants?
- Has it thought about how to encourage a wider constituency to join in, eg. young people under 18, the elderly, the unemployed, people from other countries, etc.?
- Has it decided on any evaluation methods for assessing whether what it is doing is successful or not?
- Does what the Group says on its website match what it says in the bid?
- Can the Group show that it can deliver?
The online publications by the Charity Commission clearly offer relevant advice on how to meet practical, organisational and legal requirements. It could also be useful to get hold of copies of successful funding applications for similar facilities.
The first need is to consult the communities on functions and uses of a shared community centre to see who which users would want and support it. Knowledge of donor organisations (i.e. the funders) should be borne in mind. Our communities may come up with "visions" or list of clear objectives, but donors and funders also have their own checklists. If there is a mismatch between the objectives of the communities and those of the funders, then funding applications are less likely to succeed. Knowledge of the "visions" of funders could also be useful when we decide the wording for our applications. We may find that what looks like a "mismatch" is really a "match" if we could express what we want in the language of the funders. It is important, however, that the objectives of funders and communities are genuinely compatible. Having got a community centre, ongoing funding is needed to run it. It is essential that we include running costs in our plans. If we are envisaging a community centre run by volunteers, do we really have volunteers who are are up to the task and willing to make the necessary commitments?
Different methods of raising funds
Residents, who receive appeals for money from schools and universities they have previously attended, will have experienced direct appeals. These may involve a one-off donation, the completion of a standing order, or even a request to be remembered in a will or testiment. Community events (e.g. Open Gardens, Table Top Sales) could be used to raise money towards something which is really for our own residents i.e. some of the donors would also be the beneficiaries. As with the funding organisations, our own residents are likely to be more generous (a) the better the planning and (b) the closer the project comes to meeting the real needs of our communities.
National websites & databases for grants and funds
www.j4bcommunity.co.uk - The most comprehensive Voluntary and Community Sector grants & funding database in the UK: registration is free and offers the user a newsletter to keep up with what is happening in the world of grants as well as email grants alerts for when new grants match the needs of the user's organisation. The Home Page lists items of breaking news about funding as well as approaching deadlines for funding applications.
www.grantsonline.org.uk - the UK's leading information provider for the European Union, UK Government, the lottery and Grant Making Trusts: offers a free 7 day trial. A one-year subscription costs £175 + VAT, though Grants Online also offers a £60 discount to Voluntary and Community Organisations with a turnover of less than £100,000 pa.
Local websites & databases for grants and funds
www.eastsussex.gov.uk/community/funding - you can ask East Sussex County Council's External Funding team to conduct a search for you using a comprehensive database of UK, Lottery and European Union grants and awards (probably similar to the one above!). The database includes information on:
(a) funders’ priorities,
(b) the amount of funding available,
(c) eligibility and contact details.
This service is available only for projects or organisations that are based in East Sussex. Searches can normally be completed within five days. This scheme offers a free alternative to using the one above - probably 'acceptable' if we know what we are looking for.
East Sussex County Council also identifies some useful websites offering help and advice, offering local residents who prefer to do their research free registration and access to GRANTnet
The GRANTnet database--------------------------free registration is available to residents of East Sussex.
Sources of funding---------------------------------this pages offers a very useful list of local funding opportunities
Regular updates on sources of funding--------The Bidding Bulletin contains monthly articles (downloadable in PDF or Word formats)
----------------------------------------------------------about forthcoming funding opportunities and recent successful applications.
The search criteria, which you enter when using the GRANTnet database (in relation to projects in Brighton and Hove) will be sent to www.businesslinksussex.co.uk. GRANTnet will suggest that you contact them for more details of the schemes identified.
Community Matters - the National Federation for Community Organisation
Community Matters - the National Federation for Community Organisations, works towards active and sustainable communities in which everyone is valued and can play their full part. It furthers this vision by supporting and developing the capacity of community organisations, and representing their interests at a national level.
Review the principles and beliefs of Community Matters.
Read the many benefits of membership of Community Matters. The Round Hill Society joined Community Matters when it first set up, and now may be the time to join again if we’re serious about a community building. Community Matters would send someone to talk to us (and our friends in The Triangle Community Group - we could plan a joint meeting) and give us advice throughout the whole process.