Nearly £240,000 in community grants is distributed through new online grant system

Around 150 voluntary and community groups in West Berkshire and North Hampshire found themselves nearly £240,000 better off thanks to grants given out via the new online grant application system www.findmeagrant.org

The funding web portal was only launched in September by Greenham Common Trust in partnership with Conifer Consulting Ltd and has attracted considerable interest from grant makers. The Trust, West Berkshire Council Small Grants, Vibrant Villages (matched funding by the Trust and the Council for community capital projects) Parish Planning grant and the Greater Greenham Partnership have all used findmeagrant to allocate grants to local groups in need.

As well as being easy to use - just one simple online application to access multiple streams of grant funding - what makes findmeagrant even more beneficial for local fundraising is the new Trust Top-up grant scheme for public donations. For every donation to an eligible application the Trust matches it (up to £5,000 per project) and administers Gift Aid, all without taking a commission. In just 10 weeks this has raised well over £17,000 for local organisations.

Bucklebury Wolves Football Club has had two project applications fully funded by public donations, Trust Top-Up and Gift Aid, one of them in just six weeks! The club needed funding to buy equipment and improve coaching for their Whites (4&5 year olds) and Grays (10 year olds) teams.

Club Secretary and Coach Jonathan Poole said: “Within a few days we received our first donation from a complete stranger and since then we publicised the site to our parents on the basis of no pressure donations to assist the growth of our Club. The response was frankly overwhelming, with one parent donating £250 and many others donating at least £20. This has given the Club the financial stability to see through the next year, if not longer, without requiring any significant financial aid from any sources. The simplicity and transparency offered by this system is superb and is a great leap forward in online grant/donation management.”

St George’s Church is well over a fifth of the way to their latest £54,000 fundraising goal, part of its renewable energy scheme for the Wash Common church, after raising over £11,000 through public donations, Trust Top-Up and Gift Aid.

The Trust has distributed over £170,000 of reactive grants through findmeagrant with many organisations receiving thousands of pounds.

The Newbury Community Resource Centre Ltd runs a range of projects for the local community, including the Growing 2gether Project at Cottismore, a community food growing project operated in partnership with West Berkshire Mencap.  The Project enables all sections of the community, particularly those at a disadvantage, to work alongside each other to learn horticultural skills and grow a range of crops.

The grant of £7,403 from the Trust will enable the charity to complete the conversion of a tool store into a fully kitted out woodwork workshop suitable for use by the local community.  The workshop will then be used to enable volunteers, particularly those with learning disabilities and young people not in full time education, to learn a variety of new skills during the winter months and generally inclement weather.

The charity’s Chief Executive Kelvin Hughes said: “We are delighted to have been awarded this grant. Our volunteers will be able to learn to construct garden tools, planters and garden furniture, and build raised growing beds. We expect at least 60 volunteers to use the workshop in the first year, learning practical, transferable skills in a safe, supportive environment. ”

The Trust awarded £7,000 to Berkshire, Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire Wildlife Trust (BBOWT) towards staffing costs of the ‘West Berkshire Living Landscape’ project to manage, monitor and restore wildlife habitats in nine hectares of heathland, woodland and reed beds at Greenham and Crookham Commons.

BBOWT Project Manager, Jacky Akam, said “We are delighted with this grant. As well as the vital funds to continue the work we are doing, it is the recognition of the difference the project is making. It is really exciting to hear the woodlarks returning to the restored heathland area at Crookham”

The Trust also provides smaller reactive grants to help people in the community who are less well off. 

Winchcombe School received £1,226 to help children who otherwise would not be able to afford to attend the Year Six residential outdoor activity trip to the Pioneer Centre in Staffordshire next summer.
The children will take part in a wide range of exciting activities such as abseiling, rock climbing, canoeing, raft making, archery, high rope walking, helping them to become independent and to work as part of a team.

Winchcombe School headteacher Felix Rayner said: “The grant from The Greenham Common Trust will really make a huge difference to our children’s lives. The money will be targeted at a group of children who are unable to afford our year 6 residential trip and will enable them to enjoy a range of extremely valuable and exciting outward bound activities.  The Winchcombe School says a big thank you to the trust for supporting us in this way.”

Trust Chief Executive Stuart Tagg added: “Findmeagrant is helping to distribute even more funding to local organisations in need of support. The Trust can’t help everybody who has applied. But those organisations who were unsuccessful can keep their applications on findmeagrant for 18 months, giving them access to multiple grant rounds and the potential to raise money through public donations, which the Trust will Top-Up (if they are eligible) and administer Gift Aid for.” 
The next Trust grant round opens early in the New Year but you can apply any time for funding via findmeagrant.

Please see the attached spreadsheet for a list of who was successful in receiving funding.

To register and apply for funding through findmeagrant please visit www.findmeagrant.org or call 01635 817444 for more information.

For further information about Bucklebury Wolves FC please contact Jonathan Poole via http://www.buckleburywolvesfc.sports.officelive.com

For further information on the training and volunteering opportunities available at the Growing 2gether Project, please contact Kelvin Hughes on 01635 43933 or kelvin.hughes@cfpnewbury.org

For more information see the BBOWT website Living Landscape page www.bbowt.org.uk