Live Well Wakefield is a social prescribing service that empowers people to access resources in their communities that enable them to feel happier and healthier. The Small Grants Fund supports this service by regularly funding Voluntary, Community and Social Enterprise (VCSE) organisations to develop services which respond to identified gaps or scale up existing provision to meet demand.
For this round of grants, funding is available for VCSE organisations to address one or both of the following themes.
Theme 1: One-to-one digital support
With opportunities and services increasingly online, digital inclusion is a basic need. This makes support to use online services necessary, especially at times of vulnerability, and 34% of people want to be able to get this support in a community setting.
Live Well Wakefield are seeing a local need for digital support, to help people with a specific request and use this as an opportunity to build confidence and skills – building relationships that address the digital barriers people face.
So we’re offering grants to VCSE organisations to fund one-to-one or drop-in support on digital issues and requests, for working age adults (18-67). This should include working with people to complete online forms to access services.
We encourage you to think differently about how you can engage people who you don’t currently work with and may not be interested in traditional digital skills workshops or sessions. This could include outreach or visiting people.
Theme 2: Getting out and about
Live Well Wakefield have also identified that many local people are facing difficulties in leaving their home due to physical and psychological barriers, affecting their ability to engage with services and activities within the community that can support positive health and wellbeing.
So we’re offering grants to VCSE organisations to fund gradual support that leads to working age adults (18-67) attending community groups and activities. This should include provision over winter months, when people can face more barriers to getting out and about due to Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) and safety concerns.
We encourage you to think about how people could be involved in the planning of their support and making sure there is an end goal, reducing dependency that can occur with traditional approaches to befriending. An example is shown below of the pathway used for a "Garden Gate Conversations" project - although this is just an example, and you can explore different ways this theme could work for your organisation.
Grants of £10,000 are available.
We will consider applications for two years of funding at a maximum of £10,000 per year where you can demonstrate how this supports long term sustainability, clear evaluation methods, and an existing relationship with Live Well Wakefield.
The amount of funding applied for cannot be more than 50% of annual turnover.
These grants are for Voluntary, Community and Social Enterprise (VCSE) organisations working in Wakefield District. We welcome applications from voluntary groups, community groups, sports clubs, leisure clubs, charities, community interest companies, limited companies, and social enterprises.
We will fund new services or activities, or additional capacity/expansion of existing services.
Read more about eligibility in the Supporting Information document. This document is universal to each round of the Small Grants Fund and does not include further details about the themes above.
Applications close at 12pm on Monday 29 September.
This fund will be distributed through Wakefield District’s Third Sector Framework, a partnership approach developed locally to distribute funding and other capacity building support to the VCSE sector. So to apply for this funding, you need to:
You can do this through Nova’s online platform. Not signed up? Watch our short video to learn how to create an account and get started. Your account will be verified by our team before you can begin your application. After that, you can save your draft and come back to it before submitting.
You will be notified of the panel’s decision within 5 working days of the panel meeting on Wednesday 15 October.
We are holding an online Information Session on Wednesday 27 August from 12pm to 1pm where you can hear about the fund and ask any questions. Please register a place to let us know if you’ll be joining. Given the specifics of the two themes, we recommend any interested organisations to attend this session to hear more and ask questions.
Our Team are here to help if you have any questions or want support with your application.
WCIT grants of up to £15,000 are available for educational establishments and not-for-profit organisations to support IT projects and activities.
Funding for VCSE services that help young people speak up, make informed choices, and secure their rights - focusing on those with experience of the care system, are LGBT+ or have a learning disability/neurodivergence.
Grants are available for charities, community groups, and other not-for-profit organisations to deliver projects with a positive impact for communities along the East Coast mainline route.
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