Press release

Government invests £30 million to modernise local charity support services

The beneficiaries of a new £30 million fund to help transform and modernise local charity support services have been announced.

This was published under the 2010 to 2015 Conservative and Liberal Democrat coalition government

2 February 2012

The beneficiaries of a new £30 million fund to help transform and modernise local charity support services have been announced today by Nick Hurd, Minister for Civil Society.

More than seventy partnerships of local support and development organisations across England have received grants to transform their services and provide high quality, joined up support to frontline charities.  These projects will also make it easier for organisations to forge better links with local businesses, develop stronger partnerships with local public sector bodies and for people to volunteer.

Minister for Civil Society Nick Hurd said:

This fund is not designed to support ‘business as usual’ - it’s about making things better for the frontline. It’s about supporting organisations with innovative business plans who want to play their part in modernising the landscape of local infrastructure.

One of our main priorities is making it easier to run a charity.  We will ensure that we back the highest quality infrastructure support so that charities get guidance which is local, relevant and enables them to improve their service delivery.

The projects funded by the Transforming Local Infrastructure Fund focus on bringing together different charity support providers to offer high quality local services at lower cost. There will also be new initiatives to make it easier for people to volunteer, help for social entrepreneurs who want to make a difference in their communities, support for charities to take over and run community assets, and initiatives to increase support, donations and gifts in kind from the private sector. 

The Transforming Local Infrastructure Fund is being managed by Big Fund, the non-lottery funding operation of the Big Lottery Fund. See the Big Lottery’s list of successful organisations.

Dharmendra Kanani, England Director for the Big Lottery Fund, said:

Transforming Local Infrastructure will provide strategic funding for organisations that support the voluntary and community sector in England.  As a result community organisations and groups will be able to respond more flexibly to an ever-changing funding environment, to plan for the future and become more effective.

Big Lottery Fund is planning a distinct and additional investment in funding support services for voluntary organisations of at least £20 million.  Detailed proposals about their plans will be published during 2012.  It is planned that the majority of this investment will go to frontline voluntary organisations in order to give them greater choice and control over the support services which they need.

NAVCA (National Association for Voluntary and Community Action) has offered to work with any area which has not been awarded a grant from the Transforming Local Infrastructure Fund to explore alternative approaches and sources of support for fulfilling the activities set out in their proposals.

Published 2 February 2012