NEW Grant Programme to Buy Local Community Assets in England

The new £4.75 million Community Assets and Services Grants Programme is accepting Expressions of Interest from local community organisations in England that need funding to acquire or restore a local building.

Organisations that are established for charitable, benevolent or philanthropic purposes and are based and working in England can apply for Capital Grants of between £100,000 and £500,000 as long as they can spend the grant by the end of March 2014.
In order to be eligible, applications will need to meet at least one of this year’s themes:

• Community Assets - Under the Hammer: to facilitate competitive bidding for land and buildings to make use of the Right to Bid.
• Equity Matching Scheme: to match fund monies solicited direct from communities or via community share issues supported by the Community Shares Unit.
• Exercise Your Rights: to facilitate the use of two (or more) of the various legal mechanisms in tandem.
• How Green is Your Asset: Green refurbishment grants to improve the viability of land or buildings acquired by communities through Asset Transfer and/or the Right to Bid.

The funding is aimed at organisations that can demonstrate scale, ambition and innovation in the following ways:

• As an exemplar to inspire other organisations to be ambitious, for example, through demonstrating innovation in acquiring a particular type of asset, the nature and needs of the community the asset is designed to serve, or innovation in the type of business or service that will be delivered from the asset. 
• Demonstrates potential to stimulate similar community asset schemes elsewhere.
• Using asset acquisition to achieve transformative community-led service delivery or to showcase pioneering community-led planning outcomes.

The deadline for Expressions of Interest is 30 August 2013.
The Community Assets and Services Grants programme is being managed by the Social Investment Business (SIB) Group and its partners Locality and ACEVO on behalf of the Department for Communities and Local Government. SIB manages the grant funds while Locality and ACEVO deliver the advice and support element of the programme. The programme will run for three years.
Full details along with an application pack can be found on the SIB website (opens new window).

Story courtesy of J4Bcommunity.co.uk