What is Southampton Voluntary Services and its community partners currently doing around grant funding?
Southampton Voluntary Services’ August Friday Forum included a Meet the Funder theme with The National Lottery Community Fund and Hampshire and IoW Community Foundation: Missed it? You can see the video of the presentations here: Friday Forum 4 August 2023.This was followed by the option of a surgery with these funders.
On 6 July, Southampton’s Grant Info and Share group met in person at Board In The City. Attended by a number of people from local community organisations, we had informal conversation about our projects and issues around grants.
Projects represented were: Compassionate Cuppa CIC, Southampton Mental Health Network, Southampton Muslim Council, Southampton Council of Faiths, La Leche League Southampton, Cross Culture Hub, Stronger You, Hampshire and Isle of Wight Community Foundation, We Make Southampton, Friends of St James Park, Spitfire Makers Charitable Trust, Touch Network, Lets Work Together, Board in the City, Easy Tz Meals, as well as the hosts, Southampton Voluntary Services. Everyone attending said a little about their organisations (watch out for posts on these via the Facebook group).
Other organisations mentioned were:
- SO:Linked social prescribing service – you can add your details to their website and these pages often comes up high on search engine searches.
- Owl XL CIC is recommended for evaluation tools;
- Munch CIC offers food classes;
- Social Enterprise Link supports people who are setting up social enterprises;
- Southampton City Farm Tom Kitchener from the farm has some good ideas on IT solutions when you are preparing a grant application. SVS will contact Tom and arrange a future grant session with him;
- Drop the Mask CIC, which offers support sessions for those who are struggling with digital skills;
- Solent University Library – Community members can use Solent University’s library up until 5.30pm; and
- Hampshire Women’s Business Network, can be a useful place for partnership development.
Jacqui Scott from Hampshire and Isle of Wight Community Foundation talked about the focus that this funder has around tackling poverty and disadvantage. Watch out for funds later this year with a focus on employability (via a Ford fund) and financial skills (Moneybarn).
Grant funders often welcome collaborative bits, and it takes time to cultivate partnerships. Our impact is greater if we work together.
A key point that came from the session is that a workshop around grant form filling would be helpful. Watch out for news on this via our fortnightly e-newsletter . Sign up via Southampton Voluntary Services (southamptonvs.org.uk) or via the Grant Info and Share Facebook forum.
An idea that was shared was to post a weekly ‘group of the week’ on the Facebook group, so we can share more news of what our different organisations do. This is something that SVS or the other Facebook admins will take forward.
People were given the chance to try out the Funds Online website, and other recommendations were made. SVS will update members of this group of a Southampton Voluntary Services (SVS) subscription option at the next meeting and via our e-newsletter.
SVS had previously organised a session on how to write a funding application and the group felt that another would be useful. This is an action that SVS will take forward.
Watch out for news via the Southampton Voluntary Services newsletter or news section of the website on what’s next for the grant group.