The Brighthelm Centre today announced that it is working with a benefactor and with Brighton and Hove’s Community and Voluntary Sector Forum in launching a grants scheme to support small community groups that want to meet at Brighthelm, right in the heart of the city, but don’t yet have the funds to do so.  Brighthelm aims to help those groups making a start in life to channel their limited funds directly in to the services they offer and their activities they intend to undertake. The scheme will be worth £5,000 and will repeat annually. 

The Director, Rik Child, said, “Brighthelm has been very fortunate as a long term user of the centre has very kindly offered Brighthelm a sum of money to run a small grants scheme helping us bring new life to Brighthelm and fulfill our revised mission .”

Rik Child explained, “There will be two funding streams, a small grant pot worth £2,000 which will be awarded at the discretion of the management to either fully cover or subsidise the costs of room hire or catering at Brighthelm.  It is imagined that there will be four grants of £20-50 per month.”

“The main grant pot will be worth £3,000.  The panel will meet four times a year in January, April, July and October to review applications and award grants for the following quarter. Grants of £50 – £500 will be available which will allow successful organizations to undertake very substantial events at Brighthelm.”

Application forms are available at reception or from the website. A full explanation of the terms and condition are to be found on the form.

All queries are to be directed to Andy Ward, Bookings and Lettings Manager on grants@brighthelm.org.uk  or by telephoning 01273 946220.

Registered charities that “make a lasting difference to communities” within the circulation/production area of the 300 Newsquest titles may be eligible to apply for grants of between £5,000 and £10,000. The funding is intended to support one-off local activities or capital items that benefit a large number of local residents.

The Argus is one of their newspapers, so this fund is open to groups in Brighton and Hove.

The Foundation is looking for projects that bring lasting benefits to the communities and neighbourhoods served by its newspapers. This includes schemes for neighbourhood improvement and local problem-solving, economic development, youth development, education and cultural creativity, help for the disadvantaged or disabled and environmental conservation.

Preference will be given to projects that “demonstrate good planning, oversight and financial responsibility”.

The deadline for applications, for 2013, is 19th September.

For more information see: http://www.theargus.co.uk/yourargus/gannettfoundation/

Medical charity Heart Research UK (HRUK) provides the Healthy Heart Grants scheme to enable community organisations to carry out new, original and innovative projects that actively promote heart health and help to prevent or reduce the risks of heart disease in specific groups or communities.

Applications are accepted twice a year (January through February and July through August) for projects that run for about a year and which focus on and actively promote heart health. Funding will not be awarded to general healthy lifestyle projects.

Community and voluntary organisations, registered charities, and other not-for-profit organisations based and working in the UK may apply for grants of up to £10,000.

The next deadline for applications is 31 August 2013.

A funding pot of £50,000 is available in each grant round with a maximum of £10,000 available per application. Competition is very high, and the success rate is currently around 1 in 40.

Full details can be found on the Heart Research UK website

For the last three years the BBC Performing Arts Fund has been focusing on a different art form (dance, music, theatre). This year is the year of theatre.

The Fund is seeking local community theatre groups who are ambitious, willing to take on a challenge and looking for ways to increase their group’s confidence and motivation and to raise their profile in the local community.

Grants of between £500 and £5,000 will be offered to up to 50 groups across the UK to carry out training, attract new audiences, encourage new members and raise their profiles in their communities.

Projects should be new, open to the wider public, and take place any time between 1 December 2013 and 30 November 2014.

The Fund welcomes projects which involve new group members, perform to new audiences, bring communities together, improve community cohesion, or work with other community groups.

The grants are intended to help with the following costs:

• Training courses for group members and the people who run the group.
• Master classes for the group.
• Bringing in an expert to help work on improving specific skills.
• Help in tackling a new piece of theatre that is a stretch for the group.
• Putting on a more ambitious performance.
• Performing in public for the first time.
• Working with another theatre group.
• Working with other groups, for example a dance group.
• A project to recruit new members.
• Running a beginners course to attract new members.
• Commissioning a new piece of theatre.
• Putting on a performance in a new venue.
• Taking the theatre out into the community.
• Taking part in a local festival.

Eligible groups must have been in existence since 2011 with a demonstrable track record and a bank account in the group’s name.

The deadline for applications is 16 September 2013 (5pm).

Full details can be found on the BBC Performing Arts Fund website

The deadline is 11th October 2013. For more information, check our information page on this funder: Comic Relief Local Communities

More details about the fund can be found here: https://www.resourcecentre.org.uk/information/peoples-health-trust/

Sussex Homeless Outreach Reconnection & Engagement (SHORE)
SHORE Small Grants Programme

Introduction
SHORE has been set up by local authorities across Sussex to help tackle rough sleeping and single homelessness, with support and funding from central government. £50,000 of this government funding is now being released to support a new Small Grants Programme (SGP) for voluntary groups in Sussex.

SHORE wants to help small scale projects that help realise the vision of a No Second Night Out (NSNO) model across Sussex and make a practical difference to the lives of rough sleepers and single homeless people. Grants of between £1,000 and £5,000 will support low cost, high impact projects.

 Who Can Apply?
Grants are available to local voluntary and community groups in Sussex. Bids should be supported by the local authority where the project is based. Additional support from public, private and voluntary organisations is encouraged.

 What can be funded?
Successful projects will demonstrate evidence of need and the ability to make a real difference, for example:

Prevention of rough sleeping and single homelessness

• Diverting & Signposting rough sleepers to relevant services
• Personalised approaches to supporting rough sleepers
• Piloting multi agency initiatives
• Increasing temporary accommodation and emergency bed spaces
• Supporting and empowering rough sleepers to realise their potential.

How to Apply
They want to know how your project will address needs. Bids must be made on the application form and will be assessed by a panel drawn from SHORE members and an independent chair. Bids that build ‘social capital’ (such as capacity building local organisations, harnessing volunteer input and making good use of community buildings) are the most likely to succeed.

The closing date for bids is Friday 26^th July 2013 and decisions will be made in August. Grants will be awarded for a period of up to one year with a start date of no later than January 2014.

For more information: john.routledge@eastbourne.gov.uk.