Oldham
Aims/priorities: The Foundation aims to use its funding to improve the quality of life for people and communities that face disadvantage and marginalisation.
Who can apply? UK registered charities, community interest companies, and other registered UK not-for-profit organisations (including special schools) with an annual income under £10 million can apply.
Aims/priorities: A package of funding support including grants and loans from the Recovery Loan Fund are available for Black and Racially Minoritised charities and social enterprises based in England who are improving people's lives or the environment they live in.
Who can apply? Eligible organisations must:
Aims/priorities: The Trust's funding is intended to support its emphasis on the provision of homes, not just housing. It awards grants and interest-free loans to charitable organisations undertaking projects to provide housing for those in need.
The Trust offers the following support and informal advice to grassroots housing organisations across Britain:
Aims/priorities: The aim of the Trust is to give people of all ages the opportunities to access, participate in and enjoy the arts (particularly the performing arts), and support projects that widen access and have a lasting cultural impact on local communities.
Who can apply? The Trust mostly supports registered charities.
Applications will also be considered from social enterprises, community groups, and other third sector organisations, as long as they are formally constituted and have clear charitable purposes.
Aims/priorities: This dedicated grants programme aims to enhance the life of disabled, or seriously ill, young adults, aged 18 to 24 years old, living at home.
Who can apply? To be eligible, applicants must:
Aims/priorities: Our grant funding programme supports registered charities delivering projects which help to improve people’s lives in communities across England, Scotland and Wales. We have set funding objectives, which are:
Aims/priorities: We’re doing all we can to reduce our carbon footprint and we want to help others do the same.
If you are a community group, educational facility or a small business with a project or initiative to help create a green, more sustainable world, we can help.
Aims/priorities: The Booster Fund supports new and existing community businesses in England that are at all stages of a community share issue. If you are from Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland, find out other routes for community shares support.
In My Shoes Theatre (IMST) Group is a community theatre group for young adults, aged 18-32 years, who have disabilities both learning and physical.
In September 2024, Emily (the founder of IMST) was connected to the Action Together Volunteering team through our Capacity Building team. IMST recognised the need to begin recruiting volunteers to support the growth of their organisation, and wanted support to design and develop a volunteering programme.
The Volunteering team worked with IMST to support them to develop a clear vision for their volunteers; why they wanted to recruit them, what they would be doing, and how they would be supported during their volunteering journey. Due to the nature of the work IMST carry out, Emily was keen to make sure that they had the correct policies and procedures in place to begin safely recruiting volunteers.
An initial meeting between Emily and the Volunteering team was set-up. The purpose of this meeting was to learn more about IMST as an organisation, their purpose, their current activities, plans for the future, and how they envisioned volunteers would strengthen their work.
We worked with IMST to develop a plan which detailed the key actions/ priorities that needed to be completed to develop a robust and supportive volunteering programme (this included development of a volunteer policy, role descriptions, application/ recruitment process, induction, and consideration of training requirements).
Emily was signposted to templates of the required documents through our Volunteer Manager Zone, which provided her with a framework to build upon. The Volunteering team worked at Emily’s pace and were on-hand to support her through the process, providing feedback and suggestions on draft documentation. Once these documents had been approved we begun to develop a recruitment plan, utilising Action Together’s online brokerage site, social media, and links to Health & Social Care programmes at Oldham College.
We arranged an in-person meeting to provide a demonstration of our website and use of the Volunteer Manager account, and the team provided remote support throughout the recruitment process, providing guidance to Emily when she was preparing to meet with potential volunteers for the first time, and to take them through the application / interview and DBS process.
IMST have now successfully recruited their first Creative Support volunteers who help to facilitate their theatre activity groups for adults with disabilities.
Emily provided us with feedback around the support she received from Action Together’s Volunteer team:
“I’m really grateful for the support, with us being a small organisation and never having recruited volunteers before, the thought of doing this was daunting at first, but you helped us feel like we weren’t alone. Particularly the support around creating the right documents, I found this really useful… When we were able to create our own Volunteer Handbook and provide this to our new volunteers, I felt that we’d become established and really professional”
“It was great that I had been working with you to get everything in place, and once I’d recruited my volunteers I was able to refer them back to you and your training, that was really helpful… I want to keep up to date with the training you provide, we did our safeguarding with you and I’d love to book my volunteers on to any more that might be appropriate”.
“My volunteers are fantastic and I’m so happy! We’re like a family and we care about each other… We’ve created a strong network of support in the group… There’s never a dull moment and there’s loads of laugher!”
If, like In My Shoes Theatre Group, you would like support in developing a volunteer programme that fits your organisations needs, we can help!
Aims/priorities: The funding is for projects within the UK that address the following key points:
