This week is #MentalHealthAwarenessWeek (9th – 15th May) with a theme of loneliness – something we all can experience at some point in our lives, which can have a huge impact on our wellbeing.

Sometimes it can be easier to reach out to someone else who may be feeling lonely. As part of the Better Health: Every Mind Matters campaign the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport alongside the Department for Health and Social Care are continuing to encourage people to ‘Lift Someone Out of Loneliness’ by taking a simple action to help someone who may be feeling lonely. If we do this regularly, we can all help to lift each other up.

Find out how you can help to lift someone out of loneliness.

We know there are some fantastic organisation’s in Berkshire and while you may not need them now it is always good to know who and where we can turn to when we or a loved one needs a bit of support. Some are running special events this week including;

Stepping Stones @ Bracknell Recovery College, Friday 13th May @ 6pm. Do you sometimes feel isolated? different from other people? unable to cope? How can we help you? Suitable for people aged 18 to 35 years who live in Bracknell Forest area. Click here.

Wokingham Recovery College offers free mental health and wellbeing courses, workshops and support groups. Anyone over 18 years of age living in Wokingham Borough can access these courses. Click here for their summer timetable. For those battling loneliness in Wokingham BC, The Friendship Alliance provides community spaces, cafés and pubs and will offer to host a “Friendship Table” on a regular basis, encouraging people to meet up, connect with others, and feel supported.

Slough CVS has been running a variety of courses this week with other organisations. On Monday 23rd they’re running a free webinar for young people to help with their mental health and wellbeing. Click here for details. On Thursday 9th June they’re running a workshop looks on how to stress less effectively. Click here for details.

Recovery in Mind is on a mission to improve the lives of adults living in West Berkshire with mental health challenges by delivering free of charge, inspiring and empowering courses. Take a look here

Sport in Mind ® is an award winning mental health charity that was formed in Reading, Berkshire in 2010 with a simple mission:

“To improve the lives of people experiencing mental health problems through sport and physical activity”

Take a look at their programme of events here

Ready Friends, project is all about supporting local people, communities and voluntary sector groups to reduce loneliness and social isolation in Reading. For further details click here.

Prices are rising fast and the pressure is growing on our household finances. Food and fuel are getting more expensive, with prices rising at their fastest rate in 30 years. We are all feeling the pinch and have to make choices about what we spend our money on. In addition to this cost-of-living crisis, we are still grappling with a climate emergency, with many of us determined to do our bit to reduce our environmental impact.

We have thought about how we can help bring communities together to connect the cost of living to helping the environment. We would like to run an information sharing/training workshop with partner organisations to showcase how we can all save money while improving our environmental impact.

The cost of going green can sometimes be difficult to understand. Big-ticket items such as new environmentally friendly central heating systems may be beneficial both financially and ecologically in the long-run, but require a significant up-front investment. There has to be some truth to the idea that if we consume less, we can reduce our impact on the environment while spending less money. After all, consumption costs.

The difficulty though is finding the balance where we can make savings to our household expenditure and reduce our environmental impact, without having too detrimental an impact on our quality of life.

The purpose of this West Berkshire-based event is to offer a one-stop shop for people who want to feel galvanised to make changes in their daily lives to help themselves and their community move towards a net-zero future while doing all they can to make their household income go further. It’s all about making small changes that can have a big impact.

We are currently pulling together and finalising details of this free, online workshop to run the week commending 27th of June. Please register your interest by emailing Gemma.Pearce@ccberks.org.uk

GreenFest is a community-driven sustainability event packed with expert speakers, thought-provoking exhibitions, a market showcasing sustainable
products, live entertainment, and local food.

Additionally, there will be a wide range of professional sustainability advice on offer, activities, workshops and games for the children. And best of all, in GreenFest tradition – it will all be free! Our goal at GreenFest is to dismantle the misconceptions and barriers around sustainability and make it accessible for all.

GreenFest is a purely nonprofit event organised entirely by volunteers from various local parishes across West Berkshire. It is a community-driven
festival run by the people for the people because we believe it’s important to make sustainability accessible to all and we hope it will be key to inspiring people to continue (or begin) their journey towards a sustainable future.

We hope GreenFest 2022 will creatively showcase the choices available to us and highlight local sustainable heroes in business, education, art, agriculture and the community. We hope it will be an educating, inspiring and fun-filled day for families and people of all ages looking to make impactful changes in their lives – and have FUN as they do it! For further details click here.

Persimmon Community Champions Fund
Each of our 31 businesses and our PLC head office are giving away up to £2,000 every month, that’s a whopping £64,000 a month available
to fund local community initiatives. We have supported thousands of community groups and charities over the years and need your help to ensure thousands more local good causes can benefit. Applying for a donation is really simple. All you need to do is tell us why your group or charity deserves our donation. Included in your application we need to know how much you want us to donate. Remember to include name and location of the initiative so that we can ensure the right business receives your request. Click here to find out more.

People’s Postcode Lottery Society Trust Funds
The aim of the Trust is to support small charities and good causes in the South of England to make a difference to their community for the benefit of people and planet. Charities can apply for up to £20,000. Other constituted community and voluntary organisations can apply for £500 to £2000. Funds are available for various causes such as:

Improving mental wellbeing
Enabling community participation in the arts
Reducing the impact of poverty
Supporting marginalised groups & promoting equality
Improving biodiversity & green spaces
Enabling participation in physical activity
Responding to climate change & promoting sustainability
Increasing community access to outdoor space.
Funding rounds open on the first day of each month. See the guide and apply.

Grants for Charities Tackling a Range of Social Issues
The Dulverton Trust is an independent grant-making charity. We support UK charities and CIOs (charitable incorporated organisations) tackling a range of social issues, protecting the natural world, and preserving heritage crafts. We look to support charities and CIOs working within our funding categories, and prioritise those that are medium-sized (with income between £200,000 and £3 million), have a national footprint and do not receive
a significant proportion of income from government or local authority contracts. We offer both project and core funding. Our grants are typically between £25,000 to £35,000. Click here for further info.

Englefield Charitable Trust
You do not need to apply on a special form but it would help us very much if you can answer the following questions as succinctly as possible in your application email. We receive hundreds of applications a year. We look at each one on its merit but we cannot wade through long and complicated applications, glossy brochures or sets of accounts. A summary is respectfully requested. You will also appreciate that it is not possible for us to acknowledge receipt of every application or to notify unsuccessful applicants. The criteria are broad and include education, sport, community, social welfare and medical support, churches and faith groups, agriculture and conservation, heritage and the arts and the armed forces. Capital grants are preferred but revenue grants will be considered. Grants are generally between £500 and £5,000 and commitments are generally on a one-off basis rather than spread over a number of years. Click here for further details.

Versus Arthritis – Together Fund

Grants of £1,000 to £5,000 are available to support people with long term health conditions (particularly musculoskeletal conditions) to get active.

The funding is to increase the availability of exercise opportunities for people with long term health conditions in local communities, to help aid recovery from the negative impact of COVID-19 and reduce the widening of inequalities in sport and physical activity.

Applications are particularly welcome from groups who also support people from culturally diverse communities, disabled people, and people from lower socio-economic groups. 

Read more

Parkinson’s UK Physical Activity Grants

Grants of up to £2,500 are available to support physical activity projects for people with Parkinson’s.
Physical activity helps people live well with Parkinson’s. It’s important to be active in ways that are fun and enjoyable. Being active can be anything that gets people moving: being in a walking group, joining a Parkinson’s boxing class, or playing Boccia with friends.

The deadline is Friday 10th June 2022.

Read more

Magic Little Grants – deadline 31 October 2022

Localgiving is the UK’s leading independent non-profit online fundraising platform for charities and community groups. They are incredibly excited to announce that Magic Little Grants 2022 is going to be even bigger and better than ever before.

This fund gives local charities and community groups the chance to apply for grants to deliver projects across Great Britain that encourage people to be physically active. For further details please click here.

NFU Mutual Charitable Trust
Grants are available to large charitable groups and organisations in the UK for projects that further the objectives of the NFU Mutual Charitable Trust, particularly those that educate young people in rural areas and the relief of poverty in rural areas.
Application deadline: 27 May 2022. Further information here.

The BlueSpark Foundation
Grants to schools, community groups, clubs, societies and not-for-project organisations which support the education and development of children and young people. The majority of grants awarded will be up to £2,000 but a handful of grants up to £5,000 may be considered. For further information please click here.

Ibrahim Foundation
 

The professional staff works closely with the grants committee, which is comprised of both board members and non-board members representing a broad spectrum. Grants are awarded twice a year for works that help transform the UK. The grants range from £500 – £10,000. Extraordinary projects may receive grants up to £50,000.
Applications are not accepted from the same organization in successive grant cycles.
We do not have areas of focus in grant making. We believe those on the front lines in the community best understand the particular needs and where grants will bear the greatest fruits. We look for situations where small amounts of funds will make significant impact. However, we are particularly interested in the following areas.

• Community Building grants focus on strengthening communities by engaging residents and stakeholders in a process that builds leadership and capacity from within, while respecting and valuing the rich diversity represented in our geographic region. We support efforts to build social capital; a resource defined as the web of relationships and civic participation that improves our ability to address the challenges and opportunities we face as a community. We also recognize that building a community’s capacity and leadership is a critical precursor to community involvement for those, who, because of language, culture or educational levels ­ have been excluded from participation.
• When healthy organizations have the support they need, new ideas and imaginative community solutions flourish. The foundation makes selected grants to strengthen nonprofits and promote a vibrant non-profit community. Grants in this area support the mission and infrastructure of the non-profit sector as a whole. We make selected grants to management support organizations that provide services to other nonprofits and build capacity within the field as a whole. Our goal is to help exemplary organizations continue to thrive within a healthy and stimulating non-profit sector.
• Strong families are the cornerstones of a strong community. The foundation is committed to helping families and individuals achieve self-sufficiency and the skills they need to prosper. Our funding is aimed at strengthening the human services safety net for low-income families and helping families of all kinds exercise their rights, fulfil their responsibilities and realize their full economic and social potential. We support non-profit organizations that help low-income and disadvantaged children and adults meet basic needs for food, clothing and emergency and permanent housing. The foundation also targets organizations addressing family violence, promoting expanded opportunities for persons with disabilities, and serving adults seeking to improve their economic prospects through literacy and employment development.

Ibrahim Foundation – Grant Making Programmes

Deadline: Rolling

Newly Opened: Nationwide Building Society – Community Grant Scheme

UK registered charities, Community Land Trusts and housing co-operatives can apply for grants of between £25,000 and £50,000 to support their work in tackling housing issues affecting vulnerable people.
The grants are being made available across 11 UK regions through the £4 million Nationwide Building Society Community Grant Scheme. The program will fund between 50% to 100% of the total cost of projects lasting up to two years to help prevent people from losing their home, help people into a home or support people to thrive within the home environment.
Improving communities is at the heart of everything we do. It’s why we created the Community Boards. To bring our members and colleagues together to find local solutions to the housing crisis and give hope for the future.
If you’re a local organisation with a great housing solution, you can apply for a Community Grant of up to £50,000. Your project will need to support one of our three aims: helping people into a home, preventing them from losing their home or supporting them to thrive at home. We’ll look at all applications and give a shortlist to our Community Board members, who’ll discuss and vote on which projects receive funding in their local area.
Nationwide Grants (nationwidecommunitygrants.co.uk)

Deadline: The closing date for applications is the 27th May 2022.

Newly Opened: Sported – Barlcays Community Football Fund

Sported have partnered with Barclays to launch the new Barclays Community Football Fund, offering small grants, training, kit and exclusive ticketing offers to make football more accessible in communities across the UK.
Barclays believe in creating opportunities for all through access to football. Through the Barclays Community Football Fund, we want to grow participation in football t every level.
Grants of £500 are available for groups wishing to start offering football, those keen to expand their existing provision to new audiences or those already delivering football to under-represented young people. Alongside the grants, the programme will be offering training and support resources to groups to help reduce inequalities in the participation of football.
The programme will focus on including girls and young people from lower socio-economic and under-represented groups: including racially diverse communities, people with disabilities, and people from the LGBTQ+ community.
Barclays Community Football Fund | Sported

Deadline: Rolling

With thanks to Berkshire’s wonderful CVS’s for the information contained in this article; Volunteer Centre West Berkshire, Slough CVS, Wokingham & Bracknell InVOLve and Reading Voluntary Action.

Coop Local Community Fund Applications Open

From the 3 – 29 May, groups in our community will be able to apply for funding from the Local Community Fund. Local groups can find out more and apply at coop.co.uk/causes.

Projects we will support
In line with our Community Plan, which helps us deliver our vision of ‘Co-operating for a Fairer World’, we will support projects that:
• Bring people together to access food
• Help improve people’s mental wellbeing
• Create opportunities for young people to be heard and make a difference
• Help people protect local biodiversity or tackle climate change by reducing carbon emissions
Seeking applications from diverse groups
As you’ll be aware, we’re really keen to make our fund as inclusive as possible and look for causes that represent the diversity of our members and communities.
We know that ethnic minority communities, LGBTQ+ people and people with disabilities can face greater challenges and inequalities than others – so we’d like to support more causes that help tackle these inequalities.

Of course, all projects must align with our missions in the bullet points above, but we’d love to support more diverse groups that help bring our vision to life and make things fairer for our members and communities.

Check out our new ‘How to’ guide
To help people understand more about the Local Community Fund before they apply, we’ve created this helpful guide. Check out our ‘How to discover more about the Local Community Fund’ page on Co-operate, which explains how our fund is different and the range of benefits it provides.