Over £38 million in Government grants provide much needed help in communities

Over £38 million in grants have been given out in almost 15,500 grant awards to charities and voluntary organisations through the Government’s Grassroots Grants scheme, statistics reveal.

The three year Grassroots Grants programme comprises a small grants fund and an endowment investment programme. The programme, which launched in September 2008, is aimed at helping small voluntary and community organisations provide much needed help in their communities and reach out to the most vulnerable people.

Grants have been spent on a range of community activity from lunch clubs for older people to leisure activities in deprived areas– helping communities to thrive and deal with the individual challenges they face.

Small and local community groups with annual incomes below £30,000 can apply for the grants of between £250 and £5,000.

Angela Smith, Minister for the Third Sector, said: “I am delighted to hear over £38 million in Government Grants has been invested in small community groups that are making a difference in their local communities. The grants have been used in a number of ways up and down the country and have included services to help the unemployed, leisure activities for young people and social clubs for the elderly.

This programme gives local communities a voice and helps them direct their energies to the particular challenges they see in their local community”.

Grassroots Grants recipient, Shukri Warsame of Global Skills in London, said: “The £2,000 Grassroots Grant is the first grant we have ever received, and it will make a massive difference to our work, especially when we have more demand now than ever before. Now that we have received our first grant, we are keen to apply for more to extend our work and launch new projects”.

Grassroots Grants includes a match fund where donations by business and individuals are matched by Government. The money, which is then invested as an endowment, aims to provide financial support over the long term to charities and voluntary organisations; enabling even more grants to go to local good causes, for generations to come.

Nationwide over 11,000 donations from businesses and individuals have raised over £17 million, so far, which the Government then matched funded. This has already built endowments in every local area, worth over £32m in total.

The innovative endowment match challenge is the first of its kind and offers businesses and individuals the chance to contribute directly to supporting and sustaining the communities in which they operate and upon which they rely.

Grassroots Grants, donor Graham Peart of Advanced Interior Solutions Limited in Buckinghamshire, said: “There are so many community groups out there doing a great job. Without them, the fabric of our society would collapse. Many of these groups need financial support, especially as the demands of the recession increase. Often their needs are modest, so even a small donation will go a long way, especially with the government’s promise of match funding”.