About the East of England region

The East of England is one of the largest and most diverse regions in the UK. It contains a number of distinctive regional cities, large towns and a significant rural landscape. It is home to around a quarter of England’s market towns.  The region has a total population of approximately 5.4million people and growth is well above the national average, set to continue at a rapid pace.  The region has on average lower levels of deprivation than other areas, though it does exist and is often hidden in pockets amongst apparently affluent areas.  

Our policy team provides the grant assessment staff and decision-making committees with regional context information, including levels of deprivation and key strategies for the area. In addition we provide regional policy input, representation and perspective as part of the development of BIG’s programmes.

The East of England team works with regional stakeholders to raise the profile of both BIG and the organisations we support in a number of ways. We organise programme launches, briefing events and attend external funding events to publicise our funding programmes. Other aspects of the Eastern team include:

• analysing management information to map application rates and grants awarded in the region
• targeting any areas with low levels of applications or funding, often in coordination with our helper agencies
• working with our helper agencies to share information about common mistakes in applications and to deliver issue specific briefings
• providing support information on the regional pages of the BIG’s helper agency website.
• keeping local authorities and MPs updated about funding awarded in their areas and constituencies
• sending out our e-bulletin to over 1000 subscribers.
• networking with key regional stakeholders and other lottery distributors as part of the Regional Lottery Forum, and other funders in the region through the funding forum Funding East

We also support projects post-award to enable them to network with similar groups, to raise the profile of the programmes and to foster partnerships which may contribute to their sustainability.

The regional team consists of a head of region, two regional managers, two regional policy and partnerships officers, a communications manager, a communications officer and an administrator.

For more information about the team visit our team page

You Can also subscribe to our e-bulletin.