Equality

Equality Matters – a good practice guide for small to medium sized voluntary or community sector organisations

BIG is pleased to announce the arrival of ‘Equality Matters – a good practice guide for small to medium sized voluntary or community sector organisations’. The guide is designed to help applicants think about equality issues and incorporate them into the planning of their projects, whether they are applying to BIG (or another funder) for a grant. It also sets out the equality standards BIG expects from grant -holders. The production of this guide is part of BIG’s drive to promote equality and maximise opportunities for people to take part in the projects we fund. We hope you will find it a useful read!

Equality Matters

We have prepared a short feedback form to help us improve our Equality Matters guide and would value your opinion. Your feedback will be anonymous.

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Key equality principles

The Big Lottery Fund has developed the following equality principles. We expect everyone we work with to follow these principles.

Promoting accessibility

We believe that accessible services are those that people can use relatively easily, without spending too much time and money and are sensitive to the different cultures of the people using them.

Valuing cultural diversity

We value cultural diversity by recognising that people have different needs, beliefs, values and abilities and that those differences need to be both respected and promoted. We recognise that having a diverse public face can help us build trust and confidence among the varied communities we seek to fund. A diverse workforce can also provide a richer mix of ideas and talents. We also believe we are more efficient and effective when our decision-making structures are reflective of the diverse views of society.

Promoting participation

Our new policies, processes and programmes must be developed on the basis of real need. This means that the people who will be affected by them should be involved in their development. We know that there are groups that are traditionally under-represented in consultation processes. We need to work in partnership with those groups to establish structures that will help them to take a more active role in shaping the work that we do. In this way we will be able to encourage participation, openness and honesty.

Promoting equality of opportunity

We recognise that some groups commonly experience poorer access to employment, have fewer training opportunities and are under-represented in the workforce, particularly at senior level.  In addition, we know that not all groups have the same access to services and their experiences of receiving services may be poorer.  We believe that in order to level the playing field we may need to treat people differently to help them have the same chance to take part in employment and service opportunities.

Promoting inclusive communities

We believe a cohesive community is one where people feel they belong, where their lives are appreciated and valued, people have similar life opportunities and strong and positive relationships develop between people who are from different backgrounds.

Reducing disadvantage and exclusion

We will fund initiatives that deal with the causes of disadvantage and exclusion, and target our money on initiatives that promote inclusion of groups at greatest risk of being disadvantaged and excluded. Our understanding of what ‘disadvantaged” and “ excluded” mean will take into account such factors as people’s experience of discrimination.

Joint Race and Disability Equality Scheme

Our Joint Race and Disability Equality Scheme highlights our commitment to ensuring that equality and diversity are at the heart of our policy-making and service delivery. It also demonstrates how we have continued to build on our achievements and sets out a series of actions designed to bring about demonstrable outcomes.

In the past twelve months we have made considerable progress in addressing the various commitments outlined in our action plan and in collating and analysing relevant information, which has subsequently informed our equality assurance work. You can find out more about our achievements by reading our first annual progress report.