Big Lottery Fund

Funding programmes open to your constituents

You can use our Funding Finder to search for funding programmes that are available for your constituents, while our grants search will allow you to find projects that have been funded in your constituency.

See a list of funding programmes open to your constituents

BIG Lottery funding in the East of England

In the last 12 months the Big Lottery Fund awarded 662 grants totalling £19,677,021 to communities across the East of England. This includes 539 grants totalling £4,109,728 from the Awards for All programmes.

BIG in the East of England

The East of England team continues to be busy with outreach work promoting the funding available through our mainstay open programmes: Awards for All and Reaching Communities.

Sara Betsworth, Head of Region said: ‘It’s been a busy start to the year. After a short break over Christmas, we were back in South Essex on January 13^th meeting over 120 local community and voluntary organisations together with our Chief Executive Peter Wanless.

Rayleigh and Wickford MP Mark Francois had been keen to ensure groups in his constituency understood how to apply for Lottery funding. So we joined forces with the other Lottery distributors, Arts Council England, Heritage Lottery Fund and Sport England to provide advice and support on how to successfully apply for funding and to bust a few myths about where Lottery money is distributed.

We saw this event as the perfect opportunity to put our newly –acquired social media skills into practice: tweeting, filming and blogging throughout the day to demonstrate how BIG can become more ‘social’ and make sure people unable to attend could access all the material covered. And over the next few months, we’ll be following up with groups from the event to see how they want to communicate with us – whether they embrace the new media tools at their disposal, or want to stick to the traditional workshop format, we’ll be in a better position to support them.

Whatever works, we’re always keen to listen and learn, and support people along the way.’

We also visited Poringland in rural South Norfolk where more than 90 local groups came along to take part in some hands-on training, with the aim of making sure they find themselves in a better position to make strong applications.

We continue to let all our MPs know when money is invested into projects in their constituency and offer accompanied visits to projects; also, in areas where we have lower application rates (such as Rayleigh and Wickford) we work actively with the local MP to promote the funding opportunities available to groups in the area.

Contact us if you would like further details on how we can help you. We always encourage groups themselves to invite their local MP to project openings and celebrations.

It’s good to talk…

Miranda McCoy, Regional Officer Outreach writes about three very different interviews recorded regionally for the BIG website.

I had the privilege of visiting Ted Hedges, who served in RAF Coastal Command, at his home in Norfolk. Ted talked to me about his poignant trip back to the Azores, funded through Heroes Return*. During the war he hunted for the U-Boats targeting allied convoys. Ted said ‘The trip’s primary task was to visit my friends, or friends left in the cemetery. When I left the cemetery there was no doubt that I had the feeling that as long as I remember them, they were still living in memory. I visited the cemetery three times. The last time I left in tears.’

The full podcast can be listened to via Heroes Return podcast

Sheila Ravenscoft, a patron of the John Peel Centre for Creative Arts was a delightful interviewee who talked to me about her vision for their project. In her lively introduction Sheila described herself as ‘one of the directors and leader of events and cleaner of toilets, and everything else!’

Of the centre she said ‘People, when they see John’s name on it, they think it’s all about loud music and they have got to learn it isn’t, because it’s about everything. It is for the community, all ages – it doesn’t matter who you are, and will put this corner of Suffolk on the map.

The full podcast can be listened to via New Year podcast

Stephen Singleton, Chief Executive of the Suffolk Community Foundation gave a positive New Year message. Stephen said ‘My prediction for 2012 is that the economic conditions over the coming year will continue to be extremely challenging for the Voluntary Sector, and for society at large.’ However he continued ‘as a dealer in hope, I am optimistic that the voluntary sector will meet the challenges facing it, and continue to play an increasingly important role in society.’

The full podcast can be listened to via New Year podcast

* The Big Lottery Fund has extended its Heroes Return 2 programme. The programme has no fixed deadline for applications at this time.

How can we help you?

The regional team can arrange bespoke events for you and your constituents, from funding advice surgeries to constituency tours of lottery funded projects.

Also, every month we email all East of England MPs with the details of awards that have been made in their constituencies.

To arrange a constituency tour or to find out how we can help support your constituents please contact us.

Further information

Contact: Sara Betsworth, Head of East of England Region

Telephone: 01223 449000

Textphone: 01223 352041

E-mail: regionevents.ea@biglotteryfund.org.uk

Join us on our Facebook page

Twitter us @BIGEofE