Big Lottery Fund

The South East is home to over eight million people (over 15 per cent of the total UK population), which is more than the populations of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland combined. The region is divided into eight counties, 74 local authorities, two Strategic Health Authorities, and 17 Primary Care Trusts. It contains seven cities of over 100,000 inhabitants.

The region is widely seen as a prosperous region with low unemployment and strong economic activity. However, while many areas in the South East enjoy good standards of living, there are areas of significant deprivation that exist alongside more affluent neighbourhoods. Hastings is in the top 50 most deprived areas and Brighton & Hove, Thanet, Portsmouth and Southampton are in the top 100.

The South East regional team is based in Guildford, Surrey. We work with local and regional partners, funding advisers and potential applicants by offering advice and support both pre and post award. This is done through a variety of ways:

• we regularly hold BIG briefing events for funding advisers throughout the region, so that we can update them on the latest funding opportunities and information from BIG and our partners
• we send out a monthly e-bulletin to over 1,400 subscribers. This contains up-to-date information and links to the regional BIG web page, information about the latest awarded grants, funding updates and upcoming regional events
• we write articles for community magazines and issue press releases across the South East to keep local communities up to date with funding available from BIG and where money is spent in their area
• we write to all newly funded groups in the South East and offer them advice on how to publicise the success of their grant
• we have launched a regional funding advisers web site. This provides funding advisers with the latest information on grant statistics and toolkits on our funding opportunities
• we provide context papers for a number of our committees who award funding to enable decision makers to make informed decisions about grant awards in the region
• we monitor where grants are awarded in the South East, and work to increase the number of grant applications where necessary.  We do this in a number of ways such as targeted communications campaigns or working with local stakeholders in the area on a one-to-one basis