Big Lottery Fund

BIG’s wider policies and funding arrangements rely on information about the state of need in the UK. We develop targeted programmes that set out to deal with specific needs that we have identified, but also ‘open, responsive’ programmes where groups explain a specific need and how they plan to respond to this.

This page brings together studies into wider or more specific types of need, as well as learning from our open, responsive programmes.

• We helped fund the Young Foundation’s study of material and psychological needs in Britain, Sinking and swimming.
• We have examined factors that contribute to rural isolation in England and Scotland, and report on how projects that we fund have tried to overcome it.
• Our evaluations of Reaching Communities in England and Northern Ireland and of People and Places in Wales cover a range of topics, including how applicants had identified and responded to need.
• We evaluated our small grants programmes Small Grants evaluation summary - 430KB to find out the benefits that they brought to communities and the groups we funded.
• We consider patterns of application and funding and investigate the reasons for apparent differences between groups in order to support our commitment to equality.

Please contact us if you have any questions about our work in this area.