Big Lottery Fund

The International Communities programme, which will run from 2010-2015, is BIG Lottery Fund’s way of helping disadvantaged communities overseas. It will fund UK based NGOs and charities working overseas.

It will be an open programme which builds on the success of BIG’s previous International Communities programme. We support work that tackles the causes of poverty and deprivation and brings about long-term difference to the lives of some of the most disadvantaged people in the world.

We will fund projects in all parts of the developing world which will improve education, health, allocation of natural resources, human rights, and/or livelihoods.

Grants of between £50,000 and £500,000 will be available.

We have refined and re-engineered Investing in Communities, which was relaunched on the 30th June 2010. Investing in Communities is our main funding programme in Scotland.

It will invest in projects that help people, families and communities most in need. Investing in Communities has three main funding strands: Life Transitions, Supporting 21st Century Life and Growing Community Assets.

Investing in Ideas is an easy-to-access scheme to enable groups to think about, develop and test new ideas for projects or improved ways of working that will bring real improvement to communities, and the lives of people most in need.

The purpose of Investing in Ideas is to fund groups and organisations of all sizes to improve their skills and knowledge to think differently about how a service is delivered and/or help them to design and test new projects or better ways of working.

The JESSICA (Scotland) Trust will be a new £15 million independent trust in Scotland to support disadvantaged urban communities which have been most affected by serious economic decline, market failure and disadvantage.

This Trust will link to a programme from the Scottish Government and European Investment Bank for regeneration in Scotland’s most disadvantaged communities. We believe that by working alongside the European JESSICA fund we can find complementary projects with a strong social economy focus that can be part of an integrated investment approach in these areas.

The BIG Lottery Fund Scotland have announced our intention to make a new £50 million Lottery investment in Scotland aimed at transforming the life chances of young people leaving care and fundamentally improving the lives of older people with dementia and their carers.

Community Spaces Scotland

Community Spaces Scotland is a £9 million fund that will bring communities together around a space or place that matters to them, helping those spaces and places to be better used, and the people in their communities to become healthier, happier and more active. A community space can be both indoor and outdoor spaces including allotments, play areas and community gardens as well as village halls and community centres

We expect the average grant size to be around £100,000, but will accept applications for grants between £10,000 and £250,000. We can award up to two years funding.

This investment is targeted at those areas in Scotland where we believe it can make the biggest positive difference. In deciding on these targeted areas we have included a fair mix of large urban areas, small towns and remote rural areas. Groups can enter the postcode of their project base into the eligibility checker on our website at www.biglotteryfund.org.uk/communityspaces which will tell them if they are in an eligible area straightaway.

This programme will be delivered across two funding rounds. Round one will open on 14 June 2011 to both fast track and stage one applications. We will stop accepting fast track applications in October 2011 and stage one applications in December. Round two of the programme will open June 2012 and we will stop accepting stage one applications December 2012.

Awards for All Scotland is supported by Creative Scotland, Sportscotland and the Big Lottery Fund. We award grants of between £500 and £10,000 for people to take part in art, sport, heritage and community activities and projects that promote education, the environment and health in the local community. We can fund a wide range of activities through the programme and want to support projects that meet our outcomes.

The outcomes for Awards for All are:

1. People have better chances in life.
2. Communities are safer, stronger and more able to work together to tackle inequalities.
3. People have better and more sustainable services and environments.
4. People and communities are healthier.

If your project could help us achieve one or more of these outcomes Awards for All could be the right scheme for you. The easy-to-use application form can be downloaded, filled in and emailed direct to the Big Lottery Fund, as well as being available in hard copy. The application form is short and simple. You will find out if you are successful within six weeks.