A consortium of Funders have come together and pooled resources to create the New Beginnings Fund to support refugees and their communities. The fund is responding to the recent dramatic increase in refugees and asylums seekers moving across Europe which is placing incredible strain on the network of community based support available within the UK. UK Community Foundations (UKCF) has been appointed to manage and deliver the fund, via their network of local community foundations.
The fund will support local groups working to welcome refugees and asylum seekers into their local communities, through existing or new services. The fund is particularly interested in groups who are working to get their local communities involved in volunteering and supporting their work to promote integration and welcome new arrivals.
The New Beginnings Fund will award grants of up to £10,000 to frontline groups working to support refugees and asylum seekers across the UK. In exceptional cases, the fund will consider grants of up to £20,000 for bids including multiple local partners. The fund is UK wide and all grants will be for the duration of one year. The fund will prioritise local groups, with turnovers of less than £250,000 who can explain the need for additional short to medium term support and how this will add capacity to their current work with local refugees and asylum seekers.
Groups must be able to evidence an increase in demand for services and explain how they plan to respond using this funding, (larger organisations with turnovers of up to £1million are not excluded from applying for funding however, and priority will be given to smaller locally based organisations.)
The types of activity that New Beginnings is likely to fund are proposals from groups that are led by local refugees and asylum seekers, which offer guidance, counselling, community integration and welcoming activities with existing local communities, groups supporting volunteering and community activities.
New Beginnings aims to provide funding to increase the capacity of small to medium sized local organisations to meet the support needs of refugees and asylum seekers to mobilise other forms of local support to ease their integration into local communities.
The context of welcoming Refugees and Asylum seekers and promoting integration, the
New Beginnings Fund aims to achieve the following outcomes:
– Improve access to volunteering
– Improve community cohesion
– Improve the community working together
– Strengthen organisations through capacity building
– Promote human rights and equality
– Reduce isolation
– The fund will be open for applications for six weeks. The fund will be promoted via local community foundations and through existing RCO networks across the UK.
Please ensure that your project activity begins no earlier than 10 weeks after the grant deadline; you will then have 12 months to spend your grant, if you are awarded.
Application Deadline Tuesday 29th March 2016 – 12pm
For the complete guidance document and to apply please visit the Community Foundation for Merseyside Website.
