Community Development and Organisational Support

We know that being able to get help with accessing funding, strengthening your governance and developing new projects and initiatives is one of the priorities whenever we ask organisations about what they need from us.

We also know our work makes a difference. Over the last year 80% of organisations have reported that our support has improved one or more areas of their organisation. Through the Village SOS project alone we have helped the leveraging of a potential £4.8 million of funding into our communities.

Going forward we need to make sure we are clear with organisations about exactly what it is they want to achieve through working with us.

Although community development is our biggest area of demand it is one of the hardest areas to fund. We often end up with a patchwork of funding that allows us to help certain types of groups or work in certain areas.

We are making two important changes to the way we work support organisations

Support plans: 

Throughout the Village SOS programme we created support plans with organisations detailing 

• what actions need to take place
• who needs to undertake them and
• what the support timeline is.

We’ve found this a really helpful tool and, where we undertake bigger pieces of work with organisations we will develop and agree a support plan with you.

Charging 

All support plans will come with costings. Where we have funding available we will charge those costs to that funded project. If not the case, rather than say we can’t help, you will have the opportunity to fund that support yourself (or through other funding you have access to).

What’s not changing

If you need help, ring or e-mail us. If we can answer the query immediately we will. If we can’t we will always try to help further, if appropriate by putting you in touch with someone who can.

What extra service do CAN members get?

Members get both extra time at the advice stage and a discount on all paid support.