Cumnock Community Leading
Cumnock Community Leading was a funding programme of £20,000 from a bigger pot of money from Comic Relief for community-led grantmaking, with an emphasis on shifting power.
The fund was assigned to the Nest Wellbeing Group, a SCIO, who previously ran as a subgroup within Cumnock Action Plan. Rather than run a fund for local groups to apply to, the fund was assigned to the Nest to develop their work in support of mental health and wellbeing, fitting the Comic Relief themes. This could be described as proactive grant making for community led projects, given on an open and trusting basis. The Nest was identified through Corra’s local knowledge, particularly through the relationship with Corra’s Community Co-ordinator in Cumnock, as suitable to receive this open funding.
The Nest Wellbeing Group (and its predecessor subgroup of Cumnock Action Plan) has received two grants, £4,500 for a residential and £9,000 to run a community living room.
If you’d like any further information about this fund, please contact shiftthepower@corra.scot.
Which organisations received funding?
View the organisations who received funding. We also upload our grant holder data to 360 Giving.
Decision making process
The Nest Wellbeing Group were assigned £20,000 to develop support around mental health. The Nest developed two activities: 1) A residential for 20 people in Summer 2022, and 2) A community living room in early 2023. The groups were supported by a Corra Community Co-ordinator from our Place Team and shared with a Grant Advisor from our Grants Team. When plans were sufficiently developed, these were set down in an application.
As the Grant Advisor had been involved in advising along the way, the resultant application needed little scrutiny. It was discussed with the Grants Programme Manager. The Nest itself has a strong lived experience involvement at all stages – planning, application and delivery.
The application was approved by the Grants Programme Manager, and proceeded to payment.
Why were some applications unsuccessful?
The nature of this ‘fund’ and the communication during the project design process meant that potential unsuccessful ideas were identified at an early stage.
What next?
There remains some money assigned to The Nest and they are currently developing their third activity for this funding.
Further reading and related content
As part of this fund, a number of community-led grantmaking processes were run in communities across Scotland. You can read more about these via the links below, and also find out what else is happening in Cumnock.
