Less than 12 months ago, I stepped into Dunterlie Resource Centre as Community Coordinator with Corra Foundation’s People in Place programme. Across those 10 months, the Dunterlie community taught me the importance of listening, working together, and taking time for a cuppa and a chat. It was a unique opportunity to work alongside people with a strong vision for their community supporting them to create change.
As I start my new role in the Grants team at Corra, I am excited that community is at the heart of the #ShiftThePower Scotland Comic Relief Programme.
The programme is now open and you have at least five reasons to be excited!
- You don’t need to be a registered charity to apply. Alongside grassroots charities, the fund is open to voluntary and community groups, provided you have a constitution. Funding opportunities for small groups are often few and far between and #ShiftThePower is a great opportunity for groups to access funding and make change within their communities.
- The strongest applications will meaningfully involve people with lived experience in the development and delivery of ideas. This means that people with lived experience are in the driving seat of creating and delivering work that makes a difference to them.
- The programme will support groups making a difference in one of the four key themes: early years development; empowering women and girls; supporting people affected by homelessness; and tackling stigma around mental health. Listening and responding to those with lived experience is central to the programme, a panel made up of people with experience of the four themes will make the final decisions on what is funded.
- We are delivering information and capacity building sessions in August and September across Scotland. The sessions will be a chance to meet the Corra team, chat about ideas, as well as receive training on safeguarding, budgets, and facilitation. You can book a place at an information session here. P.S There will be cake at all information sessions ?
- Alongside the main open call for applications the programme will be exploring Community Led Grant Making. This will put communities at the heart of designing and deciding how to distribute funding in their local area. We’re still working on this at the moment but you can follow us on Twitter @corrascot for the latest updates, or sign up to our newsletter by clicking here.
From my time working in Dunterlie , I know that our communities are filled with people passionate about making a difference in their local area. The #ShiftThePower Scotland Comic Relief Programme is a chance for those community led grassroots groups to continue to create change. Take a look here to find out more: https://www.corra.scot/comic-relief/
