Reaching Communities Re-opens

The largest of the National Lottery Good Cause distributors is holding two public information events in Derry’s St Columb’s Park House (September 6) and NICVA in Belfast (September 13) to re-launch Reaching Communities Northern Ireland, an £18 million programme which will support a wide range of projects that bring changes to people’s lives and create stronger communities.

The grant programme has been reviewed to ensure that Lottery grants are awarded to projects that best meet the needs of Northern Ireland’s most disadvantaged communities.

Lottery grants of between £100,000 and £500,000 will still be available for up to five years for voluntary and community led projects that will help local people achieve their full potential, actively participate in communities, boost community ownership and improve physical and mental health.

• Now Big Lottery Fund will now also ask potential applicants to demonstrate how their project meets the priorities under each outcome.
• In the guidelines Big Lottery Fund has also published provisional funding allocations against each programme outcome.
• Considering this will allow BIG to identify how individual projects will meet the overall programme outcomes over the lifetime of the programme.
• Viewing the guidelines in closer detail shows the Big Lottery Fund has revised the programme information to highlight key elements of the programme such as evidence of need, project outcomes and evidence of how the local community is involved in the proposed project.

Aim of the Reveiw:

Breidge Gadd, Big Lottery Fund NI Chair , said: “The aim of the review of Reaching Communities Northern Ireland was to make improvements to the programme based on our learning from the first round of applications. The changes we have made mean that applicants will now know from the very start what information we require to assess their project effectively.

The dates and times of the public information events are as follows:

• Derry, St Columb’s Park House, 06 September 2007, Afternoon session 2:30pm – 4:30pm, Evening session 6:30pm – 8:30pm
• Belfast, NICVA, 13 September 2007, Afternoon session 2:30pm – 4:30pm, Evening session 6:30pm – 8:30pm

Anyone interested in attending the public information sessions should contact the Big Lottery Fund information team on 028 9055 1455. From 6 September information will be available on their website at www.biglotteryfund.org.uk and you will be able to contact the information team. Please note that BIG cannot respond to queries before this date.