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Grants Programme for Manchester’s Voluntary and Community Sector

18 Oct 2013 - 11:02 by michelle.foster

There will be a fund of £550k from the three Manchester Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs) available early January 2014, to Manchester’s Voluntary and Community Sector (VCS). The main aim of the programme of work will be to reduce social isolation and loneliness for people over 50 years old in Manchester.

The programme will also aim to build greater understanding of how the Manchester CCGs can work with VCS organisations to improve health and wellbeing outcomes for Manchester residents over the age of 50 years.

A programme Board has been appointed and the three Manchester CCGs have commissioned Macc to manage and administer the programme, along with the Charity Service. There will also be a decision-making Grant Panels with experts from the three Manchester CCGs, Manchester City Council, including VOP, the Manchester Older People’s Reference Group and Macc.

Macc has held two briefing sessions for the VCS and has circulated information about the Grants through our databases. Following the recent Programme Board meeting, it was agreed to advertise the Tender for the Evaluation asap, and have the Evaluation team in place before the Application process begins.

This will mean that the Application Process will now begin early in January 2014 .

Applications will be for projects and/or equipment which can improve the health and wellbeing of older people in Manchester, by reducing social isolation and loneliness.

The maximum length of a grant is 18 months.

Your organisation or group may want to expand the support you already provide or extend your reach to include older people. You may wish to establish new models and approaches to reduce social isolation and loneliness or expand the remit of your existing services. Services and support designed to reduce loneliness and social isolation should aim to reverse the negative impact on health that social isolation can have, prevent people from becoming isolated in the first place and improve overall their quality of life.’

There will be two levels of grants with separate application processes:
Small grants of £500 - £10,000
Main grants of £10,000 - £50,000

Grants can be for capital and/or revenue. Main grants must be predominantly revenue. All grants must be spent within 18 months from the starting date.

The key messages from VCS groups that came out of the Macc Briefing sessions were:
• The importance of creating or building on existing partnership arrangements to ensure that developed services can be sustained beyond the end date of this programme of work
• Older people themselves should be involved in planning the services/activities to ensure success
• The VCS builds on evidence of what works (including the lessons from POPPs) Services designed to improve wellbeing sit within the ‘preventative agenda’ and where necessary, should be part of a continuum of support provided by the NHS and Adult Social Care
• The grants will be available to VCS organisations, Housing Associations and Social Enterprises that can demonstrate all the criteria approved by the Board

The groups welcomed the initiative from the CCGs and the proposal to set aside £50,000 from the original sum of £600,000, for an evaluation of the Programme.

It is proposed that the evaluators will work with each project to assist them in devising, preparing and producing monitoring information and help them to gather evidence to improve services and improve funding opportunities for their organisation/partnership.

For further information, contact Mary Duncan, on 0161 834 9823, or email: [email protected]
 

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