Grassroot Community Fund



The Office for the Third Sector have announced the launch of a 'grassroots community fund' which will provide grants for voluntary and communicate sector organisations with, it is anticipated, an annual turnover of less than £50,000.

The value of this national grants programme is £80m over a three year period. This is likely to start in June 2008 following an open tendering process in March/April to determine who will deliver this. Details of the tendering process are expected to be published by the end of January 2008.

Linked to the grant programme is an 'endowment challenge' which will provide match funding for endowed funds raised during the three year period. Nationally, the amount of match funding available is £50m. The detail about how this will work in practice is still being finalised.

At this stage there is only limited information available.The Community Foundation Network and NAVCA are working very closely with the Office for the Third Sector in the development of both the grant programme and the endowment challenge. Both of these organisations are releasing information as and when they are able to.

Further information will be posted on the Nottinghamshire Community Foundation website when this becomes available. www.nottscf.org.uk/