Could you outline the main objectives of the Community First Programme?
Community First is an £80m government funded programme that will run for four years, until March 2015. It will help communities come together through new and existing community groups, to identify their strengths and local priorities, plan for their future and become more resilient.
Community First consists of the £30m Neighbourhood Match Fund (NMF) small grants programme for 600 of some of the most deprived wards of the country and a national £50m Endowment Match Challenge (EMC).
The Neighbourhood Match Fund will use the £30m fund to encourage people in their communities to give their time and expertise to local projects, to raise money and help make their area a better place to live.
The Endowment Match Challenge will mobilise both national and local giving and philanthropy. It aims to raise £100m in donations, which will be matched with £50m of government investment. This money will continue to grow over the life of the programme, ensuring a sustainable source of funding for communities across England in years to come.
Community First is funded by the Office for Civil Society (OCS), part of the Cabinet Office, on behalf of the government. CDF leads on delivery in partnership with Asda, the Community Foundation Network, the Adventure Capital Fund, CCLA and the Social Investment Business.
The Community First Neighbourhood Match Fund (NMF) aims to enable local communities to address their own priorities. Why do you feel it is so important for the communities themselves to determine the projects they pursue?
People who live and work in an area will always have views about what can improve and a clear sense of priorities for its improvement. If you walk past a patch of scrub ground everyday but there is no where to take your children to play within easy walking distance of home, you can easily identify the priority and how to address it. By taking ownership and working with neighbours, a community eyesore can quickly become a community asset. Of course, councils can step in and do this if they have the time, money and have also given the issue priority. But it may well be one demand on a long list of demands that never gets reached.
A key part of the NMF is the need for projects to contribute matched resources to the government grant. This can be through volunteer time, which is assigned an hourly cash rate and the real value of other resources such as donated goods. People are more likely to get involved and give time if they feel a project has grown out of community discussions and that their own contributions are being valued.
How has funding for these community projects been distributed across the country and how is eligibility determined?
The OCS wanted to identify neighbourhoods subject to significant deprivation and low social capital. They used the 2011 Indices of Multiple Deprivation (IMD) to identify the 30 per cent most deprived Lower Super Output Areas (LSOA). This list was overlaid with Job Centre Plus (JCP) benefit data to identify LSOAs which had experienced a significant increase in benefit claimants. Eligible LSOAs were grouped into ward areas, where practical and then wards which included clusters of these eligible areas were selected. This resulted in 600 Community First areas identified across England, with at least one area in every top tier local authority area.
How would you define a 'strong society'?
These terms 'strong society', 'cohesive society', 'big society' get bandied around a lot. They easily become politicised and quickly seen as irrelevant to the real challenges that face communities. CDF has over forty years expertise in using community development to strengthen local voices, improve people's lives and create better places to live. With a breadth of expertise in programme and project development, research, evaluation and communications, we support grassroots social action and promote a better understanding of the benefits of local responses.
With specialised skills, we manage funding programmes – supporting groups right from application through to delivery – to ensure community projects can be delivered and community groups sustained. Our practical solutions and recommendations always stand up to the realities of local life in the UK. We are always more interested in local impact and activity than the terms used by policy makers to describe it.
The Endowment Match Challenge aims to raise £100m in donations, how will these funds be raised?
The Endowment Match Challenge aims to raise £100m in donations through individual and corporate philanthropy. Donations received will then be matched with £50m of government investment. Endowment funds raised will continue to grow over the life of the programme to ensure a sustainable source of funding for communities in years to come.
CDF is working with CFN to deliver the endowment. CFNs' network of local Community Foundations provides a valued service for individual and corporate donors. Community Foundations support community groups and enable individuals and companies to contribute to local needs, sustaining stronger communities over the long term. Community Foundations will set up endowed funds for donors and the Endowment Match Challenge will increase the value of donors' funds by 50 per cent. The target is to create an overall endowment of £150m, £100m of which will be private donations topped up by £50m of government match.
What sort of community groups and projects will this scheme be seeking to support?
Community First could fund anything that local communities see as a priority. Community First requires that each eligible ward sets up a Community First panel. These panels will raise awareness of the programme and work in the community to create a plan for how they will match and spend the money. In doing so, they will need to consult with the community to agree the priorities for funding. These could be anything from increased hours for a youth club, setting up a seniors' lunch club, improving open spaces or renovating a community hall.
The Community First initiative is set to run until March 2015. Will the CDF be looking to review the scheme's progress and how will it measure its success?
CDF constantly reviews all its programmes and activities and we are in constant discussion with people on the ground about how it feels to them. In 2011, we were delighted to win the DCS 'Great Giving Funders' Award, a real endorsement of our commitment to running easy to access community grants schemes.
Do you feel the UK coalition government is doing enough to promote community cohesion and engagement?
Our experience is that in economically deprived communities there are more things in common than there are differences between the people who live there. Fair access to good health, housing, education and work – or the lack of it – is what most people across the country want for themselves, their families and neighbours. In times of hardship, when competition is greater, stress lines can appear and community tensions can grow.
CDF has experience in managing these difficulties through community development practices and helping communities to identify what they have in common, rather than their differences. We also know that people living in communities also have a huge amount to offer – skills, ideas and resources. By encouraging people to come together to identify their local priorities, by letting them make the decisions on the projects that help to meet these and by valuing their contributions through matching their donated time and expertise in real cash terms, Community First can have a real impact.
The Government's funding of this programme demonstrates their understanding that investment in local communities to encourage local social action is one of the ways to tackle these issues.
Alison Seabrooke is chief executive of the Community Development Foundation. CDF is a charity and social enterprise that is passionate about helping communities. We aim to achieve our vision of an inclusive and just society through our mission to empower people to influence decisions that affect their lives. More information is available at
http://www.cdf.org.uk
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