Games Makers will help to support athletes like Paralympian Stephen Miller to achieve their goals at London 2012

Play Your Part is a new fund at the Community Foundation that provides bursary support for young people aged 18-25 from North East England who have Games Maker volunteer places at the London 2012 Olympic Games and Paralympic Games. It is anticiapted that the fund will be able to support  at least 25 young people from across the region who might otherwise not be able to take up this great opportunity.

To be eligible, applicants must be:

• aged 18-25 at the time they apply;
• live in the North East of England (Northumberland, Newcastle, North Tyneside, Gateshead, South Tyneside, Sunderland, County Durham, Darlington, Middlesbrough, Stockton-on-Tees, Redcar & Cleveland and Hartlepool);
• have a confirmed place as a Games Maker volunteer in London for the 2012 Olympics or Paralympic Games; and
• be in genuine need of financial support to benefit from the volunteering opportunity (by which we mean the costs of accommodation in London, transport to/from London and daily living expenses other than travel in London).

The closing date for applications is MONDAY 2 APRIL 2012

Applicants will be informed of decisions by MONDAY 30 APRIL 2012

Click here to find out more about the scheme and how to apply. Please also share and promote this opportunity as widely as possible throughout your networks.

Local social action groups like Charles Street Community Centre will benefit from Community First

The Community First endowment match is a Government programme to boost philanthropy and local social action. The Community Foundation is running the scheme in Newcastle, North Tyneside, South Tyneside, Gateshead, Sunderland and Northumberland. Through Community First, we will be able to match new gifts and establish new endowment funds at the Community Foundation.

Across our whole area we have a match allocation of £1,367,988 to be drawn down before the end of March 2015.  £1 from a donor can be matched with 50p from the programme. BUT, to kick-start the programme, the match will be increased to £1 for £1 until 31 March 2012 ONLY.  Donations can be for as much or as little as you like and can go to any of the areas.  Donors who would like to establish their own named Community First Endowment Fund can do so by giving a minimum of £16,700 which when match is added will create a fund of £25,000.  For more details please email Lisa Cappleman or call 0191 222 0945, but be quick as the £1 for £1 deadline is fast approaching!

Guy Readman at Foundations Furniture Project, supported through Survive to Thrive

Leading local philanthropist and Businessman of the Year Guy Readman OBE, the Sir Tom Cowie Fund and a private individual are leading the way in supporting local voluntary sector organisations to respond to cuts in public sector funding.  Jointly, they have established the Survive to Thrive Fund at the Community Foundation. The Fund has just completed its first round of six grants totalling over £137,000 to local organisations, helping them become more resilient and sustainable for the future.

Guy Readman has pledged up to £175,000 a year for two years to match fund donations from individuals and businesses that are interested in joining him in this crucial work.  Guy said:

“We are all aware that when government bodies cut spending they tend to be a bit of blunt instrument and often at short notice. They are likely to hit the good as well as the indifferent and the poor. I have increasingly been thinking how it is likely that some very good voluntary sector charities will have substantial funding withdrawn such as to threaten their useful existence. I am particularly concerned with those smaller organisations employing maybe one or two staff who are unlikely to have had the time or the experience to foresee and act in advance.”

One supporter has already donated an additional £25,000 to the cause which has been matched by Guy and had Gift Aid added on top.

Foundations Furniture Project in Gateshead is one of the first groups to benefit from the Fund.  As an organisation that collects unwanted reusable furniture and other household items from the Gateshead area and re-distributes them to people in need throughout the borough, the project is doing vital work but was finding it increasingly difficult to secure grants to keep going.   The Survive to Thrive Fund grant for just over £25,000 is to enable them to employ a development officer for one year who will help the organisation change its core income base from one of reliance on grants to a much greater amount of earned income.

Bernadette Gill from Foundations Furniture Project said:

“We were thrilled to be successful in our bid to the Survive to Thrive Fund. By employing a development officer we will be able to identify new streams of income and restructure our current pricing plan. Survive to Thrive is an excellent idea and brilliant if you are keen to save some of our region’s best voluntary organisations from going under.”

If you or your business is interested in supporting Survive to Thrive email Derry Nugent or call 0191 222 0945.

Emma Newton was tragically killed when a tree fell on her car during storms in May 2011

A display of 30 celebrity spectacles is on at The Queen’s Hall Gallery, Hexham, Northumberland from February 23 to March 17 to help raise money for the Emma Newton Fund and celebrate Emma’s love for her ‘geek chic’ spectacles.

Pairs from celebrities including Kylie Minogue, Ant & Dec and Davina McCall are all on display and you can even bid for the glasses at a special online auction.

To read more about the event and the Emma Newton Fund at the Community Foundation click here.

Women attending the 'Learning for Work' programme funded by ESF at Sunderland Women’s Centre.

The ESF Community Grants Programme run by the Community Foundation has made its first grants totalling over £100,000 in Tyne & Wear and Northumberland. Awards of up to £12,000 were made to 11 groups, including Tynedale Women’s Training Group, Killingworth Community Consortium and Sunderland Women’s Centre.

Willa Allan from Sunderland Women’s Centre said:

“We have been awarded £12,000 from ESF which is absolutely fantastic news! It means that we can now deliver our ‘Learning for Work’ programme over the next 12 months that allows women to gain, at the very least, entry level qualifications. They will then be able to go on to further education or training that will ultimately result in employment.”

The next deadline for applications is 26 April 2012. The programme is open to not-for-profits, community groups and charities, with annual income averaging under £200,000, that run activities in disadvantaged areas and which help unemployed individuals overcome barriers to training and employment. Interested groups should click here to read our ESF Guidance or contact Sue Martin for further information.

Helen Dawe, Trustee of the Time Exchange, with volunteers at its allotment in Newcastle.

The Women’s Fund has awarded £14,000 in its latest series of grants to seven community and voluntary groups that support women in Tyne & Wear and Northumberland.

Time Exchange in Arthur’s Hill, Newcastle, was just one group that was successful in its bid for funding, and was awarded a grant of £1,500. It will use the money to employ a female sessional worker to support women-only drop-in gardening sessions on its allotment plot in the Wingrove area of the city.

Helen Dawe, a trustee of Time Exchange said:

“This money is a great boost to our environmental project, it means we can now run women-only gardening sessions that are particularly important for people who feel more comfortable in female-only groups, for example vulnerable young women or women from the Asian community.”

You can support the Women’s Fund and local women’s projects by attending the International Women’s Day Networking Lunch on Thursday 15 March. Tickets are now on sale at £30 each or £300 for a table. For more information or to book your table email Katy Vanden Hehir or call 0191 222 0945.

Anyone who books to attend the lunch is also eligible for preferential rates at the Entrepreneurs Forum Achieve conference. Click here to download the pdf for more information and quote your booking for the Lunch when ordering your tickets.

Local community and voluntary groups are urged to register or complete their membership of Localgiving.com before a new round of match funding becomes available in March, totalling £375,000 nationally. That means every £1 donated to a group through the site will be matched by a further £1, with Gift Aid on top.

In December 2011, North East groups took a share of £30,000 match funding from a national Localgiving.com pot of £125,000, with Women’s Health in South Tyneside (WHIST) being the top fundraiser from our region, securing a whopping £5,000!

Corinne Devine from WHIST said:

“We are delighted to have come top in the North East for match funding from Localgiving.com. We put our success down to sending mass emails out to all our contacts, highlighting it on our website and Facebook and featuring it in our newsletters. This money will be a real boost to our work.”

For more information about joining Localgiving.com, or if you are having trouble completing your application, email Jane Roberts-Morpeth.

Women’s Fund

The Women’ Fund was established in 1999 by Dame Margaret Barbour, and has been enhanced by contributions from women and other supporters throughout the area to support women in Tyne & Wear and Northumberland.

Applications for grants up to £3,000 are sought from community and voluntary groups that support women to achieve their full potential, give access to information and assistance on social, health or economic issues and provide training and support services.

The work must be exclusively for women who are over the age of 18 and for specific project work. Organisational core costs can be part of the application but not the main focus.  For example, volunteer costs for a particular activity, rather than a general contribution to volunteer costs.

For more information, including restrictions on the type of grants that are offered by the Women’s Fund click here.  Please ensure that you say in the project description section that your application is for the Women’s Fund.

Closing date for applications is Friday 30 March 2012.

The Sir Tom Cowie Fund

The Sir Tom Cowie Fund at the Community Foundation aims to give disadvantaged and disabled children and young people opportunities to fulfil their potential. The focus is on schemes which help young people achieve goals, improve skills and explore their talents. Sir Tom’s motivation in establishing the Fund was a recognition that not all young people had the same life chances, but that through engaging with voluntary and community projects, they could be helped to overcome barriers and succeed in life.

There is now a call for applications to the Fund from voluntary and community groups based inSunderland only. Please note, if your organisation is not based in Sunderland, you should not apply even if some of your work covers the city.

Groups can apply for grants of between £1,000 to £10,000 to support projects and activities that work with young people in the ways described above. Children and young people benefitting may be aged between 8 to 25.

The preference with grants from this Fund is to support a project or activity in full, or to make a major contribution towards the full costs. Applications where any grant from the Sir Tom Cowie Fund would only be a small part of a bigger scheme are unlikely to be supported.

To apply online click here.

The closing date is date is Friday 24 February 2012.

UK Land Estates Fund

The UK Land Estates fund is looking for applications from projects supporting local people in Gateshead, South Shields and Sunderland.

Grants awarded are usually for £1,000 or less although higher awards are occasionally made. Click here to apply online or email Gill Lowing for more information.

The Sport Relief 2012 Community Cash Grant Programme will provide grants of between £500 and £1,000 to support community groups undertaking work that helps people of all ages feel more included in their community, builds their skills and increases their sense of achievement.

The programme is open to groups in Northumberland, Newcastle, North Tyneside, Gateshead, South Tyneside or Sunderland. To be eligible for a grant groups will need to:

• Be working in a disadvantaged or deprived area
• Be small local groups with an income of less than £100,000 in the last reporting period, run by local people
• Have limited access to other sources of income

Full information about the programme is available on our website www.communityfoundation.org.uk. Make sure you watch the Newcastle Evening Chronicle for more news about Sport Relief 2012 Community Cash.

Applications must be made online using the Sport Relief 2012 Community Cash Grant Programme Application Form by midnight on 9^th March 2012. Eligible applications will be considered by a grants panel and applicants notified of decisions the week beginning 23rd April 2012.