A group of 14 organisations from across Scotland have been awarded funding to continue their work to help those hit by benefits reforms
Charities from across Scotland have been granted additional funding to reduce the impact of welfare cuts and poverty.
A total of 14 organisations have received a share of £135,000 from the Community Capacity and Resilience Fund.
The fund is managed by the Scottish Council for Voluntary Organisations (SCVO), and the latest round of funding has focused on helping organisations to build on the success of their initial pilot work, which will see the organisations scaling up and consolidating their services.
Since its launch in June 2015, the fund has made grants of £880,000 to third sector organisations throughout the length and breadth of Scotland who have been tackling the impact of welfare reform, poverty and social inequalities.
Irene Connelly, programme development manager at SCVO, said: “The Community Capacity and Resilience Fund clearly demonstrates that delivering funding directly to frontline organisations with unique insight into the needs of their communities has a huge impact on local areas. We are delighted to continue to support these 14 organisations to build on their success and deepen their impact, which is beneficial to them when applying for more sustainable funding in future.”
Amongst the organisations awarded funded are Fife Arabic Society, Lanarkshire Deaf Club and Senior Citizens Scotland.
Social enterprise the Ridge, which operates a community cafe, garden and employability training provision in East Lothian was one of the successful groups.
The organisation first received CCRF funding in January 2017 for an eight-month pilot of its Plenty project, which helps people move on from the indignity of dependency, equipping them to take more control in their lives, and giving them opportunities to contribute/give back, rather than simply being beneficiaries.
Following the success of the pilot, The Ridge received further funding to up scale the project and deliver it for a year (Sep 2017 to Aug 2018). The group has now been awarded funding to continue the delivery until September 2019.
Director Kate Darrah said: “Being awarded continued funding is very important to us. We are collaborating with other agencies and try to work closely to ensure that all our projects are aligned.
“The issues are not going to go away but we are attempting to mitigate them and helping people to budget so they can make better use of limited funds.”
Applications to the fund from new projects are open now, full information can be found here.
The fund is open to from Scottish third sector organisations, with an income of £250,000 or less. Awards range from £1,000 to £10,000, with the average award being £8,000.
