Communitybuilders is a £70 million programme in the United Kingdom that aims to strengthen the resilience of multi-purpose, inclusive community-led organisations that operate at the neighbourhood level (sometimes referred to as community anchors).
Communitybuilders is a £70 million programme in the United Kingdom that aims to strengthen the resilience of multi-purpose, inclusive community-led organisations that operate at the neighbourhood level (sometimes referred to as community anchors).
Government responsibility for Communitybuilders lies jointly with the Department for Communities and Local Government and the Office of the Third Sector. [1]
In June 2009, a consortium, led by the Adventure Capital Fund (ACF) and including Futurebuilders England and the Community Alliance (Development Trusts Association, BASSAC and Community Matters) was appointed to deliver the programme. [2]
Communitybuilders takes forward a commitment within the Communities in Control: Real People, Real Power white paper [3] to build more cohesive, empowered and active communities. [4]
The aim of the Communitybuilders programme is to help community anchor organisations work towards long-term financial stability so they can meet the needs of their communities for generations to come. Communitybuilders provides a mix of loans, grants and non-financial support at different stages of the project cycle, supporting both existing organisations and newly formed organisations
In Ireland and the United Kingdom, housing associations are private, non-profit making organisations that provide low-cost "social housing" for people in need of a home. Any budget surplus is used to maintain existing housing and to help finance new homes and it cannot be used for personal benefit of directors or shareholders. Although independent, they are regulated by the state and commonly receive public funding. They are now the United Kingdom's major providers of new housing for rent, while many also run shared ownership schemes to help those who cannot afford to buy a home outright.
Arts Council England is an arm's length non-departmental public body of the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport. It is also a registered charity. It was formed in 1994 when the Arts Council of Great Britain was divided into three separate bodies for England, Scotland and Wales. The arts funding system in England underwent considerable reorganisation in 2002 when all of the regional arts boards were subsumed into Arts Council England and became regional offices of the national organisation.
Community organizing is a process where people who live in proximity to each other or share some common problem come together into an organization that acts in their shared self-interest.
The National Lottery Community Fund, legally named the Big Lottery Fund, is a non-departmental public body responsible for distributing funds raised by the National Lottery for "good causes". Since 2004 it has awarded over £9 billion to more than 130,000 projects in the UK.
The UK Film Council (UKFC) was a non-departmental public body set up in 2000 to develop and promote the film industry in the UK. It was constituted as a private company limited by guarantee, owned by the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, and governed by a board of 15 directors. It was funded from various sources including The National Lottery. John Woodward was the Chief Executive Officer of the UKFC. On 26 July 2010, the government announced that the council would be abolished. Although one of the parties elected into that government had, for some months, promised a bonfire of the Quangos, Woodward said that the decision had been taken with "no notice and no consultation". UKFC closed on 31 March 2011, with many of its functions passing to the British Film Institute.
A social enterprise is an organisation that applies commercial strategies to maximize improvements in financial, social and environmental well-being. This may include maximizing social impact alongside profits for co-owners.
The specialist schools programme (SSP), first launched as the Technology Colleges programme and also known as the specialist schools initiative, specialist schools policy and specialist schools scheme, was a government programme in the United Kingdom which encouraged state schools in England and Northern Ireland to raise private sponsorship in order to become specialist schools – schools that specialise in certain areas of the curriculum – to boost achievement, cooperation and diversity in the school system. First introduced in 1993 to England as a policy of John Major's Conservative government, it was relaunched in 1997 as a flagship policy of the New Labour governments, expanding significantly under Prime Minister Tony Blair and his successor Gordon Brown. The programme was introduced to Northern Ireland in 2006, lasting until April 2011 in England and August 2011 in Northern Ireland. By this time, it had established a near-universal specialist system of secondary education in England, with almost every state-funded secondary school in England having specialised. This system replaced the comprehensive system which had been in place since the 1970s.
The European Structural and Investment Funds are financial tools governed by a common rulebook, set up to implement the regional policy of the European Union, as well as the structural policy pillars of the Common Agricultural Policy and the Common Fisheries Policy. They aim to reduce regional disparities in income, wealth and opportunities. Europe's poorer regions receive most of the support, but all European regions are eligible for funding under the policy's various funds and programmes. The current framework is set for a period of seven years, from 2021 to 2027.
Sure Start is a UK Government area-based initiative, announced in 1998 by the then Chancellor of the Exchequer, Gordon Brown, applying primarily in England with slightly different versions in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. The initiative originated from HM Treasury, with the aim of "giving children the best possible start in life" through improvement of childcare, early education, health and family support, with an emphasis on outreach and community development.
Action on Smoking and Health (ASH) is the name of a number of autonomous pressure groups (charities) in the anglosphere that seek to publicize the risks associated with tobacco smoking and campaign for greater restrictions on use and on cigarette and tobacco sales.
The Southern Education and Research Alliance (SERA), founded in 1999, is a strategic alliance formed between the University of Pretoria and the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research. The alliance collaborates locally and internationally with universities, NGO's, companies and multinational bodies in various research areas. Sera has a 50% shareholding in the Innovation Hub, a fully accredited technology park situated on 60 hectares of the university's experimental farm.
Local strategic partnerships (LSPs) exist in nearly all local authority areas in England. They bring together representatives from the local statutory, voluntary, community and private sectors to address local problems, allocate funding, and discuss strategies and initiatives. They aim to encourage joint working and community involvement, and prevent 'silo working' with the general objective of ensuring resources are better allocated at a local level. In Scotland, equivalent partnerships are called Community Planning Partnerships and in Wales, Local Service Boards.
The British Youth Council, known informally as BYC, is a UK charity that works to empower young people and promote their interests. The national charity, run by young people, exists to represent the views of young people to government and decision-makers at a local, national, European and international level; and to promote the increased participation of young people in society and public life. It is partly funded by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport and UK Parliament.
The Public Works Loan Board (PWLB) was a statutory body of the UK Government that provided loans to public bodies from the National Loans Fund. In 2020, the PWLB was abolished as a statutory organisation, and its functions were allocated to HM Treasury, where they are discharged through the UK Debt Management Office. The members of the PWLB were known as the Public Works Loan Commissioners.
Futurebuilders England was a social investment fund in the UK. The fund was invested in third sector organisations delivering public services to improve their financial and strategic capability.
Social enterprise lending is a form of social finance which refers to the practice of offering loans and other financing vehicles below current market rates to social enterprises and other organisations pursuing social goals. This is often referred to as "patient lending," or financing with "soft" terms. Patient lending recognises that projects with social outcomes often reach profitability later than commercial projects. Softening the terms of a loan means that a social lender may offer provisions such as longer loan terms, lower interest rates and repayment "holidays" where capital and interest repayments are not due until the project is profitable. Social lenders might also offer small grants as part of an investment package.
The Big Society is a political ideology developed in the early 21st century. The idea proposed "integrating the free market with a theory of social solidarity based on hierarchy and voluntarism". Conceptually it "draws on a mix of conservative communitarianism and libertarian paternalism". Its roots "can be traced back to the 1990s, and to early attempts to develop a non-Thatcherite, or post-Thatcherite, brand of UK conservatism" such as David Willetts' Civic Conservatism and the revival of Red Toryism. Some commentators have seen the Big Society as invoking Edmund Burke's idea of civil society, putting it into the sphere of one-nation conservatism.
UK Community Foundations (UKCF) is a registered charity that leads a movement of community foundations committed to positive social change in the UK through the development of “community philanthropy”. Community philanthropy involves people from all parts of a community working together locally to use the financial and other resources available to them to improve others’ lives.
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"Levelling up" is a political policy first articulated in the 2019 Conservative Party manifesto that aims to reduce the imbalances, primarily economic, between areas and social groups across the United Kingdom. It seeks to do so without acting to the detriment of prosperous areas, such as much of South East England. A white paper for the policy was published by Boris Johnson's government on 2 February 2022.