Home › Near Neighbours programme › Near Neighbours Fund Grant Criteria

Near Neighbours Fund Grant Criteria

The Near Neighbours Fund is targeted at creating additional relationships in local communities across boundaries.

This is a rolling programme with no deadlines but it is due to end in March 2014. We will invest in environmental, social, cultural, artistic and sporting ideas but they need to fulfill the following criteria.

1. Creating association

The overall aim of the fund is to encourage stronger civil society in areas that are multi-religious and multi-ethnic by creating association, friendship and neighbourliness. It intends to bring together people of different faiths and of no faiths to transform local communities for the better. First, by enabling opportunities for deeper levels of communication and understanding in local neighbourhoods, and secondly, by creating joint work, organizations or projects which address community needs. Strong and vibrant communities are dependent upon relationships of trust and mutual engagement and the fund aims to facilitate their development.

Key criteria therefore are pieces of work which do one of the following:

  • Create First Encounters between people of different faith and ethnic communities and encourage the development of mutual understanding - initiatives which begin the process of developing associational life. These encounters can be key moments of transformation in a neighbourhood.
  • Create Everyday Interactions at the everyday level of community life by encouraging families and individuals to come together regularly to eat together, jointly participating in religious and other festivals, encouraging children to play together in a neighbourhood.
  • Create Civil Engagement which brings together people from different faith or ethnic communities to work together to change their neighbourhoods for the better. This will include establishing organizations and initiatives which have members of different faith communities.

2. Specifically local

Association can be built nationally, internationally and ‘virtually’ but for most people their experience of civic life and of community more generally is a local one. The Fund aims to build association as deeply as possible in local neighbourhood contexts. So a key criterion is that grants are spent in ways which bring together people from different ethnic and faith communities which impact specifically locally. If there is the intention and likelihood of lasting relationships between human beings, then a grant is more likely to be awarded. We will look especially favourably on applications from diverse neighbourhoods and those with particular issues of deprivation and challenge.

Certain Church of England parishes (places) in the following areas are eligible:

  • The City of Leicester
  • The boundaries of Bradford MDC, Burnley BC and Oldham MDC
  • In the City of Birmingham this covers the wards of Aston, Bordesley Green, Edgbaston, Hodge Hill, Ladywood, Lozells and East Handsworth, Moseley and Kings Heath, Nechells, Soho, South Yardley, Sparkbook, Springfield, Washwood Heath
  • In the London boroughs of Islington, Greenwich, Hackney, Lewisham, Newham, Redbridge, Southwark, Tower Hamlets and Waltham Forest

    Find out which parishes are eligible for funding

 

 3. Small, quick...and transformative 

We have lots of evidence at Church Urban Fund and from elsewhere of the transformative effect of small grants. Relatively small sums of money, quickly targeted to an emerging opportunity or initiative can provide the impetus for significant change.

This is not a fund for buying capital items, funding a deficit, or stretching a hard-pressed project revenue budget, nor will we fund full salaries, or work already completed. Innovative or tried and tested methods which bring people together in the categories set out above and which are ‘good ideas’ are much more likely to receive some investment.  No match funding is required but if you can show additional resources such as volunteer time or extra funding being drawn in, so much the better. 

Award amounts range from £250-£5000. It is possible to be awarded more than one grant, especially when a locality or grouping is progressing from First Encounters, to Everyday Interactions, to Civic Engagement.

How to apply

The project is set up with localism at its heart. Ideally we would like each application to come through an engagement with your local Church of England parish church. Clergy contact details for each parish will be available from September; in the meantime, you can contact your nearest Presence and Engagement centre for this information. You should send a copy of the application to your nearest Presence and Engagement centre in case there is a difficulty, such as there is no parish priest currently in post.

The Fund is particularly pleased to receive applications from people of different faith groups or none, working in partnership with people of different faiths and within the criteria. Funding cannot be granted to individuals.

Presence and Engagement Centres:

St Philip’s Centre for Study and Engagement in a Multi-Faith Society, Leicester

Contact: John McCallum at nn@stphilipscentre.co.uk

Phone: 0116 273 8813

St Philips Centre, 2A Stoughton Drive North, LEICESTER, LE5 5UB

 

Bradford Churches for Dialogue and Diversity,  Bradford

Contact: Carlo Schröder at near.neighbours@bcdd.org.uk

Phone: 01274 668312

BCDD, Thornbury Centre, Leeds Old Road, BRADFORD, BD3 8JX

 

The Contextual Theology Centre, London

Contact: Timothy Clapton at nearneighbours@theology-centre.org

Phone: 0207 780 1600

The Contextual Theology Centre, The Royal Foundation of St Katharine, 2, Butcher Row, LONDON, E14 8DS

 

Faithful Neighbourhoods Centre, Birmingham

Contact: Jessica Foster at jess@nearneighbours.com

Phone:  0121 675 1155

10 Court Road, Sparkhill, BIRMINGHAM, B11 4LX

 

The Fund is administered through Church Urban Fund.