Last week, I had the considerable pleasure to join my Cabinet Member for Community Engagement and Culture Sue Mullins to see her award this year’s strategic grants.
Crawley Borough Council’s community grants programme funding provides a wide range of benefits to local charities, voluntary organisations and community groups. These grants support projects that promote community spirit, cohesion, and address specific needs such as poverty alleviation, health inequalities, and social isolation.
We are widely recognised in Crawley to have one of the most active and thriving voluntary sectors in the area – this isn’t by accident, it happens because we are a council prepared to put its money where its mouth is and recognises life doesn’t run on thin air.
The good it achieves is palpable. And as a council we are tremendously proud of it. It was tremendously moving to hear from the groups themselves what this funding allowed them to do within our community. Things that simply wouldn’t happen without it.
The Council has handed out major grants and funding totalling more than £400,000 over the past year, with £425,000 set to be awarded for the coming financial year. Crawley Open House, The FreeShop, Ten Little Toes Baby Bank and Age UK were among those awarded funding.
Our grants ensure vital projects can go ahead. Strategic or major grants of up to £50,000 and small grants up to £2,500 support local organisations. They foster community connections, promoting social cohesion and a sense of belonging. They enable our charities and community groups to develop new activities, build capacity, attract external funding and increase their impact.
Citizens Advice received contract funding to support residents in need of support from a community advice service provided by phone, email and in-person appointments and pop-up sessions in locations across the town, providing free and impartial information and advice on a wide range of issues including housing, debt, employment, benefits, and consumer rights for goods and services.
Examples of other funded projects, from the small grants scheme which distributes up to £50,000 each year for local community action, includes support for the Ifield May Fayre, the Tapestry Day Club for families affected by dementia, Diverse Crawley, the Apple Tree Centre, the Fairway Club for older people’s activities in Ifield West, A Band of Brothers and the Menshare Listening Group: a support group for men.
As long as I have anything to do with it, we will continue to support our grants awards for at least as long as the council exists. It is my hope, although not necessarily my expectation, that a new unitary will continue this support, if it goes ahead. The standards of other councils’ grant support for our third sector should be raised to ours, not ours lowered to theirs.
Cllr Michael Jones
Leader, Crawley Borough Council