Lottery Grant for Knowsley CVS

BASIS for future success with KCVS

Knowsley CVS has been awarded nearly £500,000 over three years by the Big Lottery Fund to enable it to provide a comprehensive package of support services to the voluntary, community and faith sector in Knowsley. KCVS will be working closely with Knowsley Council and the Greater Merseyside ChangeUp Consortium to deliver the project.

The award, under Round 2 of the Big Lottery BASIS Programme, will fund resources for Knowsley CVS to work with voluntary, community and faith groups in the borough to identify their needs and then provide them with comprehensive support to improve their management and governance arrangements, seek funding, support volunteers and generally build their capacity to deliver services.

The Big Lottery Fund’s BASIS (Building and Sustaining Infrastructure Services) Programme is designed to fund projects such as this by Knowsley CVS to assist groups to become more sustainable in the long-term by helping them to develop the skills needed to successfully run an organisation or project.

Also, with national and local government increasingly turning to the voluntary sector to deliver frontline services, it is important that voluntary and community organisations are in a position to successfully bid for contracts through tendering and commissioning procedures. Part of this new project will be directed towards intensive working with a number of local groups to prepare them for the process of commissioning and submitting tenders for contracted services.

Chair of Knowsley CVS, Chris O’Hare said, “This is a very exciting time for KCVS and the Big Lottery funding will enable us to offer local voluntary and community groups a comprehensive support package, which will be of benefit to them and to the Borough as a whole. We appreciate the support we have received from Knowsley MBC and ChangeUp Merseyside in developing this project and look forward to working closely with them in delivering the support services to local voluntary and community organisations.”

Linda Richings, Chief Executive of Knowsley CVS said; “ The Big Lottery Funding is extremely important to KCVS and will enable us to significantly expand our support services for the voluntary, community and faith sector in Knowsley and strengthen the role of the sector within the Knowsley Partnership. One of the exciting elements of this project is the development of an accredited Volunteer Centre for Knowsley to provide support and advice for local people who are currently volunteers or anyone who might be interested in volunteering. The new Centre will also work closely with organisations who wish to engage volunteers to ensure that all opportunities are publicised as widely as possible. The Knowsley Volunteer Centre will provide an important route for local residents to develop new skills and work experience and we anticipate that this could become increasingly important within the current economic climate”

It is anticipated that once new staff have been recruited the project will be launched in the late spring. Further details will be available on the Knowsley CVS web site – www.knowsleycvs.org.uk - and in KCVS Voluntary News.