A fund worth more than £1m is open to application today for charities working to support and encourage youth social action.
The money is provided by a combination of the Pears Foundation, UK Community Foundations (UKCF) and the government, and the fund will eventually make £1.77m available.
This total has been split into two separate funds. A £1.26m fund is being made available nationally, while a further £510,000 will be made available to organisations in Norfolk, Suffolk and Cambridgeshire.
Applications for the large, national grants opened today and will close on August 28. Applications for the smaller, regional fund will open August 3 and are open ended.
There is no minimum and maximum size of grant available.
The grants stem from an April pledge by the government to grow volunteering in the UK, including amongst young people.
The government commissioned youth, social-action charity Step up to Serve to conduct a Youth Social Action Survey to quantify whether involving young people in volunteering early in life would encourage them to continue doing so later in life.
The survey found that some 65 per cent of the 3,628 students who participated “would be willing to volunteer in the future”, both within and outside their local communities.
Despite the encouraging findings, the survey found that children in lower, socio-economical groups and those in the East of England were less inclined to volunteer than in the rest of the UK.
Therefore, the government have set aside a separate, initial £255,000 fund which will be subsequently matched by UKCF organisations in Norfolk, Suffolk and Cambridgeshire over the next two years to bring the fund to £510,000 specifically for the region.
Minister for civil society, Rob Wilson (pictured), said: “As part of the government’s commitment to building a truly compassionate society, this additional £1 million will tackle the challenges facing disadvantaged young people and help embed social action in young people’s lives”.
Charlotte Hill, chief executive of Step up to Serve, said: “Participation in social action offers young people a wide range of tangible benefits and should be accessible to all.
“We are really pleased that this fund is responding directly to findings from our 2014 national survey by targeting those not currently taking part. It is also great to see funders joining forces to invest in embedding social action in the lives of young people across the UK”.
To apply for the fund click here.
