Charities have received almost £40m in the latest round of Youth Investment Fund (YIF) grants.
Earlier this month, the government announced £69.8m in grants for 44 youth projects, which included £39.9m to charities, £5m to social enterprises and £24.9m to local authorities.
Some local authority-led bids to the fund, which awarded grants ranging from £350,000 to £8m, also had charities as delivery partners.
Charity grantees celebrate funding
Several Scout’s groups received grants, including the 105th Sheffield (High Green) Scout Group, which received a “transformational grant” of £1.82m, in order to make their building accessible and sustainable.
“It will be a net zero carbon building, we won’t be using gas, so we can stop burning fossil fuels. It will be better for the environment and cheaper to run,” the charity said.
Andrew Parle, lead volunteer of the 33rd Norwich Scout Group, which received £916,000, said: “We are excited and delighted to say we have secured a massive grant of nearly £1m to replace our dilapidated buildings with a brand-new facility”.
Parle said a dedicated group of volunteers has been “scrabbling about for small pots of money for five years” but now “we will have a fantastic new facility”.
He added: “It will give us the chance to double the number of young people who can join in Scouting and open the venue to more community groups. As currently we have waiting lists of at least a year and the current facilities are in such a terrible state for example in winter we have ice on the inside of the windows and are not accessible for wheelchair users.”
Clare de Bathe, Chichester Community Development Trust’s chief executive, said: “This is a huge moment for us and is a project that the whole team feel passionate about.
“Across our community buildings we have developed several youth-focussed activities through the years, but what has always been lacking is somewhere they can call their own.”
She added: “They will have the space they deserve, and somewhere they can be proud of. We are so immensely grateful to the DCMS for this transformative funding and look forward to demonstrating how impactful their investment will be.”
Andy Crump, deputy CEO of Inspire said: “This announcement will allow our charity to not only safeguard existing youth (sports) provision, but it will also create youth owned spaces to be proud of here at Lindbergh Road.”
Laurance Hancock, CEO of the Boathouse Youth, said: “Naturally we are delighted about the news that we’ve received funds from the Youth Investment Fund to help us double the size of our Grange Park Youth Centre in Blackpool’s largest council estate.”
Lord McNally, chair of the Fleetwood Trust, said the charity now has a “significant building block in place towards the creation, at the old Fleetwood Hospital, of a multi-service hub which will meet the needs and priorities of all the people of Fleetwood”.
Further funding to be announced this year
The YIF is worth £349m overall, around £172m of which has now been awarded, including £90m announced in March and £12m in May last year.
Charity OnSide Youth Zones was allocated five separate grants totalling £40.9m in March’s funding round.
More grants from the government’s fund delivered by Social Investment Business in partnership with Key Fund, National Youth Agency, and Resonance, are due to be awarded later this year.
All the projects that apply for funding undergo an assessment to shape their individual development plan, which aims to identify where they can improve their youth work offer, whether that’s enhancing their level of youth participation or embedding the national youth work curriculum in their activities.
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