New Approach to Funding
Published: 19 January 2018
West Sussex County Council is proposing to change its approach to grant funding to voluntary and community groups from 2018/19.
Current arrangements for County Council grant funding to voluntary and community organisations are complex and varied. There are three member funds: Members’ Big Society Fund, Community Initiative Fund, and Small Grants Fund, with no single point of entry, and each with different criteria, application forms, maximum award values and decision making processes. Challenges of complexity, risks of duplication, lack of consistency and reducing budgets have resulted in a new approach being proposed to be adopted.
We hope to streamline our current three grant pots, moving to one, which will reduce confusion about the funds we have available. We propose to move to an online crowdfunding model where we will pledge support to projects from our single funding pot, alongside others who may wish to contribute to the projects.
We will introduce the proposed new approach at drop-in sessions which will run from 6pm - 6.45pm before the next round of County Local Committee (CLC) and Joint Area Committee (JAC) meeting.
You are invited to come along to find out more about how crowdfunding works.
The dates and venues of those drop in sessions are:
| 08/02/18 | Adur | Lancing Parish Hall |
| 19/02/18 | North Horsham | County Hall North (Parkside), Horsham |
| 20/02/18 | Central and South Mid Sussex | Haywards Heath Library |
| 20/02/18 | South Chichester | County Hall, Chichester |
| 27/02/18 | Joint Western Arun | The Regis School, Bognor Regis |
| 27/02/18 | Worthing | Elm Grove Primary School, Worthing |
| 28/02/18 | Crawley | Crawley Library |
| 01/03/18 | North Mid Sussex | East Grinstead Library |
| 06/03/18 | North Chichester | Wisborough Green Village Hall |
| 06/03/18 | Joint Eastern Arun | The White Swan Hotel, A27 Chichester Road, Arundel |
| 07/03/18 | Chanctonbury | The Steyning Centre, Steyning |
Do not worry if you cannot attend the session. We will be running more detailed training and promotional activities from April 2018 to help people to understand and engage with the new approach. Please keep an eye on the funding pages on our website for further information.
The events will also be advertised with the agenda for the main CLC/JAC meetings, details of which will be added to the CLC pages of our website 5 days before the meeting. There is also likely to be a short update on this new approach to grant funding at the main CLC/JAC meeting which will start as usual at 7pm.
If you have any questions about the events please email talkwithus@westsussex.gov.uk or call 03302224525.