Website helps good causes find a handout
Around 150 groups in West Berkshire and North Hampshire are better off
NEARLY a quarter of a million pounds has been handed out in three months to local voluntary and community groups, thanks to a new website.
Around 150 groups in West Berkshire and North Hampshire have found themselves better off due to grants given out via the online grant application system www.findmeagrant.org
The funding web portal was launched in September by Greenham Common Trust which along with West Berkshire Council Small Grants, Vibrant Villages, Parish Planning grant and the Greater Greenham Partnership have all used Findmeagrant to allocate grants to local groups in need.
The scheme also incorporates a new Trust Top-up grant scheme for public donations. For every donation to an eligible application the Trust matches it, up to £5,000 per project.
Bucklebury Wolves Football Club has had two project applications fully funded by public donations, Trust Top-Up and Gift Aid.
The club needed funding to buy equipment and improve coaching for their teams.
Club Secretary and Coach Jonathan Poole said: “Within a few days we received our first donation from a complete stranger and since then we publicised the site to our parents on the basis of no pressure donations to assist the growth of our club. The response was frankly overwhelming.”
At Wash Common meanwhile, St George's Church is well over a fifth of the way to the latest £54,000 fundraising goal, part of its renewable energy scheme, after raising more than £11,000 through public donations, Trust Top-Up and Gift Aid.
The Newbury Community Resource Centre Ltd, which runs a range of projects for the local community, including the Growing 2gether Project at Cottismore, a community food growing project operated in partnership with West Berkshire Mencap, received a Trust grant of £7,403.
The Trust also awarded £7,000 to Berkshire, Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire Wildlife Trust (BBOWT) towards staffing costs of the ‘West Berkshire Living Landscape' project to manage, monitor and restore wildlife habitats in nine hectares of heathland, woodland and reed beds at Greenham and Crookham Commons.
The Trust also provides smaller reactive grants to help people in the community who are less well off.
Winchcombe School received £1,226 to help children who otherwise would not be able to afford to attend the Year Six residential outdoor activity trip to the Pioneer Centre in Staffordshire next summer. To register and apply for funding through findmeagrant visit www.findmeagrant.org or call (01635) 817444 for more information.
