Comic Relief has started a new funding initiative, with £1.5 million on offer to organisations that enable disadvantaged older people to design, deliver and take part in opportunities to contribute to their communities. This could be of interest to Irish in Britain members who work with or are thinking of working with older Irish people in the community.
Grants between £40,000 and £80,000 are available. You could scale and extend existing activities or maybe have a new idea. This has a short deadline date of August 29th and applicants won’t be notified until January next year. They will only be funding 15 to 25 projects nationally.
Older people make up a growing percentage of the UK’s population and the profile of this group is rapidly changing. The contribution of older people in volunteering roles in the UK is estimated at over £10 billion per year and there is good evidence that older people who are actively involved in their community have an enhanced sense of purpose, improved life satisfaction, happiness and overall wellbeing.
The fund is here to engage older people aged 65 and over from ‘harder to reach’ groups to get involved in opportunities which use their skills, knowledge and experience to contribute to their communities.
Comic Relief is looking for proposals which put older people at the centre of the work, designing and developing activities or opportunities which meet their needs, interests and priorities.
The primary outcomes of the work should focus on the benefits to the older people, though we will also be interested in capturing the wider benefits to the community. Applications will need to meet at least one of the following outcomes:
- Older people improve their mental health and wellbeing;
- Older people increase the quality and quantity of their social connections;
- Older people develop an enhanced sense of purpose and empowerment.
The organisers are keen to receive applications from organisations based in the community in which they are working. We will be open for proposals from 17 July 2017 to midday 29 August 2017. We aim to inform all applicants of the final decision in January 2018.
See the Comic Relief website for more information and to apply.
Thanks to Dave Oldroyd of Supporting Locally for keeping us and our members informed.