At Community Action we are currently undertaking a service review. We are doing this to ensure that we can continue to provide you with support and advice into the future.
As many of you will recognise, resources continue to reduce, and the work for our sector is ever-increasing. Community Action (CA) wants to be able to provide a responsive, quality service that meets your needs.
To undertake this review effectively, we have made the difficult decision to suspend the Group Support Service for a short period. This will allow our team the time to concentrate on redesigning the service and identifying additional resources. This work will commence on Friday 23 August 2024.
CA is still open and offering support through its online content offer, website, social media, Reach Out bulletins, training programmes, grants, commissioned projects and one-off events. The cost-of-living support line and volunteering brokerage service is also continuing.
If you are a group or organisation that is currently receiving direct support from CA, one of the team will contact you over the next couple of weeks to get an overview of what your priorities are and to identify any outstanding issues, as well as what support needs you have, so that we can feed these into our review process.
We really appreciate your support and patience in this and we will keep you up to date with any further news.
Whilst we are undertaking the review, you can find some helpful online information on the Group Support and Funding section of our website.
If you can't find what you need on our website, here are other organisations that may be able to help you:
If you are an established small charity or community group, NCVO is a national support organisation that has a really useful website and offers support via a helpline. Find out more at: www.ncvo.org.uk/about-us/our-services/support-small-charities-voluntary-organisations/ or you can contact NCVO via email at knowhow@ncvo.org.uk or call 020 7520 2552 on weekdays from 10am to 4pm.
If you are, or are looking to set up, a social enterprise or a CIC, you can contact Keith Jeffrey from Derby Social Ventures, funded by Derby City Council to provide free support. You can read more about the support Derby Social Ventures offers here. You can contact Keith at: keith@socventures.org
To search for potential funding opportunities, we have compiled a list of websites that will give you a guided search to identify the most appropriate funding opportunities on our Funding Advice page, or you can subscribe to our monthly funding bulletin.
We also have two new training sessions open for bookings. These would both be helpful for people looking for support with bid writing. Visit our Training page for further information.
