We challenge YOU to take on the #TNLComFundCycle.
The pandemic has encouraged many people to take up cycling, which not only boasts positive effects for people’s physical and mental health, but choosing a bike over a car is also great news for our environment. We developed our #TNLComFundCycle with this in mind. We want to encourage people to get on their bike – whilst raising awareness of the difference National Lottery funding has made in their communities.
To take part, our Cardiff route is below. We’d love for you to tell us all about your journey on social media with photo of you at one of your favourite landmarks or projects on the route alongside the hashtag #TNLComFundCycle.
For those who aren’t local to Cardiff, we’d still love you to get out on your bike – so why don’t you plan your own cycle route past your own favourite National Lottery funded projects in your community? If you’re looking for cycle route inspiration, you could follow one of the pre-existing UK cycle routes developed by National Lottery funded Sustrans.
However you choose to cycle, we want to hear all about it using #TNLComFundCycle.
Read more…Swansea Community Farm is a community farm based in Fforestfach, Swansea that is focused on supporting people in the community with voluntary opportunities as a means to improve people’s health, wellbeing and mental health. Earlier this year they received a National Lottery Community Fund Green Top-Up grant of £9,900 to, with support from Renew Wales and Sustainable Communities Wales, install solar panels on their roof to improve the energy efficiency of their building.
The Green Top-Up grants a pilot in Wales that is supporting existing National Lottery projects to make small changes to their projects to tackle climate change in their communities. The Green Top-Ups pilot is part of our environmental strategy to make positive change to tackling climate change in communities. Find out more on how to reduce your environmental footprint on our website.
We spoke to Kate Gibbs from Swansea Community Farm about their grant, and how what difference it’s making to their work.
Read more…Green grant gives rugby club community boost
Clwb Rygbi Bethesda Cyf is a rugby club in Bethesda, Gwynedd that are using their facilities as a centre for local businesses and social enterprises to operate out of to support people in their local community.
They received a National Lottery Community Fund Green Top-Up grant of £10,000. The Green Top-Up grants are part of our environmental strategy to make positive change to tackling climate change in communities. Find out more about our strategy on our website.
We spoke to William Sandison from Clwb Rygbi Bethesda about their grant, and what difference it’s making for their community.
Thinking of applying to the National Lottery Community Fund for a grant?
Information and guidance is available for each of our funding programmes on our website. Links to each are below.
- National Lottery Awards for All offers funding from £300 to £10,000 to support what matters to people and communities. www.tnlcommunityfund.org.uk/a4awales
- People and Places: Medium grants offers funding between £10,001 and £100,000 for community projects lasting up to five years. tnlcommunityfund.org.uk/peopleandplacesmedium
- People and Places: Large grants offers funding offers between £100,001 and £500,000 for community projects lasting up to five years. tnlcommunityfund.org.uk/peopleandplaceslarge
Want to talk to someone about your project idea or ask questions?
Our advice team are happy to help, they’re available Monday to Friday, 9:00am to 5:00pm by calling 029 2168 0214 or emailing wales@tnlcommunityfund.org.uk.
If you prefer to talk over video, we will do our best to accommodate that. However due to the high volume of applications we receive, we are unable to meet with every project. Below is a list of places you can find us over the next few weeks. Due to COVID-19 we are not currently offering face to face meetings. Read more…
How Empower– Be The Change are adapting to COVID-19
We are proud to see how the thousands of voluntary, community and social enterprise organisations funded by The National Lottery Community Fund are adapting their services to support their communities during the COVID-19 pandemic.
We recently spoke to Empower – Be The Change based in Wrexham. Working in partnership with local organisations they adapted their work to go online to continue supporting the needs of their community. We spoke to Jo Clay, Director at Empower Be The Change to find out more:
Getting online
“Empower – Be The Change is an award winning social enterprise delivering personal and professional development courses, with Institute of Leadership and Management accredited qualifications and mentoring. We empower people and teams to build positive mental resilience, fully realise their self-worth and achieve their potential!
Usually, we deliver our courses in classroom settings in community buildings across North Wales. People from a range of backgrounds come together and are encouraged in a safe environment to discover their skills, strengths and how they can use these to take positive actions to transform their lives.
Read more…How are The King’s Church adapting to COVID-19?
We understand that COVID-19 is impacting on many of the groups funded by The National Lottery Community Fund, but we are also very proud of how those we fund in the voluntary, community and social enterprise sectors are adapting their services to support their communities.
In this blog we’re talking to The King’s Church based in Newport. They work with community and social agencies to supply food and other essentials to deprived communities and provide practical support to families living in poverty and deprivation. We spoke to Faye Edwards Volunteer Coordinator for their Jesus Cares project to find out more:
Adapting the ways of working
“We were mindful at the start of lockdown in that we thought about how we can could get our provision to people that need it to support the most vulnerable people in our community. We decided that the right call was to join forces with Newport City Council knowing that they were taking a big lead in helping those that were vulnerable and isolated.
Read more…Thank you to these community groups who have had National Lottery money to help their communities
As part of our commitment to support communities across Wales through COVID-19 we wanted to highlight some of the organisations across the length and breadth of Wales that are making an incredible and important difference for people most affected by isolation.
This month we’ve awarded £4,599,919 of National Lottery money to 91 organisations that are supporting people and their communities through this difficult time. Some of the organisations include:
Single Parents Wellbeing, Cardiff
Single Parents Wellbeing provide a range of activities and mental health support for single parents in Cardiff and the Vale of Glamorgan. They’ve received £9,990 to provide online crafting sessions, help with home education, and social support networks for single parents and their children during COVID-19.
Read more…
Now more than ever, people are taking to social media to connect and offer services. For many of us, social media posts can be tricky to navigate and understand. Here we’ve compiled a guide to help you make your social media more accessible for a wide audience.
- Consider the ‘readability’ of your posts, make your content easy to understand for its intended users.
Avoid unnecessarily complex language, keep what you’re saying simple and easy to read. Here’s our favourite readability checker.
- When writing a post, use short sentences broken up with punctuation and paragraph breaks.
Long sentences with little punctuation will make your post difficult to read and it won’t allow screen readers to pause, which can make your post hard to understand.
- Capitalise the first letter of every word in a hashtag #LikeThis so that people can read each word individually. Don’t use more hashtags than necessary.
If you don’t capitalise the first letter of each word in a hashtag – it will make it difficult for people and screen readers to read it. Using too many hashtags can make your post heavy and complicated.
How are With Music In Mind adapting to COVID-19?
We understand that COVID-19 is impacting on many of the groups funded by The National Lottery Community Fund, but we are also very proud of how those we fund in the voluntary, community and social enterprise sectors are adapting their services to support their communities.
In this blog we’re talking to With Music In Mind based in the Vale of Glamorgan. They tackle loneliness in their community by providing singing and social opportunities for people aged 50+, including those living with dementia and their families. They’ve been moving as much of their work online as possible whilst supporting less-confident members to access social media and online technology. We spoke to Kate Whitestone, Director at With Music In Mind to find out more: Read more…
How Ponthafren Association are adapting to COVID-19
We understand that COVID-19 is impacting on many of the groups funded by The National Lottery Community Fund, but we are also very proud of how those we fund in the voluntary, community and social enterprise sectors are adapting their services to support their communities.
For Mental Health Awareness week, we’re talking to Ponthafren Association based in Newtown, Powys. They provide a range of mental health support for people in the local area including counselling and mentoring. They took steps early to minimise disruption to their services, and have since adapted their services online to meet the needs of their community. We spoke to Claire Cartwright, Director at Ponthafren to find out more: Read more…
