Access to Resilience

Access to resilience will fund support organisations that provide capacity building support to small VCSE (voluntary, community and social enterprise) groups in Northern Ireland.

This programme is supported with money from Dormant Assets NI. Dormant Assets NI is an expansion of the Dormant Accounts Fund NI.

All applications have been assessed. Information on all the awards made can be found on the list of Access to resilience grants (PDF, 150 KB).

This programme aims to address the gaps in our Dormant Assets investment to date. We want to fund support organisations – sometimes known as network, umbrella, membership or community anchor organisations. We want these organisations to improve access to the help they provide to small, underrepresented VCSE groups in Northern Ireland.

Support organisations will reduce barriers and increase access to the support they offer for small VCSE groups, with an annual income of around £10,000 up to £100,000.

By underrepresented VCSE groups, we mean groups that focus on representing the needs of:

• older people
• disabled people
• women
• ethnically minoritised people
• faith-based communities
• LGBTQ+ people
• rural communities

These groups are the focus of this funding because they can face barriers to the existing capacity building support that is available to the sector.

This can be due to difficulties accessing support in a way that meets the needs of those communities and also because additional support may be needed to address historic inequality and discrimination.

These groups were also underrepresented in the Dormant Assets funding that we have awarded to date.

Specifically, we want to fund support organisations so that they can help these groups to improve their capacity and resilience through:

• financial planning and budgeting
• project management
• good governance
• diversity and inclusion
• digital skills
• impact measurement
• strategic planning
• volunteer management
• collaboration
• leadership
• succession planning

We want the projects we fund to address existing barriers to capacity building and achieve meaningful and inclusive participation.

If you are a generalist support organisation that already helps a diverse range of VCSE groups, this funding will enable you to improve access to your support for underrepresented VCSE groups who are not currently benefiting from that support.

Or

If you are a specialist support organisation that already specialises in helping a sector of underrepresented VCSE groups e.g. women’s groups, rural groups, older people's groups etc. this funding will enable you to meet the needs of these groups.