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News Community Impact Grants: over £2.6m to inspiring projects

Community Impact Grants: over £2.6m to inspiring projects

Here’s a first look at a few of the organisations to receive our new Community Impact Grants. We launched the programme back in January 2023, and so far, we’ve supported over 100 Christian organisations with funding.

Our Community Impact Grants programme goes to the very heart of our mission, to fund work that equips and empowers Christian Organisations to have a positive and transformative impact on lives and communities. It forms the foundation of our new grants framework which helps us to place a greater emphasis on the social impact we want to help facilitate. 

Here’s a selection of the projects we’ve funded so far:

Be Me Project, Cumbria

A multi-year grant of £42,200 will help to develop this national programme of support for young girls who may be suffering with mental health, anxiety, low self-esteem, and lack of confidence. 

The project runs courses in schools to help young girls, who have been identified as needing support, to build confidence, resilience, and the skills to live a happy, healthy lifestyle. It began in Cumbria with one member of staff and just two volunteers, but it has been so successful that more and more schools and church youth groups are asking to participate.

The Community Impact Grant will help to employ more staff and grow resources, so that they can expand their services and meet the needs of an additional 550 girls across Cumbria.

East Belfast Mission, Belfast

East Belfast Mission serves an area that is blighted by poverty, low employment, and is still affected by the troubles. Many of the families the charity supports are living below the poverty threshold, struggling to feed their families. 

A multi-year Community Impact Grant of £34,000 will enable East Belfast Mission to develop a community fridge (foodbank). This fridge will be a way to share food within the community, with the aim of reducing food insecurity, and giving people access to fresh food without the need for referrals and the fear of judgement. 

The fridge will have its own bespoke space, which will also act as a mental health hub to offer wrap-around support for individuals engaging with the service.

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Christ Church, Essex

£46,800 funding from our Community Impact Grants programme will enable Christ Church to extend and remodel its 1970s building, to enhance its accessibility and make it a multi-purpose space for the church and local community.

The new and improved building will have a new kitchen, accessible toilets and entrances, a new resources room and will be remodelled and refurbished in general.

The space will meet the needs of local people, who are still suffering from loneliness and isolation as a result of the pandemic, by providing community outreach work for young people, older people, and disabled people.

Crosscare, Dublin

Crosscare’s ‘Information and Advocacy Programme’ was developed to support migrants and has evolved over the years to help the Roma community, who are the largest group in need of Crosscare’s services. There are 5,000 Roma people in Ireland, with almost half living in severely overcrowded housing, often without gas, electricity, running water and sufficient food.

Roma people often report feeling discriminated against and lacking in trust when seeking help. Crises such as Covid, Ukraine and the Cost of Living have only increased their isolation and marginalisation, and their health and living conditions have deteriorated further.

A £53,966 multi-year Community Impact Grant will enable Crosscare to employ a Roma-Romanian speaking caseworker to provide direct support and information to the Roma community, and connect them with the services they desperately need.

Find out more about Benefact Trust’s Community Impact Grants.

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