Big Lottery Fund awards the Association a major three-year grant

We are delighted to announce that we have been awarded a three-year restricted grant from the Big Lottery Fund of £463,000 to develop a programme specifically with Chairs and Vice Chairs of small charities in England.

The grant will enable us to work with more Chairs to build their skills, knowledge and confidence; reduce their sense of isolation and to help them be more effective.

It’s a big step forward for us. The grant for this programme, together with a three year restricted grant of £90k from Garfield Weston Foundation focused on medium-sized charities, will play a key part in enabling us to scale up, offer more tailored events and resources, to raise our profile and most importantly to reach more Chairs. We will be recruiting a full-time programme manager and we will be able to recruit our first full-time marketing manager.

As part of this programme we will

• Consult Chairs and Vice Chairs of small charities (under £1m) about the support they need

• Run a series of workshops throughout England

• Offer webinars and online surgeries and an online discussion forum

• Develop resources specifically for Chairs and Vice Chairs of small charities.

We aim to reach 6,000 Chairs and Vice Chairs with our online and face to face events.

We are hugely grateful to all our members, subscribers, funders, sponsors, partners and collaborators who have got us to where we are.  And to the Big Lottery Fund and all those who play the Lottery – we crossed our fingers, and our numbers came up.  These two grants together with plans we have in the pipeline mean we can offer events and resources of relevance to all Chairs regardless of the size of their organisation.