Funding Available 23/24: Community Engagement Support

We are asking for expressions of interest for community engagement support. Groups applying should be exploring owning land or buildings. They will be getting ready to explain their plans to their wider communities in 2023.

This support will provide additional resources to you as you engage with communities. We are offering bursaries for materials, support creating a logo or graphic design work and community surveys and business plan outlines.

These will be provided by experienced community engagement consultants, who have great expertise in engagement for community land projects.

What is Community Engagement Support?

Community ownership at the earliest stages is often driven by passionate people. They have a dream of working towards community ownership. Maybe they want to protect and improve nearby green space. Maybe they are fed up with a vacant site nearby and want to build housing. They may even want to save the last pub in their area! In our experience, the vision and ambition of community owners have no bounds.

Good community engagement at the start leads to stronger projects. The vision and plan for the land or building need to be truly community owned. For this, all of the community need to be involved in the conversation.

A challenge that has been identified many times by communities and funders is lack of experience and capacity to carry out community engagement. To help, we are providing resources for community engagement.

We will meet with successful groups to learn more about your project, and bring in community engagement experts to make your community campaign even better. The type of skills we can provide are explained below, and include experts who have worked with many other community groups on land and building projects.

The support we offer:

For materials and supplies for a community engagement campaign or events. This will be paid as expenses on the production of receipts. Advanced funding may be available, in discussion with the Community Ownership Hub team.

Creative work can capture the imagination about community ownership. It sparks interest, raising the profile of projects, and explaining community ownership. This could be an new brand for your groups, a digital project, or designing flyers. We have an amazing graphic designer, experienced in community work. We pay them directly to be involved in your project.

Need help putting together a survey or accessing the correct software? Our consultants will be able to support you through this process. They can also help you to analyse your results!

Not quite sure where to go? Get support creating on an outline business plan. This can link into group plans and support funder’s requirements.

We want to support groups with their needs! If you think you need another type of community engagement support that we have missed, let us know.

Guidance

This support is open to community groups who want to own land within the Glasgow and the Clyde Valley. This is the local authority areas of Glasgow, Inverclyde, North Lanarkshire, South Lanarkshire, Renfrewshire and East Renfrewshire, East Dunbartonshire and West Dunbartonshire.

Key considerations in allocating support will be:

Supporting groups where no other support exists. We refer to existing support where it exists, and prioritise issues where there is no other help.
The geographic spread of groups throughout the hub area.
Cost of support, in order to maximise benefits across of communities.
The ability to address inequalities and deliver inclusive development.
Community Land Scotland supports communities of place. We will prioritise engagement support for community ownership groups who are, or are exploring becoming, a community of place, or what is called “communities of geography” in the community ownership processes.

Other considerations in allocating support:

You do not need to be a member of Community Land Scotland to get support from us.
Numbers of groups supported will depend on the level of interest and type of support requested.
Decisions on which groups to support will be made by Community Land Scotland.
Financial support will be given to groups to pay for community engagement support, based on the agreed scope of works between the community group and consultants which Community Land Scotland has appointed. Community Land Scotland will pay the appointed engagement support team directly.
In the case of a bursary, the community will be required to provide receipts and will be reimbursed, unless otherwise agreed with Community Land Scotland.
Exact amounts of support for groups will depend on the scope of works requested, and the range of groups to be supported according to the criteria above.

This expression of interest has a rolling deadline, applications are considered as long as funding is available.

Please allow 2 weeks for us to get in touch with you from the date of your submission. All applicants will be contacted to discuss their project.

Submit your expression of interest

Please complete and submit the form below.

Tell us about your organisation, your ideas for community ownership and how you think that we can support you.

We ask for two key contacts to make sure we are able to get in touch with the group. If you can only provide one contact, let us know why under ‘Key Contact 2’.

We will be in touch to meet with you and discuss your project after the application deadline. We will contact all applicants in relation to their application. We will also confirm receipt of your submission, if you have not received this, please get in touch. You can email our development officer heather.yearwood@communitylandscotland.org.uk.