Organisations working with our customers in our communities have received a million-pound cash boost thanks to the work of our community investment team.

Over the course of the past year our team has worked with community-run libraries, parish councils, community hubs and sports clubs to help them secure the much needed funding to cover staff costs, provide new facilities or run special events. Some of the recipients are organisations that we have had a long-standing relationship with, such as Priors Park Neighbourhood Project in Tewkesbury. Over the course of the year we’ve helped secure funding for many of the project’s activities, including its “food pantry”. While at Brockworth Link & Community Library, grants were secured to help pay for a new outside seating area for children to use and listen to the regular storytime sessions (pictured above).

Among the new groups to have received support during the year has been the Harvey Centre, located at the former Minsterworth primary school in Gloucestershire. The centre provides a hub for a range of educational and wellbeing activities for adults, children and young people. But as a relatively new organisation to our team, they were looking for support to help improve some of its facilities, support that our investment team were able to provide by helping them identify sources of funding to pay towards these improvements.

In addition to helping groups secure funding, we’ve also provided hundreds of hours of expert support, advice and guidance to organisations, helping to train new grants officers and supporting project managers with compliance, governance, finance and budgeting, and providing communications and marketing advice.