The Big Lottery Fund unveils its new strategic framework “People in the lead” which will guide its decisions as a funder over the next six years.
“People in the lead” will be the central driver of grant making, putting the focus on people’s strengths and trusting them to make great things happen.
The Fund will continue to offer a blend of open and strategic funding, delivered through the lens of people in the lead. The Fund is starting to pilot new approaches to how funding is accessed, supporting people to build their communities using their skills, assets, energy and ideas.
The publication of the Big Lottery Fund’s strategic framework follows thorough consideration of the results of a wide-ranging conversation – Your Voice Our Vision – which convened 39 roundtables engaging over 500 stakeholders, and saw an online conversation attract over 1,500 users with nearly 1,000 ideas submitted.
Dawn Austwick, Chief Executive of the Big Lottery Fund, said:
We want ‘People in the lead’ to be at the heart of our thinking and decision making, from our responsive grant-making like Awards for All through to our strategic programmes and UK portfolio.
The Framework outlines our role as a catalyst for others: acting on and facilitating the things that matter to people; convening those who can make a difference and actively sharing ideas, knowledge and practice.”
Simpler and more accessible processes will enable us to make good judgements and bold and informed choices about the resources that have been given to us by lottery players.”
We want to build on the momentum and dialogue created by Your Voice Our Vision to work with others as we embark on this journey.”
The Fund has already started taking its first steps towards implementing the vision in its new plan through:
- A new pilot programme, Accelerating Ideas which aims to provide a flexible route to funding for innovative practice that can be adopted and adapted more widely to grow its impact.
- New Awards for All test and learn pilots are underway to simplify our open small grants programme.
- A new community website function is being piloted that will enable people and organisations to network, collaborate and communicate.
Over the next six years the Big Lottery Fund will distribute £4 billion from 2015-2021 to potentially 72,000 projects across the UK.
Further information can be found on the website: www.biglotteryfund.org.uk/global-content/programmes/northern-ireland/people-and-communities
