ESF Community Grants Programme – UK

Deadline: 07-Nov-21

County Durham Community Foundation (the Foundation) is now seeking bids from third sector organisations to provide community projects that support a range of activities to help disadvantaged or excluded people in County Durham move closer to the labour market through increasing their skills.

The project is funded through the Education & Skills Funding Agency (ESFA) & ESF (European Social Fund) financing organisation.

Funding should target the hardest to reach communities and individuals and delivery must take place within County Durham. The focus of the Fund is to support those from deprived communities to move closer to the labour market in the North East Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP) area by improving their access to mainstream employment and providing skills training.

Aims

The funding aims to:

Support participants into employment, search for jobs, engage in education, train or gain a qualification
Engage with participants who are more distant from the labour market and who may face multiple disadvantages and complex barriers to work, or moving towards employment

Projects can include:

Engagement activities, for example running training courses in places participants feel more comfortable visiting.
Improving confidence, motivation or social integration and can include sport, gardening, music, art and other creative activities.
Developing local networks and groups to support people to get a job or access learning e.g. job clubs or ‘Learning Champion’ type activity
Softer skills development e.g. assertiveness, anger management and motivation.
Innovative approaches to attract under-represented participants groups into learning

Funding Information

Grants of up to £10,000 are available for first time applicants to this programme.
Grants of up to £20,000 are available for groups who have successfully completed an previous ESF Community Grant funded project.

Eligible projects

Projects can include: