Slough CVS, Windsor & Maidenhead Voluntary Action and Bracknell Forest Voluntary Action have made a successful bid to Big Lottery BASIS 2 funding for a new project supporting the VCS across Berks East from August 2009. The project is called the Berks East Funding Project and will receive funding of £349,849 over three years.

The project has two aims –

• To meet the key priority to improve the infrastructure support in the form of a more effective, structured Funding Support service for Voluntary/Community Sector (VCS) organisations in East Berkshire.

• To significantly increase the number of Statutory Sector Commissioning contracts successfully tendered for by frontline Voluntary & Community Sector organisations in three local authority areas Slough, Windsor & Maidenhead, Bracknell Forest.

The funding will support three new posts to achieve these aims.

• 2 part time Funding Advisors, Carole Allen in Bracknell Forest and Ray Emmans in Windsor and Maidenhead (also working across Slough)

• 1 part time Procurement Implementation Officer, Dr Dave furze based in Slough but working across all three unitaries.

The project will provide a comprehensive advisory service covering the full spectrum of funding opportunities available to VCS organisations across the Unitaries of East Berkshire, from one-to-one assistance in grant applications to help in their preparations for meeting the required standards in procurement processes. Two advisors will be providing advice on fundraising and grant applications, which will include one to one mentoring, Master Classes and an updated web portal from Open4Communities to help identify new funding. The third advisor will specialise in developing support for commissioning and procurement, including research, information gathering, procurement workshops and working towards matching VCS organisations with potential partners and commissioning prospects. Updates will also be provided to Commissioners in the Statutory sector to encourage closer ties with the 3rd Sector in the procurement process.

Slough CVS will be the lead agency for this project, working in close collaboration with partners in Bracknell Forest and Windsor & Maidenhead.

Organisations in Berkshire East seeking help and advice on funding matters should contact Carole Allen (Bracknell Forest) carole.Allen@bfva.org or Ray Emmans (Windsor, Maidenhead, Slough) wmvafunding@hotmail.com and on Procurement matters Dave Furze, dave@sloughcvs.org.uk.

Project funded by

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