About Us

Through the pandemic Blackpool Council and the Blackpool VCFSE sector have seen the critical value of thriving communities. People helped and supported others around them. Local government and health services developed stronger relationships with their local community, often facilitated by the VCFSE sector. Towns and cities with a thriving VCFSE sector supported by infrastructure organisations were able to put forward a better coordinated, stronger response.

In the current economic climate, small locally based VCFSE organisations need support more than ever and it has been determined that there is a need to increase the capacity of the local VCFSE sector in Blackpool to deliver support to the wider community.

With this in mind, Blackpool Council, through the Shared Prosperity Fund, has provided financial resources to help build capacity & resilience to the Blackpool VCFSE sector to:

• attract funding
• operate good governance
• recruit, train and manage volunteers
• influence public service commissioning
• network across the VCFSE and with relevant statutory bodies and other potential collaborators
• simply know what’s going on and disseminate knowledge at a local level.

• Deliver a small grants programme to build capacity of the sector (£85,000 of grants maximum);
• Work with other funders and strategic partners to promote grants and encourage investment in the VCFSE sector in Blackpool;
• Support activity to aid VCFSE organisations to submit funding applications;
• Supporting the development of new groups through governance advice and training;
• Develop volunteering activity, increasing volunteer numbers and good practice in volunteer management, leading and generating an expectation and culture in which volunteering can thrive;
• Support the development of community action networks to increase community engagement, strengthening spaces and opportunities for people to come together to develop their goals and drive aspirations for their communities;
• Provide networking, learning and peer support opportunities to develop the sector;
• Provide regular updates/briefings to the Blackpool VCFSE sector regarding local, regional and national strategies, events and opportunities;
• Bring together networks and connect local voluntary and community organisations with each other and with strategic and systems partners, to create, pursue and implement opportunities for joint working.