A small pot of money can generate change within neighbourhoods. With the right environment and support to provide guidance, mediation, and oversight, these changes can have a significant impact.
GMCVO-led project Ambition for Ageing has published a suite of documents looking at the conditions needed to get microfunding right. The documents draw on our 5 years of delivering microfunding to highlight areas of success, note challenges and share learning for those who may want to implement similar practices.
Changing a place: Microfunding, co-production and community development
Ambition for Ageing provide microfunding in the form of small investments to individuals or groups who successfully propose a project or idea that aims to improve the lives of older people in one of twenty-four areas across Greater Manchester. Decisions on which proposals get funded are made by volunteers who sit on decision-making structures within each local area.
Key findings from the full report include:
-
The flexibility of micro funding allows for a wider variety and diversity of people and groups to apply and gain funding.
-
With the right environment and support to provide guidance, mediation, and oversight, the changes offered by a small pot of money can have a significant impact.
-
To deliver a micro funded programme, the right conditions of social networks, social infrastructure and relationships must pre-exist in a place.
-
The recruitment and retention of older volunteers is a challenge faced by many social programmes and micro funding models are not immune to this. However offering a flexibility of involvement routes and opportunities can help overcome this.
-
The variety of ways to engage offered by micro funding models means that many of the barriers to participation for those from marginalised groups or those who are more social isolated can be overcome.
Supportive Funding: Technical guidance on delivering a wraparound microfunding model
Our practical guidance provides you with a number of tried and tested models used to deliver supportive, wraparound microfunding for you to use as a resource when designing and delivering your own microfunding models.
This document showcases eight different approaches carried out by our local leads to help you start thinking about your own model. Each page features:
-
A complete diagram of each approach
-
Core staff and support needed for each model
-
An outline of each model’s structure
-
More information about each model
Printed copies of the documents are available to order, free of charge, from Ambition for Ageing. Please contact us to put in an order.
-
For policy makers, practitioners, researchers and other professionals. 40 page A4 report. “Changing a place: Microfunding, co-production and community development”.
-
For practitioners and funders. 28 page A4 Technical Guidance. “Supportive Funding: Technical guidance on delivering a wraparound microfunding model”.
-
For practitioners, policy makers, funders and other professionals. 4 page A4 Briefing. “How to implement a wraparound microfunding approach”.
Download the documents below.
