A new £225m Solidarity Fund has been introduced by the National Lottery Community Fund as the organisation looks to create a “fairer, stronger and more resilient future” in England.
The initiative will support groups that are already working to make a lasting change to the root causes of inequality and help people who’ve lived through these issues work together to influence change.
Looking to build on community organisations’ existing experience of combatting inequality, the Solidarity Fund expects that around 10 groups are to receive funding in its first year.
The first step over the next few weeks is to begin seeking partners to work together on tackling health inequalities driven by structural racism.
Long-term solutions
Ali Torabi, Head of Funding Development at The National Lottery Community Fund, emphasised work that looks beyond short-term fixes, focusing instead on long-term solutions and stronger networks of community-led action.
Therefore, the fund will commit £25m to the first year of the programme, followed by £50m each year up until 2030 comes around. Meanwhile, grants will be ranging from £1m to £5m each – to be spent over the course of five to 10 years.
“We have consulted far and wide to design a Solidarity Fund that reflects the priorities of the communities we serve,” Torabi said. “We’ve heard that long-term, core funding can be a game changer for organisations that are already working hard to tackle inequality.”
“Poverty, discrimination and exclusion are all connected, and the Solidarity Fund will bring together the people and organisations who can make a lasting social impact rooted in lived experience.”
Powerful impacts across the UK
It was just last year that The National Lottery Community Fund awarded £686.3m of funding to communities across the UK. Meanwhile, in 2023, the group launched the #iwill Fund and #iwill Movement, two London-based youth social action initiatives.
Supported by a £66m cash injection from the Community Fund and the DCMS, the #iwill Fund aimed to provide young people with ‘quality social action opportunities’.
On its site, the organisation detailed that all projects must: Benefit communities across the country, scale up their impact by expanding their work, support people experiencing poverty, disadvantage and discrimination and help make significant changes to services or systems that affect people’s everyday lives.
It must also help one of the following; Relationships between people with different life experiences, people and communities who find it difficult to meet face-to-face to make meaningful connections online, those from all backgrounds to influence the future of their communities, children and young people facing specific challenges change the systems that affect them or organisations to involve and listen to children and young people.