About
Introduction
The team put together by BRO and Severn Wye for this programme has many years experience in supporting and working with communities, businesses, local authorities, the third sector and Welsh Government, particularly on projects and initiatives relating to the natural environment. BRO helped The National Lottery Community Fund develop the Create your Space programme through extensive research and stakeholder consultation whilst Severn Wye has been integral to running and supporting major initiatives including the Cynefin programme and Ynni Fro.
Create Your Space
The National Lottery Community Fund in Wales wanted to develop a programme around transforming open spaces in an environmentally sustainable way that brings together community members across all sectors.
To inform and shape this programme they commissioned the BRO Partnership to undertake a scoping study with the working title Transforming Open Spaces. The study set out to gather robust evidence from relevant projects and programmes in Wales and worldwide, and capture the input of stakeholders and experts in order to develop and propose models for its delivery.
The National Lottery Community Fund in Wales used the results of this study to develop the Create your Space programme. Create your Space has £8.8 million available in total. Following an open application round receiving over 60 applications, 16 groups were awarded up to £20,000 of funding to further develop their projects (over 10 months) in stage two of the Create your Space programme. In this innovative programme, the fund also provided groups with support to develop their bids with a learning and support contract. This support would help groups effectively engage with their communities and help develop robust business plans for the 7-year programme.
The National Lottery Community Fund then made awards to 6 organisations across Wales. More information about the projects can be seen in the Projects section.
The National Lottery Community Fund
The National Lottery raises money for good causes. People use this funding to do extraordinary things, taking the lead to improve their lives and communities. Every time you buy a National Lottery ticket, you help make this happen.
Through Create Your Space, we wanted communities to decide how to conserve and / or improve their local natural environment in a way that made a real difference for them and met the needs of future generations.
Funding from Welsh Government
Evaluation
The National Lottery Community Fund also awarded an evaluation support contract to help groups develop their capacity and plans to evaluate their work. OB3 are delivering this for the life of the project.