Two weeks left for organisations to apply for funding to help young people advocate to improve community spaces

Friday 6 September 2019

Applications for Co-op Foundation grants of up to £35,000 to help young people have a say in how community spaces are managed close on 20 September.

Funding has been made available through the Foundation’s #iwill Fund. The #iwill Fund supports the work of the #iwill campaign that aims to make social action a part of life for as many 10 to 20-year-olds as possible.

The #iwill Fund is a £40 million joint investment from the National Lottery Community Fund, using National Lottery funding, and the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) to support young people to access high quality social action opportunities. Co-op Foundation is acting as a match funder.

Grants form the first round of support available from a new £3m extension to the Co-op Foundation’s #iwill Fund, which will now run until 2022. 

A total of eight grants are expected to be made from this round.

Further rounds of funding will be launched throughout the year and will focus on peer support for young people going through bereavement, and support for those moving from primary to secondary school. Find out first when funding is made available by subscribing to the Co-op Foundation blog.

The Foundation has already awarded almost £2m in grants since it first partnered with the #iwill Fund in 2017.

Jim Cooke, Head of the Co-op Foundation, said:

“Our partnership with the #iwill Fund over the past two years has shown the positive impact young people can have when they are given opportunities to take action on the issues they care about. We’re delighted to have extended this fund so that more young people can be empowered to make a difference. 

“There are just two weeks left to apply for our latest #iwill funding. I’d encourage organisations to find out today if they’re eligible for support so they can help young people advocate to improve spaces that matter to them.”

Grants form part of Co-op’s Endangered Spaces campaign and continue the Co-op Foundation’s ongoing support for community spaces.

The Foundation previously secured £1 million of government funding through the Building Connections Fund Youth strand to help more than 7,500 young people co-design improvements to over 100 spaces. Learning from this fund was published on Monday 5 August by the Building Connections Fund evaluation partner, New Philanthropy Capital.