Community Land Scotland has received £48,000 in funding from The National Lottery Community Fund to build on and amplify the creativity and compassion seen in communities and across civil society during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The new project ‘Owning our Future’ will support six communities to take an in-depth look at why the community ownership model was so important to their response to the Covid-19 pandemic and to work with facilitators to explore a route out of the crisis, to look at how things are changing due to the pandemic, what is needed in this transition, and what is possible in the future.
The community owned businesses are Galson Estate on Lewis, Kinning Park Complex in Glasgow, South West Mull and Iona Development, Coigach Development Company, Peebles Community Trust and Viewpark Conservation Group outside Glasgow.
The funding will enable these community owned projects to work with Community Land Scotland and listen and share different experiences, narrate and tell their stories and to imagine, together, what is possible in the future. The partnership will use ‘enquiries’ to invite new thinking and imagination, and support a place to experiment with community and people-led ideas.
Linsay Chalmers, development manager with Community Land Scotland said “we are delighted to be awarded funding from The National Lottery Communities Fund. Over the past six months, we’ve seen how effective the community land model is during a crisis. Through this project, we will be able to dig a little deeper into the reasons behind that and explore any learning for wider society.”
Community Land Scotland is one of 51 organisations across the UK to receive a grant of up to £50,000 through the Emerging Futures Fund. The funding, from the largest funder of community activity in the UK, will help harness the creativity of civil society and amplify the voices of communities through stories, narratives and public imagination projects.
Cassie Robinson, Senior Head of UK Funding at The National Lottery Community Fund, said: “The COVID-19 pandemic has presented new challenges to communities across the UK and The National Lottery Community Fund has focused on getting much-needed emergency support out to communities and the sector. But it has also demonstrated the very best of civil society, which has met this huge challenge with creativity, commitment and a desire for change. We are now seeing new ways of doing things that we might not have thought of before.
“Thanks to National Lottery players, these new grants will support communities to consider how they can face the immediate impact of COVID-19 but also look to the future. The activity conducted by these community groups and organisations will generate learning and insights, and create space and capacity in communities so that they are able to anticipate, imagine and shape the future.”
The Emerging Futures Fund is a key part of The National Lottery Community Fund’s commitment to enabling civil society to be fit for the future – supporting organisations and the voluntary sector to create opportunities to help local communities thrive.
Thanks to National Lottery players, up to £600 million has been made available to support communities throughout the UK during the Coronavirus crisis. The National Lottery is playing a critical role in supporting people, projects and communities during these challenging times. By playing The National Lottery, you are making an amazing contribution to the nationwide-response to combatting the impact of Covid-19 on local communities across the UK.
To find out more visit www.TNLCommunityFund.org.uk