The Big Lottery Fund is offering rural communities across the UK a share of £5m to help them start up their own enterprises.
Over the last few weeks Village SOS – a prime-time BBC TV series – followed the journey of six UK villages as they each used a Big Lottery Fund grant to start up a community enterprise to help them answer a local need and breathe new life into their area.
And now, the Big Lottery Fund is offering rural communities across the UK a share of £5m to help them start up their own enterprises, big or small, which could include community pubs and shops, broadband schemes, and local food or craft projects.
Funding of between £10,000 and £30,000 is on offer to groups and organisations in rural areas of less than 3,000 people to help them develop their enterprising ideas. Applying is as easy as one, two, three….
1) Register on the Village SOS website
2) Read our guidance document about what we can and cannot fund
3) and tell us about your enterprising idea using this in a short online form – entries must be received by 20 October 2011.
BIG have teamed up with rural enterprise experts The Plunkett Foundation to provide a range of support and advice to help you get a thriving community enterprise off the ground in your village. A wide range of support is available through a website (www.villagesos.org.uk)and telephone helpline (0845 343 9123). Whether you need technical help to find your way through the many regulations around forming an organisation, help with a business plan or marketing, or organising volunteers and staff, we are keen to help people turn their ideas into reality.
