The County Durham Community Foundation (the Foundation) is now seeking bids from third sector organisations for its European Social Fund (ESF) Community Grants Programme to provide community projects that support a range of activities to help disadvantaged or excluded people in County Durham move closer to the labour market through increasing their skills.

The project is funded through the Education & Skills Funding Agency (ESFA) & ESF (European Social Fund) financing organisation.

Funding should target the hardest to reach communities and individuals and delivery must take place within County Durham. The focus of the Fund is to support those from deprived communities to move closer to the labour market in the North East Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP) area by improving their access to mainstream employment and providing skills training.

Funding Aims

• Support participants into employment, search for jobs, engage in education, train or gain a qualification
• Engage with participants who are more distant from the labour market and who may face multiple disadvantages and complex barriers to work, or moving towards employment

Funding Information

• Funding of up to £10,000 is available.

Eligible Projects

Projects can include:

• Engagement activities, for example running training courses in places participants feel more comfortable visiting.
• Improving confidence, motivation or social integration and can include sport, gardening, music, art and other creative activities.
• Developing local networks and groups to support people to get a job or access learning e.g. job clubs or ‘Learning Champion’ type activity
• Softer skills development e.g. assertiveness, anger management and motivation.
• Innovative approaches to attract under-represented participants groups into learning

Eligibility Criteria

• Funding is available to organisations to engage with participants’ aged16+, who are unemployed and eligible to work in the UK.
• The programme is available only to those who are eligible to work in the UK and as such, projects with asylum seekers are not likely to be supported by ESF.
• Applicant’s project must take place in County Durham, and should be flexible to meet the needs of participants in line with the North East LEP strategic economic plan.
• Staff members who are working in direct contact with vulnerable adults must have enhanced Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) disclosures where appropriate. Please note that these may take four weeks or more to obtain.
• If successful, project must agree to deliver specific targets and outcomes, which will be detailed in your Terms of Agreement (ToA). There are key performances indicators (KPI), that you will be required to meet in the delivery of your project, including the number of participants you will engage with. Within your application you must specify that you will be working with one or more of the following target groups:
  • Participants over 50 years of age
  • Participants with disabilities
  • Participants from ethnic minorities
  • Participants who are women

For more information, visit The Foundation.