Call for evidence on the funding of voluntary sector organisations

Voluntary Action Cardiff

Voluntary Action Cardiff (VAC) is the County Voluntary Council (CVC) for Cardiff and as such the umbrella organisation for the voluntary and community sector in the city.

Voluntary Action Cardiff's mission is to promote social justice by supporting the development of a vibrant and flourishing voluntary and community sector in Cardiff.

VAC aims:

To promote social justice through community action that challenges powerlessness, prejudice, discrimination and deprivation.
To support the development of a more effective and efficient voluntary and community sector in Cardiff through the delivery of a range of support and capacity building services including information, advice, and training.
To support the development of a more influential and cohesive voluntary and community sector in Cardiff by facilitating networking and partnership within the sector; and between it and the public and private sectors.

Response to the Inquiry

This response relates primarily to question 1 about the ease or difficulty of obtaining funding from the Welsh Assembly Government and in particular funding for small organisations.

VAC welcomes the recent introduction of the Grassroots Fund pilot since it is an acknowledgement that small local groups can achieve relatively impressive results with small amounts of funding and very often are the best way of reaching marginalised communities. The Fund has been given to CVCs for distribution on the premise that many CVCs such as VAC already manage delegated funds awarded under the Wales Assembly Government Community Facilities and Activities Programme (CFAP). It also makes good sense to work through CVCs in this way since they already have good links with marginalised groups. This Fund then helps to encourage and support the development of CVCs’ relationships with these groups.

CVCs are permitted to apply for up to £10,000 in order to administer grant schemes set up under CFAP. VAC’s experience of running delegated funds has given it a good understanding of the amount and level of support required in order to run schemes of this kind fairly and effectively. In effect, VAC will have to subsidise the cost of running its CFAP funded grant scheme in years 2 and 3 of the programme for an amount of circa £3,000 per annum. In year 1 of this grant scheme (2007-2008), VAC is already subsidising the full amount of the cost of running the scheme. The reason for this is that the Wales Assembly Government had no remaining revenue funding available for 2007-2008.

VAC would like:

CFAP to be able to award revenue as well as capital funding.
The Wales Assembly Government to pay CVCs the full cost of running delegated grant schemes.
WAG to pay CVCs for any additional costs associated with running the Grassroots Fund, which there inevitably are.
WAG to continue the Grassroots Fund at the end of the pilot and to establish it as an ongoing and reliable source of funding for marginalised communities.