Brentford Community First Panel

New Grant Giving Body for Brentford Ward

Community First is an England-wide programme, funded by the Office for Civil Society, on behalf of the Government. It will run for four years, until March 2015. Two funds of money, worth £80m, have been created to help communities come together, become more resilient, and make their local area a better place to live

The programme will help communities come together to identify their strengths and local priorities in order to plan for their future and become more resilient. It will fund both new and existing community groups.

Community First consists of two elements (click on the links for full details):

Neighbourhood Matched Fund programme: A £30m fund to encourage people to give time and expertise to local projects. The funds will be distributed to 600 areas across England, which have been selected by the Community Development Foundation (CDF) according to several criteria. 

And a national £50m Endowment Match Challenge. The aim of this is to raise the funds to be able to continue making grants from 2015 once the Neighbourhood Matched Fund programme expires.

Community First Panels: Each of the 600 areas will have their own panel, comprised of local people to represent their community. They will be involved in creating a plan for the local area, raising awareness of the funds, and planning how they will match and spend the money.

Brentford has been selected as one of the 600 areas to receive Community First funding. This amounts to £16,955 over four years (£2,812, £4,245, £4,244 and £5,654 for each of the four years)

A Community First panel has been set up in Brentford, made up of local people. If you would like to join the panel please email brentford.middlesex @yourpathways.org.uk

Where the funding has gone and how much is still available.

Please read the Community First plan (pdf).

December 13, 2013