Ballinger Charitable TrustDurham Community Action

Durham Community Action is a well-established charity that has been providing support to communities across County Durham since 1935.  Their work includes providing expertise and advice, supporting new initiatives, enabling good volunteering, and providing a voice.

Members of Durham Community Action were delighted to be approached by the Ballinger Charitable Trust to assist them to deliver a small grants programme across the county, with the aim to help groups ‘come out of COVID hibernation’ and flourish in their local communities.

The programme targeted small, grassroots groups based in Teesdale, Weardale and Derwent Valley Area Action Partnership areas and DCA invited groups to submit an expression of interest to tell us a bit about their group and outline their project ideas.

There was a good deal of interest in the fund and DCA shortlisted the expressions of interest received to twelve eligible groups who were invited to an informal ‘virtual’ meeting to chat through their ideas with two trustees from the Ballinger Charitable Trust.

The groups had the opportunity to talk about how they were supporting their communities and what difference the grant from the Trust would make. All groups that attended the discussion were awarded their requested amounts (in the region of £500 per applicant) and a total of £6,085 was awarded.

This programme has allowed DCA to further engage with grassroots, volunteer led community groups and has led to further conversation around governance and additional funding opportunities. We also offered support to those applicants who weren’t shortlisted to help identify alternative funding sources for their projects.

For more information please visit https://www.durhamcommunityaction.org.uk/