South Holland District Council has a dedicated Community Development Team whose role is to provide funding advice to maximise external funding into the District to sustain, support and develop community initiatives and partnerships with a focus on community cohesion, the voluntary and community sector and grant aid programmes.
They work closely with voluntary and community groups across the District on activities and projects that meet a locally identified need. There is a wide range of free support available not just from South Holland District Council but also partner organisations ranging from assistance with finding funding, completing grant application forms to ensuring local groups have in place the appropriate policies and procedures.
Please contact the Community Development Officer on 01775 764868 if your community or voluntary group would like some support or assistance.
Zurich Insurance have just produced a community toolkit that is a free online resource for people who want to get involved with organising, smaller more straight forward community activities. For more details visit
http://www.mycommunitystarter.co.uk/IBM Marketing and Communications are launching a marketing bureau providing free advice to charities and local voluntary organisations. For more information visit
http://www-05.ibm.com/uk/marketingmatters/
Lincolnshire County Council has produced two publications which will help local community groups. Firstly, the Really Useful Stuff Handbook . A handbook of useful information for those people wanting to get involved in setting up a group in their community. Secondly, the Grant Funding Handbook designed to help groups wishing to secure grant funding. Whether you are a first-time applicant or someone hoping to improve on the quality of your past applications, this guide is for YOU!
The Institute of Fundraising is the professional and membership body for fundraisers working to develop, promote and champion excellence in fundraising. Charities are missing out on millions of pounds of money that they are entitled to. For more information about tax effective giving visit the Tax Effective Giving website.
Charities can access free computer software from companies such as Windows 7 and Office 2010. For more details visit http://www.ctxchange.org/
Get Legal is a free online reference and decision making tool for charities, social enterprises and co-operatives. It will help organisations decide on the most appropriate legal form and governance structure for delivering their goals. Please follow the link to their website http://www.getlegal.org.uk/
Payroo is offering a free internet based payroll package for groups with less than 50 employees. The package is accredited by the Inland Revenue (HRC).
Lincolnshire County Council can offer community groups help with creating and hosting new websites, giving an on-line voice to groups across Lincolnshire.
For groups wanting to organise an event you may want to have a look at the Events Toolkit that has been recently produced by the Fens, Food and Flower project.
Finally, there is a community development workbook (PDF, 86KB) that has been produced for community and voluntary groups to help with developing a community project.
