Newcastle Building Society is encouraging charities and community groups across the North East and Cumbria to put their ideas forward for how they might tap into a new tranche of grant funding worth tens of thousands of pounds in total.
The Newcastle Building Society Community Fund provides grants of up to £3,000 to good causes located in or around the Society’s branch network that are nominated for support by its customers.
The Society donates a percentage of the balances held in its Community Saver accounts to the Community Fund. Since its launch in 2016, the Fund has contributed over £200,000 in grants to projects across the Society’s North East and Cumbrian heartland, and is estimated to have had a positive impact on almost 100,000 people.
Projects that have been supported so far range from sports clubs and environmental improvement schemes through to health and well-being groups and community organisations which work to tackle social isolation in older people.
An additional fund providing larger grants of up to £50,000 for use in improving or maintaining community buildings was launched by the Society earlier this year, with the first grants scheduled to be made from it in the autumn.
Stuart Miller, customer director at Newcastle Building Society, says: “Our Community Fund has been a tremendous success and has enabled us to tangibly support the communities in which we’re based.
“The grants we’ve provided have enabled dozens of local organisations to implement a wide range of ideas that would otherwise have remained out of their reach, and we’ve had so much positive feedback about the difference they have made.
“We’re keen to hear as many new ideas as possible about how this latest phase of funding might best be spent, and would very much encourage community groups and good causes to get in touch.”
Applications for the latest phase of the Newcastle Building Society Community Fund at the Community Foundation close on Monday 24 September, and can be made in any Society branch or via the newcastle.co.uk website by customers who wish to support their local communities.
The Newcastle Building Society Community Fund is run in association with the Community Foundation Tyne & Wear and Northumberland.