Birmingham Community Matters (BCM) has secured funding from the National Lottery’s Reaching Communities England fund. This will enable us to continue our work and expand our team.

We shared the news in our November 2022 newsletter.

BCM’s impact so far

Our first Reaching Communities England project began in 2019 to support people with starting, running and growing their small community organisations across Birmingham. We adapted it during the pandemic to give flexible online support – and ended up expanding our reach.

You can read some of our reports and case studies on our impact page.

The pandemic taught us all how vital voluntary action is to support and connect communities. At BCM we also know now, more than ever, the importance of helping groups to build and share knowledge and resources to sustain what they do.

Recognising the convenience of digital delivery for many volunteers involved in small groups, as well as the uplifting feeling of being together with people in the same room, we decided BCM’s post-pandemic service would offer both online and in-person support.

Our new Reaching Communities England project proposal focused on how we can support the sector in this way. We are thrilled to have been successful in our application.

‘Insight and experience’

Jo Burrill is BCM’s Development Coordinator. She said the Reaching Communities England funding is brilliant news – and means our small charity can grow to support more groups.

“BCM was still very new when coronavirus stopped the world in its tracks. We learned so much during the pandemic; now we’re putting those difficult times behind us and moving forward with all the insight and experience it gave us.

“It is a huge relief to know that we have the funding – and exciting that we can soon expand the BCM team.

“The grant from Reaching Communities England will also allow us to secure our two existing staff and create two more paid part-time roles to boost our activity across the city.

“As well as continuing to deliver our support online, we plan to increase the number of in-person events we hold. We will work with existing and new anchor organisations and more volunteers to bring peer support to new and established groups.

“We are so thankful to the National Lottery for making this happen. I also want to thank the BCM team, our trustees and our BCM helpers (volunteers) for helping to make BCM the kind of impactful and supportive organisation that instils confidence in funders and makes a difference to people.”

About Reaching Communities England

In order to support communities, the fund supports projects and organisations which aim to:

• Build strong relationships in and across communities
• Improve the places and spaces that matter to communities
• Help more people to reach their potential, by supporting them at the earliest possible stage.

You can learn more about Reaching Communities England at the National Lottery Community Fund website.

Sign up to our monthly newsletter to hear about our events, updates and – in early 2023 – details of the new BCM roles.